First look: Serwaa is a six-legged chair by Giles Tettey Nartey

The six-legged Serwaa lounge chair is a recent tackle the standard West African Lobi chair. Initially designed by the Lobi folks of present-day Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ghana ‘this conventional stool has completely different variants. Some have three legs, some 4, some six’ explains Giles Tettey Nartey, the British-Ghanaian, designer, architect and PhD researcher. Serwaa is a brand new undertaking by Tettey Nartey, who was one in all Wallpaper’s Future Icons, and exhibited on the Triennale throughout Salone 2024.

The idea for the undertaking happened from a visit Nartey made to Ghana. Strolling by way of markets in Accra he noticed the Lobi chair getting used for on a regular basis duties. ‘In Western Africa many home objects are usually not solely practical. The Lobi stool for instance is embedded with cultural and non secular significance. It isn’t simply an merchandise to take a seat down on.’ Based on the architect, in contrast to in Europe, in West Africa, it’s usually mentioned {that a} stool can embody the spirit of an individual who has lately handed away.

Whereas conventional Lobi chairs had been crafted from a single piece of wooden, Nartey selected to make Serwaa from welded aluminium, a departure from his different works comprised of timber comparable to ‘Interaction’ and ‘Communion’. ‘Serwaa does not have the identical degree of floor curiosity as the opposite items. But it surely’s in all probability equally as tactile due to the coldness of the fabric,’ he explains. Through the use of metallic, Nartey supposed to spotlight the distinction between conventional craftsmanship and fashionable industrial design.

Nartey believes that the design neighborhood usually reveres Twentieth-century furnishings as the head of commercial design with its clear traces and intelligent use of metallic. Serwaa goals to take a standard West African object and create a contemporary chair that receives the identical degree of appreciation as its Twentieth-century counterparts. ‘This piece matches into my ongoing analysis and exploration of West African craft cultures and traditions,’ states the architect, emphasising his objective to convey African design into up to date contexts.

The British-Ghanian designer views his work as each a critique and a celebration of fabric cultures and goals to raise the design sensibilities of West Africa to the identical degree of recognition as these from Europe. ‘Once we see a three-legged or a six-legged object, it appears odd inside a Western context. However, inside an African context, it isn’t unusual,’ notes Nartey. ‘If you concentrate on completely different Western lounge chairs, there is a explicit approach they place the physique. They often have 4 legs, are upright, and elevate you off the bottom in a sure approach.’ Nonetheless, if you sit on Serwaa, you are low to the bottom due to its positioning. ‘Your legs anchor it on both aspect. There’s one thing stunning about that.’