Eero Aarnio's Globe : a platform for an investigation of challenges and possibilities related to the conservation of twentieth century foam upholstered furniture

Wickens, Joelle D. J (2007) Eero Aarnio's Globe : a platform for an investigation of challenges and possibilities related to the conservation of twentieth century foam upholstered furniture. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the conservation challenges posed by the Globe, a foam upholstered chair designed by Eero Aarnio (Finnish, b. 1932) in 1963 and purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1968. It introduces the challenges of preserving this particular Ball chair, an icon of modernism, through a detailed record and condition report, which was prepared by integrating information from a wide range of primary and secondary sources. Five possible approaches to the physical conservation of the Globe and 20^th century foam upholstered furniture in general, are identified and evaluated. Significance assessment (including analysis of the role of the chair in the V & A’s collection) led to a conservation recommendation that, if possible, the chair’s original wool top cover and original polyether polyurethane foam upholstery padding be re-adhered. The rationale, methodology and results of a unique series of laboratory tests (peel and stress rupture tests, plus artificial ageing), designed to test the viability of the recommendation and carried out on 475 samples of naturally aged upholstery foam and fabric from a 1960s Ball chair, are presented. The tests results indicated that a new technical conservation solution for the Globe had been identified which would make it possible to re-adhere the original top cover to the original upholstery foam in a conservation appropriate way while retaining the original polychloroprene based upholstery adhesive. The solution is sensitive to the ethos of modernism, which depended on an alliance of design, materials and technology. It is likely to be useful in developing conservation techniques for other foam upholstered furniture. The theory at its foundation may be meaningful for the conservation of 20^th and 21^st century artefacts as a whole.