Midcentury magazine

Midcentury Spring/Summer 201246 Midcentury Spring/Summer 2012 47

Midcentury Marketplace

Midcentury Autumn/Winter 2011 47

Name of Business Warm, East London corinnawarm.co.ukWhat’s your background? I have worked with contemporary designers like Tom Dixon and traditional furniture makers, such as David Linley. I gained much of my craftsmanship from working with Linley but decided to make my designs more contemporary. The business has been running since 2008.Star Piece? The American Walnut desk – it’s surprisingly clever although the design is very clean and simple; it opens up as a workstation with plenty of storage space and work surfaces.Price £4,600

Name of Business Young & Norgate, Devon youngandnorgate.comWhat’s your background? The business has been going for a year. The two of us met studying furniture design and cabinet making. Star piece? The ‘Animate’ desk – it’s in its second edition now and I think we’ve got it down to a tee. This collection focuses on pared back design, with furniture predominantly made from American Black Walnut and Maple. We mix in laminates, leather and ply to give each piece its own unique detailing. Everything is made by hand and we rarely use metal – it’s all about craftsmanship. Price £2,449

Name of Business Parlour Furniture, North-East England parlourfurniture.comWhat’s your background? I run the business with my husband, who is the designer. Last year he won the Leeds Emerging Artist Award, which enabled him to develop a small range.Star piece? The ‘Float’ sofa, which has clear acrylic feet that give the impression that it’s floating. It’s made from walnut and covered in a grey wool ‘Craggen’ fabric by Camira to give it a contemporary twist. The materials are sourced from the UK and we work with FSC timber.Price £1,700 M

D ES IGNERS

Midcentury47

MODERN MAKEOVER:FROM MARGATE WITH LOVECharlotte Luxford

Upcycling is more than just revamping furniture with a lick of paint – it is a new way of considering its usability and longevity and its potential to be recycled for future generations – that is, at least, the view of young British designer Zoe Murphy.

Midcentury Marketplace

Midcentury Spring/Summer 201248 Midcentury Spring/Summer 2012 49

Midcentury Marketplace

Midcentury 49

Her motto is ‘love what belongs to you’ and while it may seem like a simple ethos, it is surprising how many of

us are wrapped up in the current throwaway, mass consumer culture where everything is considered dispensable and disposable. According to the Furniture Re-use Network around ten million items of furniture are thrown away in the UK every year, where three million of these could easily be re-used. It is this idea of potential re-use that spurs Zoe and many other true upcyclers on – salvaging and restoring items that would have been destined for the skip.

While the term ‘upcycling’ is often used loosely and considered as a trend by many, Zoe is keen to stress that upcycling in its truest form actually takes on a deeper ethical significance. “There are lots of ways of re-using something. However, I believe upcycling is about increasing the life-span of the object, enabling it to be used for another 50 years. I am careful not to change the function of the object and I try to keep the furniture true to the original product.”

So is upcycling a fad? Zoe says no. “The trend isn’t exactly new; the concept of re-use has been around for ages and I think it will continue to become a stronger presence in everyday life. People care increasingly about the provenance of the products they purchase, whether it be a loaf of bread or a piece of furniture. It’s about consuming responsibly and I think designers will focus increasingly on creating sustainable products.”

Zoe’s own upcycling process consists of printing images onto furniture. Painstakingly restoring it first, she is careful

not to tamper with the design too much. She uses offcuts of wood that would have been scrap to re-veneer pieces that are too damaged to restore and she uses universal fittings for the bases and legs so that they can be replaced in the future. “It’s basically designing for disassembly”, she says. Zoe uses scraps of fabric to create intricate patchwork designs for the upholstery in bright nostalgic colours, “The concept is to use waste imaginatively and to pick a theme that people can engage with.”

For Zoe, an important part of the upcycling process is using her craftsmanship to add value to an object and take the piece beyond its original form. And it’s not just a case of adding financial value, it should have an emotional value too. “A lot of my clients have inherited a piece that they feel doesn’t suit their home, but they can’t bring themselves to get rid of it. I work with them to produce something that they can love.”

“I tend to only upcycle something if it would otherwise be a waste product or in a state of disrepair. I am reluctant to change perfectly good pieces of furniture – I won’t bully it into something else. I generally salvage pieces from skips or scour online auctions, and I’ve got a couple of ‘Del Boys’ that run some of the local junk and retro shops, who offer me furniture they’ve found – typically G Plan, Remploy and sometimes Ercol.”

