David Rowland

David Rowland is the first monograph on the American industrial designer and inventor best known for the 40/4 chair. Released in 1964, the chair takes its name from the fact that forty of them can be stacked in just four feet. That was an unprecedented feat, and it opened up an entirely new category of versatile seating.

Rowland's wife, Erwin, and the writer Laura Schenone tell how he brought the design to market. Every major furniture brand turned it down at first, including Herman Miller and Knoll, but Rowland kept at it. The 40/4 went on to become one of the most successful chairs ever made, winning numerous accolades and selling over 8 million by the early 21st century. It now sits in the permanent collections of museums around the world and is found in spaces of every kind, from cathedrals and cultural centres to corporate and municipal buildings, places of worship, schools, healthcare settings, hospitality venues and homes.

The book works as a biography of both the man and his chair. It traces his design practice and the single design that, through his determination, became a commercially successful and influential classic. More than 250 photographs and documents illustrate it, many of them never published before. It also covers the range of Rowland's work from before and after the 40/4, and it appears to mark the chair's 60th anniversary.

David Rowland was a pioneering Mid-Century designer, born in Hollywood, California, in 1924. He studied at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. His carefully engineered 40/4 chair is counted among the most significant designs of the 20th century.