STAM
1899 – 1986
Stam was born in Purmered, Holland, in 1899.
He studied design at the Amsterdam “Royal School”, later perfecting his style at the “Grandre Molier Verhagen e Kok” in Rotterdam. In 1927 he studied urban design in the Bauhaus in Dessau. During this period he also took part in a conference held prior to the Werkbund Exposition in Stuttgart, describing a prototype of a chair which used metal pipe instead of the rear legs. To prevent the material from breaking under the strain, the metal tubes were reinforced with a second tube inserted in the main tube. In the 1930s this cantilever chair, and its method of construction became a fundamental element of common arrangements and the design of this chair influenced other designers of the Bauhaus.
Stam was also a founding member of the International Architecture Congress, and worked in the design of “cloud pillars”, office buildings which had to be built on massive pillars at the foot of an
important urban artery.
In addition to architecture designs, he continued to design functional furniture whose design was in accordance with his socialist ideals. From 1931 to 1932 he worked in Russia as a city planner, and from 1948 to 1952 taught architecture and design in Dresden and Berlin. In 1966 he retired, and moved to Switzerland where he died in 1986.
