The collection
White bench made of crisscrossing wires of different thicknesses. The bench is flat on top and curved underneath.
1998

Reversible Bench, Wireframe

Designed by
Shin Azumi (born 1965), Tomoko Azumi (born 1966)
Material
Steel
Produced by
Azumi, Nagano, Japan
Dimensions
170 x 36 x 40 cm

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Liliane and David M. Stewart Collection, 2004.92

Japan natives and husband-and-wife design team Shin and Tomoko Azumi studied industrial design and furniture design at the Royal College of Art in London. They established their design studio, Azumi, in 1995 in the same city. Their work comprised a range of innovative and simple products, including their Wireframe furniture series.

The bench in this series was multifunctional: turned upside down it was a chaise longue. Its functional flexibility, characteristic of Azumi designs, was space-saving. The wire bench form resembles late nineteenth-century wire garden furniture, its light structure supported by a framework of thin steel tubing. In 2005, the two designers established their own separate studios.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, photo: Denis Farley.