Design
The Quest to Design the Ultimate Public Chair for Battery Park
Should New York's newest outdoor furniture look like a pretzel, a folded-up newspaper, or Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase?
A pretzel, a folded-up copy of The New York Times, and Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2: These are some of the inspirations for a new kind of public chair slated to cradle rumps in Manhattan's Battery Park.
A while ago, the Battery Conservancy put out a call for entries asking North and South American designers to create the ultimate outdoors chair. The specifications were that the chairs should be able to endure foul weather, show innovative industrial design, and "delight while they invite." It was also crucial that the people could move the furniture. Why's that? As our own Nate Berg wrote last fall: