The Plunkett Plan | LDF24

“My generation of designers were idealists. We really believed we could make a difference to Britain by producing well-designed products. But I was always hopeless at marketing. I always did exactly as I pleased, I’d design things the way I liked, and hoped to God someone else liked them too.”   

William Plunkett 

William Plunkett (1928–2013) was a key figure in post-war British design and employed his flair for sculpture with his design and engineering prowess to create some of the most iconic furniture of the 1960s era.  

Plunkett followed an unusual path to realise his creative output. Born in India, where his father was in the shipping industry, he came to Britain in 1946. He trained as an army officer at Sandhurst and served 11 years as a gunner in the Royal Artillery. A developing interest in art sparked a change of direction, enrolling in a design course at Kingston School of Art in 1959 and later specialising in sculpture and furniture. 

“There isn’t that much difference (between design and art). The furniture is simply sculpture in welded steel.” 

William Plunkett 

In 1961, as a second-year student, he entered and won the first prize in the prestigious Aeropreen Award, a competition judged by Ernest Race and Gordon Russell. His entry was a self-made, demountable flat-bar steel-framed armchair featuring a cantilevered seat utilising Pirelli webbing. Due to its construction, the chair has a slight rocking action, a feature Plunkett returned to in later designs.
 
This award-winning chair forged the beginnings of Plunkett's career in furniture design. He continued to develop sculptural steel framed seating designs that shared common characteristics, as demonstrated by later designs such as the Selsdon Chair, Westerham Chair, Reigate Rocking Chair, and Kingston Collection.

After leaving Kingston, he briefly worked for his tutor, Aidron Duckworth, who encouraged his sculptural endeavours, which set the foundations for his approach to design, also inspired by the works of Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies Van De Rohe, and Marcel Breuer.  

In the early 1960s, the British furniture industry had little interest in working with modernists, with timber still prevailing as the preferred material. Unable to secure a British manufacturer, Plunkett established a workshop at his Croydon home, evolving into the foundation of his company, William Plunkett Ltd., in 1963.

“You take a basic principle, and you restate it over and over again, making it simpler each time until there is nothing more you can do to it without altering your principle.”

William Plunkett

The uncompromising nature of his work, married with the modernity of form and its inherent sculptural qualities, garnered immediate attention within the furniture industry. His designs were displayed by the leading retailers of the day, and towards the end of the decade, he found great success furnishing architecturally significant interiors, including the Commercial Union’s London headquarters by Gollins Melvin Ward and the refurbishment of Cunard’s QE2 with Dennis Lennon and Jon Bannenberg.  

Despite his significant successes, Plunkett remained relatively unknown as a designer maker compared to some of his contemporaries. Not wanting his furniture to lose its innate character at the hands of mass production, it was batch-produced in limited quantities. Making prototypes by hand to perfect the design, the components produced by specialists and assembled by the designer and his assistants in his workshop.

For the entirety of his career, Plunkett had to navigate opposing roles—that of the designer and the industrialist, at his peak, employing ten people in his studio. When first producing the award-winning Reigate Rocking Chair, he made each frame by hand. This hands-on approach became untenable, resulting in the closure of the business in the mid-70s.

THE PLUNKETT PLAN 

The Plunkett Plan showcases original furniture, sculpture, drawings, and photography— many of which have never been previously exhibited.

Beyond the archive, we are pleased to present the extended Kingston range, upholstered in collaboration with Christopher Farr Cloth and the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, accompanied by pieces in selected Harris Tweed fabrics, reflecting upholstery originally specified by William Plunkett.  

The exhibition also provides the launch of two dynamic reissues: the Kingston High-Back Chair, a six-roll version of the Kingston lounge chair, and the Selsdon Table, a minimal coffee table featuring a toughened glass top and steel frame, the coral red hue carefully colour-matched to an original from twentytwentyone’s vintage archive.

The Plunkett Plan exhibition runs from 18-22 September at
twentytwentyone, 18c River Street, EC1R 1XN.

We extend our sincere thanks to the Plunkett Family, Christopher Farr Cloth, John Hitch and the Met Lab.