Online Auction Data as Primary Material: The Chandigarh Chairs Auction Database

The initial months of the Coronavirus crisis coincided with the start of a collaborative research project surrounding modernist furniture designed for the city of Chandigarh, India. 

As research on this project began to ramp up, borders around the world began to close, taking with them the possibility of first-hand, primary research in Chandigarh itself. After exhausting all accessible secondary material, with a growing interest in the objects of study, research on this project pivoted online, exploring digital materials available on Chandigarh’s chairs, tables, benches, day beds, lighting, and even manhole covers.

This digital turn led to the establishment of a digital database of auction listings for Chandigarh’s modernist furniture, collating descriptions, titiles, measurements, images, attributions, provenances and bibliographies for over 1,500 auction lots, many comprising multiple pieces of furniture. 

The resulting database (a version of which is publicly accessible on the Chandigarh Chairs website) has facilitated in-depth study not just of the themselves, but has also begun to shed light on the systems and processes in place regarding the extraction and re-sale of these items. 

As discussed in an upcoming chapter in Springer’s Studies in Art, Heritage, Law and the Market series, although digital data collection has been utilized by specialists in art crime and antiquities, compilation and analysis of auction data has yet to be deployed on a significant scale in the fields of Design and Interior Design history.

This talk details the establishment of the Chandigarh Chairs auction database, and highlights the potential such digital research and information gathering have for the study of objects of interior design and architecture, particularly regarding their contemporary movement and use.