Building the Enzo Mari Sedia Chair

Over the weekend I finally had the chance to build a pair of Enzo Mari Sedia Chairs. I’ve been waiting for the weather to clear up and some free time – I ordered the book in early December, and just got around to building the chairs.

The Sedia Chairs turned out really well. They were easy to build, cheap and went together quick. I think they look great. They’re relatively medium-sized, slightly modern furniture style chairs, and fit in well in our small home. I ended up making a couple small boxes for storage under the chairs. With everything I spent about 6 hrs cutting, drilling, screwing and sanding before they were finished.

If I have a beef, it might be with the instructions in the book. See the gap on either side of the seat area? I don’t think that’s supposed to be there. There could be several reasons for this; the measurements are all metric and I converted them to inches and rounded a little where I thought necessary. Also, perhaps Italian lumber is dimensioned differently? Maybe it’s a typo in the book – I have no idea. I do know that the measurement of the boards that determine the width – the boards on the front, back, and backrest, are actually a hair shorter than the instructions call for. I labored over whether to re-cut them, leave the gap, or whether to have a gap between the seat planks. In the end I decided to leave the gap near the edges. I think it makes the chair look a hair “lighter” and less chunky. It also, and I didn’t realize this until I was finished, makes them a little easier to move around by providing a spot to grab.

If you’ve watched the video of Enzo Mari building the chair himself he says he recommends the use of nails to stay true to the original project – which was designed in 1974. I’d argue that in 1974 you couldn’t find a decent cordless drill for under a hundred bucks either. But in the modern world of ubiquitous cordless tools, I chose to use grabber screws to finish the Sedia chair.

In the end I spent about $54.00 on the project, including the storage boxes under the chairs, which are made from the same 1×8 pine boards. Here’s a short stop motion I made of the whole process:

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The book Autoprogettazione is available at Amazon.com. Check it out; even if you don’t build anything from it, it’s got tons of cool designs.

Don’t forget to check out some of the fine art prints for sale in my Etsy shop. I’ve also written and illustrated a children’s book for the Kindle Called Coyote Life. If you’ve got kids, check it out. If you enjoy it, please leave a review. Thanks.