While Zoe says her furniture can be sanded down by future generations when her designs go out of fashion, it’s very unlikely you’d want to. Her pieces have become designer

“A lot of my clients have inherited a piece that they feel doesn’t suit their home, but they can’t bring themselves to get rid of it”

items in their own right and will certainly make good investment purchases. Inspired by her hometown of Margate in Kent, there’s a sense of nostalgia about Zoe’s work that is easy to warm to and very universal in its appeal. Seeing Margate’s potential during her degree at Loughborough University, she has created over 300 pieces dedicated to the subject. The likes of Liberty of London love her mix of urban and coastal themes and recently commissioned her to create several pieces.

“Margate is a bit like my furniture – it is undergoing a lot of regeneration and it is very much a recycled town. Margate has been given a second chance and while it was a grotty seaside town in the ’80s and ’90s, the Old Town is a thriving creative hub now”. With the new Turner Contemporary Gallery opening its doors last April, support from local artist Tracey Emin and a visit from the Queen herself, Margate has been treated to a new lease of life and plenty of hype in the press. But it’s Zoe’s life-long obsession with its rough urban charm that provides her inspiration.

She believes that the current ’50s design trend has come about because of the sense of positivity and progression during that period. “The ’50s were optimistic times and I think everyone can identify with the seaside holiday – even if you can’t remember the ’50s I think it evokes a sense of nostalgia and the childhood you might have had.”

So aside from her hometown, what else inspires Zoe? “I love the work of Magnum photographer Martin Parr, who interprets everyday scenes and objects in a high contrast or humorous way; he embraces our sense of Britishness and almost embarrasses us with it. I also admire Tracey Emin (and not just because she’s from Margate!). Her work twists subject matters and turns them on their head; she creates something beautiful from topics that are generally unpalatable.”

Since graduating, Zoe’s work has been selected for the ‘New Designers’ showcase in Islington where she was shortlisted for ‘New Designer of the Year’, she was selected

to exhibit at Tent London’s ‘Talentzone’ during Design Week and at ‘Meuble Paris’ in the Maison Objet show. So what’s been her highlight so far? “I loved working on the recent Liberty pieces and utilising their gorgeous fabrics, but I had a great emotional attachment to a chest of drawers I designed for a pop up studio opposite the V&A last year. It was based on ‘Wonderlandism’ and we had to create ‘Dali-esque’ pieces; I took inspiration from Margate’s amusement park ‘Dreamland’, creating a piece that covered its history from the modern rockers, illuminations and sunken gardens to the entertainment hall and dancing bears – I really didn’t want to let it go. I’ve kept back one piece, the 100th chest, and I’m going to turn it into something really special.”

Zoe’s got some great things to look forward to this year; as we speak she is putting the final touches to her studio in Margate, which will be open to the public in June and she will be exhibiting at Tent London (www.tentlondon.co.uk) in September. At home she will be working closely with the Turner Contemporary Gallery, producing some new ranges and also running workshops. Zoe is certainly making her mark on the design world and her beautiful pieces challenge us to think more ethically and responsibly. M

For more information, or to view Zoe’s work, visit www.zoemurphy.com.

Midcentury Marketplace

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Midcentury Home – Get the look

THE SOUL CREATOR: The man behind TintinCharlotte Luxford Like many other comic book heroes,

Tintin really came to prominence in the postwar era. His adventures provided escapism but also mirrored real events, providing readers with an insight into the political tensions of the 1930s and then events after World War II. One of the few comic books to successfully reach beyond subculture status through cartoon medium alone, it has so far avoided Hollywood. This is set to change this autumn as Tintin gets the Steven Spielberg treatment. What better time then to take a closer look at Tintin’s creator, the troubled genius that was Hergé.

© Hergé-Moulinsart 2011

Midcentury Media

Midcentury Autumn/Winter 201132 Midcentury Autumn/Winter 2011 33

Midcentury MediaMidcentury Media

Tintin, with his boy-scout charm and playful quiff, is someone who is loved and recognised the world over, but

how many of us know about his creator? George Remi (aka Hergé) said in an interview in 1989, “Tintin is me… I believe I’m the only one who can animate him, who can give him a soul”, and it was Hergé’s own heart and soul that went into producing this extraordinary 20th century icon.

