David R. Whitney

Savonarola Chairs

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For Volpone, I built four identical Savonarola chairs. The designer liked the Savonarola style, but wanted to contemporize them to match the look and feel of the overall design.

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This chair, by Design Toscano, was one of the research photos showing the traditional Savonarola chair.

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This is a designer sketch showing how he wanted to contemporize the style.

Based on the research pictures and conversations with the designer, I drew a 3D model of the chair using Google SketchUp. Drawing the chair in 3D allowed me to virtually construct each piece before cutting a single board.

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The most time consuming part of the construction was cutting the legs. Once I gridded, cut, and sanded the template, each leg had to be traced, cut, and flush-trim routed to size. The seat, arms, legs, and back were cut with the same process.

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After all the pieces were cut, they were base coated. The legs and seat pieces were then assembled using 3/8″ threaded rod through pre-drilled holes at the joints, capped on each end with acorn nuts.

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Pictured here (upside-down) is the chair with the legs fully attached to the seat.

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The arms and feet were attached next.

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And finally, the back.

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The four chairs together, before final paint.

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Two of the completed chairs, painted gold to match the set, each with a custom pillow.