A Design Guideline for Applying Taiwanese Opera Costume Aesthetics to Modern Chair Design

Abstract

The Western society is using an increasing amount of oriental elements to design products, especially furniture. One example of this influence is famous Denmark designer Hans J. Wagner’s, whose concept the “Y-Chair” designed in 1949 comes from the “round chair圈椅” of the Ming dynasty. Today, the oriental design guideline is rarely published, leading eager Western designers with little knowledge on now to apply these designs to their products. As an Industrial Design thesis, this research was conducted to study the furniture design from the perspective of Asian culture with a focus on the ability of Taiwanese traditional art to transmit thousand year old oriental aesthetics to a modern culture. From the heritage of Taiwanese culture, Taiwanese Opera’s costume design was chosen as a cultural reference for this study. The emphasis of this research was to create guidelines for each role’s costume style and apply the guidelines to the furniture design. A design process frame was developed and given the name “The Design Framework of Cultural Element Integrated Chair Design (DFCEICD)”. By applying the design process frame and guidelines established in this research, designers can incorporate these elements into their furniture design. The expectation is that these design guidelines will help designers build the Taiwanese Opera or Asian style furniture, and thus continue the cultural heritage of the Taiwanese Opera. This research acts as the foundation for future research on Taiwanese design culture and will assist others in designing Taiwanese cultural products.