While most of Belgium suffered the effects of the Second World War, Hergé thrived during the occupation, but at a cost to his reputation. He was a workaholic and never turned down an opportunity – even working for the less patriotic newspapers, namely the ‘stolen’ Le Soir, which saw him outcast after the war and in danger of forever being labelled an ‘incivique’ or collaborator. Hergé said: “I worked, period; that’s all…While everyone found it normal that a mechanic made trains run, they thought that people of the press were supposedly traitors.”

Saved by former resistance fighter and publisher Raymond Leblanc, Hergé was offered the position of Artistic Director on a new publication that saw Tintin and his crew firmly at the helm. While Hergé may have deemed it a ‘necessary’ project rather than a labour of love, it paved the way for the rest of his career and resulted in some of the finest examples of his work.

With Leblanc’s perseverance and risk-taking, and Hergé’s desire to work, the first issue of Le Journal de Tintin was published in September 1946. While Le Journal de Tintin went down a storm in terms of sales (in just three days all 60,000 copies printed had sold out), other publications once faithful to Hergé launched a series of attacks on the new magazine. Leblanc had worked hard to clear Hergé’s name through obtaining a ‘certificate of good citizenship’, yet many remained unconvinced. La Cité nouvelle, while not naming Hergé, said in 1946: “An incivique and a traitor, this individual can just pick up his pencil and commercially relaunch his little ‘Hitlerjungend’ brigade.”

While these sorts of comments did not dampen the spirit of Tintin loyalists, Hergé was seriously shaken by

the way his country had turned on him. He suffered from depression for over a decade, but it was during this time that he set up Studio Hergé in 1950 and produced some of his best works, culminating in his much-loved tale of friendship: Tintin in Tibet.

In The Comics Journal, writer Kim Thompson in 2003 called Tintin in Tibet, “an achingly pure story of friendship and heroism that is widely considered one of the series’ peaks”. It tells the story of how, after hearing of his friend Chang’s involvement in a plane crash in Nepal, Tintin embarks on a quest through the snowy mountains to find him, eventually rescuing Chang from an ‘abominable snowman’, a yeti, who it turns out had actually been taking care of him.

It seems that while Hergé was haunted by what he termed ‘white nightmares’, in which he dreamt he was trapped in a featureless white landscape, he transformed his struggle with life’s moral dilemmas into a beautiful piece of art. Unlike any of his other tales, Tibet is not about villains, chases and

savages, but a quest for amity. It was by no means an easy feat though and he almost gave up half way through. Turning to Jung disciple Professor Franz Ricklin to interpret his nightmares, he is advised to stop work on Tibet to face his crisis. This was exactly the provocation Hergé needed. Conjuring up his own boy-scout spirit once more, he returned to work immediately – he would never give up on Tintin, just as Tintin never gives up on Chang.

Hergé was also wracked with a moral dilemma at this time. Involved in an affair, he finally took the decision to leave his wife of 28 years for Fanny Vlamynck, a young colourist at Studios Hergé. He commented on this period: “Simply, things happened: I met Fanny, I left Germaine. C’est la vie! It was the time of Tintin in Tibet, which is the perfect reflection of this moral crisis: friendship, loyalty, purity”. Hergé realised that he had to complete the book in order to come to terms with himself, and probably based the character of the misunderstood abominable snowman on himself. The book was published in 1960.

But it wasn’t just the wholesome storyline of Tibet that made it so successful, visually it was also a thing of

© Hergé-Moulinsart 2011

© Atelier de Portzamparc 2011

© Atelier de Portzamparc 2011

© Hergé-Moulinsart 2011

“Tintin is me… I believe I’m the only one who can animate him, who can give him a soul”

Midcentury Autumn/Winter 201132 Midcentury Autumn/Winter 2011 33

Midcentury MediaMidcentury Media

Tintin, with his boy-scout charm and playful quiff, is someone who is loved and recognised the world over, but

how many of us know about his creator? George Remi (aka Hergé) said in an interview in 1989, “Tintin is me… I believe I’m the only one who can animate him, who can give him a soul”, and it was Hergé’s own heart and soul that went into producing this extraordinary 20th century icon.

While most of Belgium suffered the effects of the Second World War, Hergé thrived during the occupation, but at a cost to his reputation. He was a workaholic and never turned down an opportunity – even working for the less patriotic newspapers, namely the ‘stolen’ Le Soir, which saw him outcast after the war and in danger of forever being labelled an ‘incivique’ or collaborator. Hergé said: “I worked, period; that’s all…While everyone found it normal that a mechanic made trains run, they thought that people of the press were supposedly traitors.”

