Isabella Lobkowicz kindly sent me a copy of her recent book, Almost 100 Chairs for 100 People. “It’s curious how many designers design chairs,” she writes in the Foreword, “but nobody seems to think about the characters who are going to use them.” Princess Isabella (she is married to a Bohemian prince) rectifies this situation with a delightful sketchbook—published by Moleskine—of imaginary chairs. The first, “a chair for the explorer,” is an extremely tall chair with a built-in ladder that allows the occupant to scan the vicinity with his ever-present binoculars. This chair reminds me of the tall chairs made by the pioneering balloonist and aviation pioneer, Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932). Santos-Dumont held what he called “aerial dinner parties,” and the chairs were intended to give his guests the experience of flying, that is, seeing the world from above. He made the chairs himself, being a skilled craftsman (he built his own flying machines). Santos-Dumont was an unusually innovative character. Finding checking his pocket watch awkward while flying, he asked his friend Louis Cartier to make him a more convenient timepiece—the result was the first wristwatch.
