Starter Chair

Nalata Nalata is pleased to present Starter Chair, an exhibition of chairs lovingly made to stimulate and inspire the youngest members of our society—children. Each handmade chair highlights the skill and design of artisans from Japan and the United States, while focusing on the qualities that make a child’s first chair universally cherished as keepsakes into adulthood.

Starter Chair celebrates the moment when children begin to hold their own bodies up, develop a sense of individuality, and recognize their physical independence as they learn to navigate the world around them. Featuring pieces from renowned Japanese studios and craftspeople—including Makoto Koizumi, Ryuji Mitani, Karimoku and Tendo Mokko—alongside original commissions by local designers and artisans such as Pat Kim and Brian Persico, we brought together a collection of handcrafted chairs designed with a toddler’s size and behavior in mind. Common features, such as soft, rounded edges and timeless materials, can be found in each iteration, and their miniature proportions will enchant kids and parents alike.

Within this collection, we proudly present a children’s chair designed in-house at Nalata Nalata. Drawing on our backgrounds in design and memories from our own childhood, we crafted a chair inspired by the piano benches that held not only sheet music from our lessons but also our most cherished treasures for safe-keeping. This wooden Keepsake Kids Chair features a hinged seat that lifts up to provide storage. Perfectly sized for coloring books, crayons, and maybe a small stuffed animal or two, the storage compartment offers a child the chance to claim some personal space of their own. As we set to debut this seat at Starter Chair, we look forward to seeing how kids will interact with our design in person.

Drawing on the history of European and American furniture design, upstate New York-based designer Brian Persico adds a fresh take on the traditional ladderback chair with his Windham Children’s Chair. As a piece commissioned just for Starter Chair, this chair is made from trees found on his property and finished entirely by hand. The frame is made of ashwood, with antler pins lining the stiles. The seat is made of rawhide woven to form a mesh strong enough to hold up a 2 year old child, while keeping the chair open and light.

Sustainability is one of our foremost concerns when we think about the world that kids today grow up in. As such, we are excited to partner with Hida—one of the oldest furniture manufacturers that draws from the rich history of Japanese woodworking—to present Enzo Mari’s Arda Kids Chair. Based in the heavily forested region of its namesake, Hida’s practices are rooted in using indigenous cedar while maintaining the integrity of the surrounding forest. Hida developed a technique to compress cedar in order to add strength and durability where it would otherwise be too soft and unsuitable for furniture. The Arda Kids Chair was born out of a collaboration with the great designer Enzo Mari to utilize this new technology. The chair features a unique grain pattern that celebrates knars and imperfections in its wood, as well as a deep, oval seat that feels comfortable to sit on.

Originally planned for NYCxDesign 2020, the delays and suspensions we experienced putting together Starter Chair made us acutely aware of the pandemic’s global interruption of childhood experiences. To help build a sense of community for the youngest people affected by the pandemic, we will select a number of children born in 2020-2022 and give them each a chair personalized with an engraving of their name and birthdate at the end of the exhibition. By connecting these kids over a shared experience of the exhibition, we hope that these chairs serve as a symbol of growing up in a warm and generous environment despite being born in uncertain times.

Opening reception will be held on Saturday, May 14^th from 1:00pm – 7:00pm.
Iced tea and cookies provided by Kettl.
The exhibition will run until May 22nd.

Explore the collection here.

View a recap of the event here.