Saved by former resistance fighter and publisher Raymond Leblanc, Hergé was offered the position of Artistic Director on a new publication that saw Tintin and his crew firmly at the helm. While Hergé may have deemed it a ‘necessary’ project rather than a labour of love, it paved the way for the rest of his career and resulted in some of the finest examples of his work.

With Leblanc’s perseverance and risk-taking, and Hergé’s desire to work, the first issue of Le Journal de Tintin was published in September 1946. While Le Journal de Tintin went down a storm in terms of sales (in just three days all 60,000 copies printed had sold out), other publications once faithful to Hergé launched a series of attacks on the new magazine. Leblanc had worked hard to clear Hergé’s name through obtaining a ‘certificate of good citizenship’, yet many remained unconvinced. La Cité nouvelle, while not naming Hergé, said in 1946: “An incivique and a traitor, this individual can just pick up his pencil and commercially relaunch his little ‘Hitlerjungend’ brigade.”

While these sorts of comments did not dampen the spirit of Tintin loyalists, Hergé was seriously shaken by

the way his country had turned on him. He suffered from depression for over a decade, but it was during this time that he set up Studio Hergé in 1950 and produced some of his best works, culminating in his much-loved tale of friendship: Tintin in Tibet.

In The Comics Journal, writer Kim Thompson in 2003 called Tintin in Tibet, “an achingly pure story of friendship and heroism that is widely considered one of the series’ peaks”. It tells the story of how, after hearing of his friend Chang’s involvement in a plane crash in Nepal, Tintin embarks on a quest through the snowy mountains to find him, eventually rescuing Chang from an ‘abominable snowman’, a yeti, who it turns out had actually been taking care of him.

It seems that while Hergé was haunted by what he termed ‘white nightmares’, in which he dreamt he was trapped in a featureless white landscape, he transformed his struggle with life’s moral dilemmas into a beautiful piece of art. Unlike any of his other tales, Tibet is not about villains, chases and

savages, but a quest for amity. It was by no means an easy feat though and he almost gave up half way through. Turning to Jung disciple Professor Franz Ricklin to interpret his nightmares, he is advised to stop work on Tibet to face his crisis. This was exactly the provocation Hergé needed. Conjuring up his own boy-scout spirit once more, he returned to work immediately – he would never give up on Tintin, just as Tintin never gives up on Chang.

Hergé was also wracked with a moral dilemma at this time. Involved in an affair, he finally took the decision to leave his wife of 28 years for Fanny Vlamynck, a young colourist at Studios Hergé. He commented on this period: “Simply, things happened: I met Fanny, I left Germaine. C’est la vie! It was the time of Tintin in Tibet, which is the perfect reflection of this moral crisis: friendship, loyalty, purity”. Hergé realised that he had to complete the book in order to come to terms with himself, and probably based the character of the misunderstood abominable snowman on himself. The book was published in 1960.

But it wasn’t just the wholesome storyline of Tibet that made it so successful, visually it was also a thing of

© Hergé-Moulinsart 2011

© Atelier de Portzamparc 2011

© Atelier de Portzamparc 2011

© Hergé-Moulinsart 2011

“Tintin is me… I believe I’m the only one who can animate him, who can give him a soul”

Midcentury Autumn/Winter 201134 Midcentury Autumn/Winter 2011 35

Midcentury MediaMidcentury Media

beauty and flawlessness – his art was as pure as the narrative itself. When the books finally made it to Britain in 1952, it took a while for the British to accept the mysterious Belgian reporter, but he had an avid fan in journalist John Willet, who was pleased to find that Hergé’s artistry and meticulousness surpassed that of American comics, writing in 1958, “In redeeming the comic strip Hergé has justified an interesting medium, made it vastly more entertaining and turned it into art.”

Hergé’s books were indeed forms of art and Hergé took great pride in his work. In the late ’40s (although some alterations had been made prior to this) he decided to undertake the mammoth task of recasting most of his earlier books, adding colour and correcting errors and aesthetic problems, but in addition Hergé wanted to reinvent them. In his article ‘Rewriting Tintin’, Raphaël Taylor said, “From this crucial period onwards, the existence of multiple authorial versions would become a defining characteristic of Hergé’s œuvre. Whilst most readers are very familiar with the stories in their definitive forms, much still remains to be learnt in each instance about the complex and equally fascinating ‘story behind the story’.”

