Oskar Zieta says he woke up one night and had an
idea: could one inflate steel? For the young designer and keen
experimenter no was never an answer. And so he started searching
for a practicable answer.
This took several years, studying architecture in
Stettin and Zurich, where he still has a professorship today. The
focus is “Computer Aided Architectural Design” CAAD for short.
Oscar Zieta was born in 1975 in Poland. Through his research work
he landed a real coup. Steel is inflatable, thanks to FiDU! The
abbreviation stands for a process developed by Zieta. Through a
high pressure interior conversion he can make the heavy material
appear completely light.
Oskar Zieta develops chairs, benches and other seating
furniture out of steel, which end up resembling coloured balloons.
He became famous with “Plopp”, a three legged steel stool, on which
one can sit very comfortably.
The fascinating thing about Zieta's multi
award winning designs is the cheeky deception manoeuvre. With
childlike curiosity the viewer pounces on the object, expecting
it to be soft. But the actual seat enlightens: one is seated
on steel with a load bearing capacity of up to two tons.
Oskar Zieta's computer generated development procedures
bring forth an ironic, sensuous product. The steel objects entice
with a childlike fat-cheeked outer shell, whilst on the inside
they are full of calculated know how.
Even with his rational inventor's spirit, Oskar Zieta manages to
retain the erotic in design. Who else manages to let people levitate
sitting down as elegantly as he.
