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The Day I Saw a Handsome Chair

Curator: Ricky Lau

Aug 4 – Oct 18, 2026

White Plastic Chair: “Magic mirror on the wall, who is the handsomest of them all?”
Magic Mirror: “Famed art thou, White Plastic Chair, for thy billions. Yet look beyond, for a chorus of twenty rival chairs have congregated to challenge thy handsome throne!”

A chair is far more than a tool of utility; it acts as an anthropomorphic mirror—reflecting shifting culture, social power, technology, and taste across millennia. Curated by Ricky Lau, the exhibition The Day I Saw a Handsome Chair at the Jiayuanhai (JYH) Art Museum reveals how these everyday objects encapsulate the spirit of their time. To navigate these material narratives, the curator organizes twenty extraordinary chairs through three distinct forms of human folklore:
Urban Myths: Chairs that arouse a sense of awe through gravity-defying and ritualistic spectacles.
Anecdotes: Chairs embody accidental epiphanies where intimate personal histories and chance breakthroughs permanently reconfigured everyday industrial design.
Fairy Tales: Chairs bound by an enchantment of fantastical and whimsical spells. 

As one prepares to look at these handsome chairs with a renewed sense of wonder, remember that Magic Mirror is watching:
“Gaze deep into the rooms, visitors of the museum... and decide for yourselves which chair wears the handsomest crown.”

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Design Exhibition at Jiayuanhai Art Museum

Curated by Ricky Lau, the exhibition centers on the origin stories of nearly 20 classic chairs. The exhibits come from brands, design studios, and private collections including Thonet, Cassina, Magis, Zanotta, Vitra, Carl Hansen & Son, and Miller Knoll. Designed by the Bangkok-based architecture studio all(zone), Under a Common Sky was originally commissioned for the second edition of RAM Assembles in 2025 and has recently been permanently installed at the museum. This marks the first time Jiayuanhai Art Museum has formed an integrated system linking an indoor design exhibition with a rice paddy field public space. It also signals how this “museum with a rice paddy field” is further connecting design, embodied experience, public space, and local life.

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Curator

The exhibition is curated by Ricky Lau

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Ricky Lau

Ricky is a Shanghai-based design curator specialises in the history and development of 20th and 21st centuries industrial design and corporate culture.


Ricky’s curatorial rationale argues that chair is the epitome of “Zeitgeist” (German for “spirit of our time”).

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The Day I Saw A Handsome Chair

Heatherwick Studio

SPUN

2026

 

Hall Of Light

Exhibition Photos

Urban Myths

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WhitIcarus’ Demise

Ricky Lau

2026

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Spun Chair

Thomas Heatherwick

2010

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214 Bentwood Chair

Michael Thonet

1859

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699 Superleggera Chair

Gio Ponti

1957

Fairy Tale Wonderland

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​Déjà-vu Stool

Naoto Fukasawa

2005

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Bubble Hanging Chair

Eero Aarnio

1968

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Pony Seat

Eero Aarnio

1973

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Panton Chair Classic

Verner Panton

1957

Anecdotes

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Air Chair

Jasper Morrison

2000

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Sella Stool

Achille Castiglioni

Pier Giacomo Castiglioni

1957

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Mezzadro Stool

Achille Castiglioni

Pier Giacomo Castiglioni

1957

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Officina Chair

Ronan Bouroullec

Erwan Bouroullec 

2015

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Y-Chair

​Hans J. Wegner

1949

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Bibendum Armchair

Eileen Gray

​1926

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Gala Armchair

Franco Albini

Gino Albini

1951

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Stool-Tool

Konstantin Grcic

2016

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Margherita Armchair

Franco Albini

Gino Albini

1951

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ANT™ Chair

Arne Jacobsen

1952

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S 33 Cantilever Chair

Mart Stam

1926

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Cab 412 Side Chair

Mario Bellini

1977

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Begin with a midsummer of design and art

——20 Chairs, 20 Defining Decisions in Design History

Centered on the theme of "chairs", the exhibition goes beyond merely displaying iconic objects from design history, nor does it regard a chair as nothing more than an assemblage of form, material, craft and function.

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Here, the chair functions more like architecture on the smallest scale: when a person sits down, the relationship between the body and space is reconfigured. It dictates the direction of gaze, the length of stay, and bodily posture, while subtly altering the distance between people. It can serve as a place for rest or the starting point of a story; it may belong to an exhibition hall, yet also appear on street corners, in plazas, courtyards, and alongside field ridges.

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Nearly every chair in the exhibition carries a compelling "legend" worth telling. The story of the Thonet No.14 chair reads like an urban myth of the industrial age: legend has it that the chair was dropped from the Eiffel Tower in Paris and landed completely intact. Using steam-bent wood technology, Michael Thonet achieved something no one dared to attempt at that time: breaking chairs down into components for ordinary people to assemble themselves. With just one wooden crate, a set of screws and a bentwood technique, this chair travelled from Vienna to the rest of the world, winning favour with figures including Lenin, Picasso, Einstein and Le Corbusier. The allure of this legend lies not merely in the chair being "unbreakable", but in its proof that great design can be both lightweight and sturdy, affordable and elegant. This marked the earliest promise of "democratic design" in the industrial era. It is far more than a chair; it represents the beginning of accessible fine design for ordinary people.

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