Hergé took on staff in the early 1950s to help with the technical revisions at Studios Hergé. However, those who came to work for him were expected to remain uncredited for their artistry. Hergé was too proud to share his achievements and would not allow anyone else’s signature to appear on the work that came out of the studio.

Through revision, he also aimed to change any elements of his narratives that could be construed as having racist connotations, notably the Jewish surname of the villain in The Shooting Star, ‘Blumenstein’, who became ‘Bohlwinkel’. Black characters became white in the American version of The Crab with the Golden Claws, among countless other changes, on the request of the publisher. In doing this, he was helping to ensure the longevity of his work.

Aesthetically, Hergé’s use of colour was more advanced

than most of his American counterparts, with production values that consisted of four printing shades and thus a dramatic, cinematographic approach to shading and lighting. Hergé would allow images to fill half pages or more, simply to detail and accentuate the scene, using colour to emphasise important points. Hergé said in an interview in 1943, “I consider my stories as films. Thus, no narration, no descriptions: I give all importance to the picture.”

Much later, Hergé started making plans for the adventures of Tintin to come to the big screen. While adaptations of Tintin had been made since the 1940s, Hergé was particularly interested in making a film with Steven Spielberg. Hergé

said in 1983 that he considered him a genius in his field and trusted Spielberg sufficiently to sacrifice control over Tintin in order that he could make a film. But this plan fell through due to a clause in the final contract stipulating that Spielberg had the right to assign the film’s direction to someone else. To the perfectionist Hergé, this was unacceptable.

However, after Hergé’s death, Spielberg obtained an option on Tintin from the estate and in 2002 he and his co-producers took up the project once more, with the aim of turning Tintin into a blockbuster sensation. Almost a decade on, Secret of the Unicorn has finally hit our screens this autumn. Hergé said to

Hollywood producer Larry Harmon in 1959, “I’m asking you, my dear Larry, not to reduce my characters to stereotypes; they have to remain human. I ask you not to reduce their adventures to a series of mechanical gags; they have to remain human adventures”. Let’s see for ourselves. M

© H

ergé-Moulinsart 2011

© Hergé-Moulinsart 2011

The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn is on general release from 26 October 2011, visit www.tintin.com. For further reading, Raphaël Taylor’s new book, Hergé: The Genius of Tintin: A Biography, is available to pre-order from Icon Books at www.iconbooks.co.uk.

The Musée Herge is well worth a visit for any Tintin fan. Housed in a building designed by acclaimed French architect Christian De Portzamparc, it opened in 2009 in Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium. For more details go to www.museeherge.com.

“I’m asking you, my dear Larry, not to reduce my characters to stereotypes; they have to remain human. I ask you not to reduce their adventures to a series of mechanical gags; they have to remain human adventures”

“I consider my stories as films. Thus, no narration, no descriptions: I give all importance to the picture”

Midcentury Autumn/Winter 201134 Midcentury Autumn/Winter 2011 35

Midcentury MediaMidcentury Media

beauty and flawlessness – his art was as pure as the narrative itself. When the books finally made it to Britain in 1952, it took a while for the British to accept the mysterious Belgian reporter, but he had an avid fan in journalist John Willet, who was pleased to find that Hergé’s artistry and meticulousness surpassed that of American comics, writing in 1958, “In redeeming the comic strip Hergé has justified an interesting medium, made it vastly more entertaining and turned it into art.”

Hergé’s books were indeed forms of art and Hergé took great pride in his work. In the late ’40s (although some alterations had been made prior to this) he decided to undertake the mammoth task of recasting most of his earlier books, adding colour and correcting errors and aesthetic problems, but in addition Hergé wanted to reinvent them. In his article ‘Rewriting Tintin’, Raphaël Taylor said, “From this crucial period onwards, the existence of multiple authorial versions would become a defining characteristic of Hergé’s œuvre. Whilst most readers are very familiar with the stories in their definitive forms, much still remains to be learnt in each instance about the complex and equally fascinating ‘story behind the story’.”

Hergé took on staff in the early 1950s to help with the technical revisions at Studios Hergé. However, those who came to work for him were expected to remain uncredited for their artistry. Hergé was too proud to share his achievements and would not allow anyone else’s signature to appear on the work that came out of the studio.

