Giving people the freedom to move around
People have been sitting on Brian Kane designs for years. Children and adults enjoy his very cool rubber chairs, which are part of the San Francisco MoMA permanent collection. He’s also widely known for his public design – his comfortable benches and graceful bike racks can be found on the pavements of New York and San Francisco. In these objects, as in all his designs, Kane strives for what he calls “craft through technology”. “I have always attempted to explore existing materials and processes and use them in new ways that add an element of detail or craft that is unique.”
Kane was first introduced to the world of industrial design by a secondary school guidance counsellor. “He pointed at his office chair, his phone, the clock, and said, ‘These were all designed by somebody'", recalls Kane.
After graduating from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, he spent a year in New York designing appliances. Then he and his wife headed for Milan, in Italy, where he literally knocked on doors. One opened – the door of architect Silvio Coppola – and it changed his life. “Seeing his passion for design was a real head-turner for me,” says Kane, who decided that designing furniture was what he wanted to do.
When we asked him to design lounge furniture for us, Kane says he didn’t want to create just another lounge chair. Instead, “I wanted to create a versatile and fluid lounge seating and table solution that allows people the freedom to move and create spaces that suit their needs". So he approached the task with a single basic idea: “With traditional lounge seating, people are locked into it", he says. “Swoop provides freedom to move around.”
In 1989, Kane established the Kane Design Studio, where he continues to focus on what he loves most of all: seating. “It’s all about comfort and innovation", he says. His designs have won more than 80 awards and have been exhibited in numerous museums, but he says that he is especially proud to now have his designs sitting alongside those of Charles Eames and George Nelson in Herman Miller showrooms. “For me, that’s as good as it gets.”