Through revision, he also aimed to change any elements of his narratives that could be construed as having racist connotations, notably the Jewish surname of the villain in The Shooting Star, ‘Blumenstein’, who became ‘Bohlwinkel’. Black characters became white in the American version of The Crab with the Golden Claws, among countless other changes, on the request of the publisher. In doing this, he was helping to ensure the longevity of his work.

Aesthetically, Hergé’s use of colour was more advanced

than most of his American counterparts, with production values that consisted of four printing shades and thus a dramatic, cinematographic approach to shading and lighting. Hergé would allow images to fill half pages or more, simply to detail and accentuate the scene, using colour to emphasise important points. Hergé said in an interview in 1943, “I consider my stories as films. Thus, no narration, no descriptions: I give all importance to the picture.”

Much later, Hergé started making plans for the adventures of Tintin to come to the big screen. While adaptations of Tintin had been made since the 1940s, Hergé was particularly interested in making a film with Steven Spielberg. Hergé

said in 1983 that he considered him a genius in his field and trusted Spielberg sufficiently to sacrifice control over Tintin in order that he could make a film. But this plan fell through due to a clause in the final contract stipulating that Spielberg had the right to assign the film’s direction to someone else. To the perfectionist Hergé, this was unacceptable.

However, after Hergé’s death, Spielberg obtained an option on Tintin from the estate and in 2002 he and his co-producers took up the project once more, with the aim of turning Tintin into a blockbuster sensation. Almost a decade on, Secret of the Unicorn has finally hit our screens this autumn. Hergé said to

Hollywood producer Larry Harmon in 1959, “I’m asking you, my dear Larry, not to reduce my characters to stereotypes; they have to remain human. I ask you not to reduce their adventures to a series of mechanical gags; they have to remain human adventures”. Let’s see for ourselves. M

© H

ergé-Moulinsart 2011

© Hergé-Moulinsart 2011

The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn is on general release from 26 October 2011, visit www.tintin.com. For further reading, Raphaël Taylor’s new book, Hergé: The Genius of Tintin: A Biography, is available to pre-order from Icon Books at www.iconbooks.co.uk.

The Musée Herge is well worth a visit for any Tintin fan. Housed in a building designed by acclaimed French architect Christian De Portzamparc, it opened in 2009 in Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium. For more details go to www.museeherge.com.

“I’m asking you, my dear Larry, not to reduce my characters to stereotypes; they have to remain human. I ask you not to reduce their adventures to a series of mechanical gags; they have to remain human adventures”

“I consider my stories as films. Thus, no narration, no descriptions: I give all importance to the picture”

Collector's Perspective:

Tom Giannini of Tom Giannini Architects talks to Charlotte Luxford about why he collects Vitra miniatures

What made you start collecting the chairs?

As a little boy growing up in California, I was always interested in miniatures: Lego; Tonka trucks; Matchbox cars etc. Now I am an interior architect and we specify furniture for our projects. I was given a miniature Panton chair as a party favour years ago and that was it - I was hooked. Vitra's London showroom is just around the corner from our office and they have a selection of miniatures on display. I used to pass there often and admire them.

Why miniature?

Several reasons: first, I love the miniature scale. Second, I do not have the space for all the classic chairs I would want to own and third, cost. Although the miniatures are expensive, they are less expensive than the full-scale chair. Having said all that, I do have five or six design classics at work and at home that I have collected over the years: Eames Plywood chairs; the Aluminum chair; Hoffmann's Prague chair and Wegner's Peacock chair.

How many miniatures do you own?

I now have 215 miniature chairs in my collection. Most I bought on eBay over the years. I had a very active period of about two years where I bought on average a chair a week until I had found all the retired and limited edition chairs. I now add chairs from Vitra's current collection to my own. I still have 16 to go. Others are special editions that Vitra gave as gifts to their dealers and special friends, which were not sold in shops. This week I bought a rare retired chair (found for me by a reader of my blog) from the gift shop at the Guggenheim, Bilbao.

Which are your star pieces?

There have been a few: Vitra only made 500 of the Lockheed Lounge by Marc Newson. It had been retired years before I started collecting. I was offered one by a reader of my blog - it is one of my most prized miniatures, and very valuable. Vitra also only made a limited number of cowhide covered Eames LCW miniature chairs (I have been told it is as few as 100). I searched on eBay for five years before one came up for auction, which I won. It is my ultimate find.

Do you have any advice for potential collectors?

Count the cost before starting: it is a very expensive hobby - there is always another one to buy. They come in wooden boxes and with information booklets - keep them safe. The miniatures are considerably less valuable without the box and booklet.

Vitra: A mini story

While these pared-down classics are irresistible to the space-saving design enthusiast, Vitra didn't initially set out to create the miniature models as collector's items; they were borne out of practicality. Design classes at universities repeatedly asked the furniture company if they could borrow chairs from the Vitra Design Museum (an exemplary Frank O'Gehry structure based within the grounds of their factory in Switzerland). After shipping out the full-scale models in the early days, Vitra soon realised that due to their fragility and value they would have to come up with an alternative.

Now these small design gems are a worldwide phenomenon and swiftly becoming valuable collectors' items. While the miniature collection began in 1992, initially with 25 chairs, Vitra added to it every year thereafter with both new and 'retired' models, meaning there are now almost 100 different models to collect.

The chairs selected are mainly based on the contents of the museum's own collection and now serve to present the history of Vitra's designs to visitors. Each model is painstakingly constructed to match the original - Vitra often collaborate with the designers to develop miniatures of their designs, making them not only true representations, but also valuable items in their own right.

Founded in 1950, Vitra has always had its roots firmly grounded in mid-century design and follows in the footsteps of Charles and Ray Eames when it comes to the sustainability of their products, right down to the miniatures.

For more information on The Vitra Design Museum and to buy miniatures online, go to www.design-museum.de or take a trip to the London showroom at 30 Clerkenwell Road. To read more about Tom's collection, visit www.miniaturechairman.com

Midcentury Meets: Catrin James

This is the first in a series of pieces in which we meet one of our readers. This month mid-century obsessive Catrin James talks to Charlotte Luxford, about growing up in Swansea, where she fell in love with its architecture and discovered her fascination with everything from Beatnik fashion and classic cafés to Whitefriars glass and Carlton Ware

You have strong connections with Swansea architecture; whatʼs your association with it and why do you love these buildings?

I live in Cardiff now, but I grew up in Swansea and the architecture has always inspired me. I love the fact you can make a wall look beautiful with moulded concrete; I became aware of ʻ50s sculptors and their post-modern designs after reading a copy of Swansea Old and New: it was printed in 1972 and documents post-war changes. I became obsessed with this book and the ʻnew architectureʼ that rose from the ashes of the Blitz - my grandfather, grandmother and mother all moved into the brand new Dyfatty Flats in Swansea in the early ʻ60s. It sparked my love of Bauhaus, the International style and, my favourite, the De Stijl movement. I visited the Schröder House in Utrecht when I was 20 and studying Interior Architecture. I was in my element.

What is your favourite building in the area?

My favourite of all is the Kardomah Coffee Shop. A Swansea treasure if ever there was one. It hasnʼt changed its interior since it was built. It has fantastic Formica tables and amazing coat-hangers with big baubles to hang your hats and bags on. We would go there most Saturdays when I was a child and I would have a lime milkshake.

Who are your favourite mid-century designers?

I started off loving Charles and Ray Eames, Verner Panton and Eero Saarinen, and also Kartell and the Knoll studio furniture of the mid-ʻ60s. Now Iʼve gone back to British designers like Robin and Lucienne Day and more day-to-day pieces from Poole Potteryʼs Delphis Ware or the Homemaker collection, which is more practical.

What would you like to collect more of?

Surrey Ceramics. Iʼve started collecting a few pieces and I look out for it whenever I go to a fair. I would love to collect the Carlton Ware ʼ60s moneyboxes, as they are readily available and sum up the era perfectly. I have an orange fire engine moneybox, which I love. I would also like to have a whole range of Scottie Wilson pieces for Royal Worcester; I like the patterns so much and they are not too commonly seen.

What is your most treasured item of all?

My boyfriend bought me a Tangerine Geoffrey Baxter Whitefriars ʻMobile Phoneʼ vase for my 30th birthday. That means a lot to me. When I was 17, I would dream of owning an Eero Saarinen mushroom-based table and chairs. I bought a four-seat and table set and a Verner Panton Peacock chair before I was 23. Nowadays I prefer to aspire to owning smaller pieces - I have my Whitefriars vase and Iʼm very happy indeed.

Interview by Charlotte Luxford