James Leonard and Project X

"Gio Ponti recognized the brilliance of James Leonard's designs in 1948, and Peter Wyeth has done us all a great service in bringing him and ESA back into the spotlight. While in recent years there have been a number of studies of avant-garde pre-war furniture in Britain, there has been almost nothing on the post-war era when design and industry combined to build in volume. Wyeth traces the extraordinary evolution of Leonard and the ESA from their Arts & Crafts heritage to their cutting-edge use of aluminum injection-casting and plywood with which they furnished over 80% of schools and the welfare state. As children most of us sat, however unknowingly, in one of his X200 chairs; now we can appreciate them.” —Harry Charrington, Professor of Architecture, University of Westminster, London, UK

"Again, filmmaker, writer and researcher Peter Wyeth surprises us by unveiling the story of another unsung hero. The designer and engineer James Leonard can be described as the English version of the French constructer Jean Prouvé, whom he met in 1946 to discuss joint projects. Until this book, Leonard’s story was unknown even to specialists. It is told here with profound insight and knowledge and throws a searchlight on the extraordinary contrast between his successful million-selling school chair (X200), made from postwar surplus aluminum, and the astonishing design of the X202 armchair. This die-cast aluminum wonder, of beautiful design, was cast in two highly-complex side castings, a new technique as used during World War II in the construction of the Mosquito fighter/bomber. Leonard developed the use of this method for his most advanced chair, of which no surviving example is known, but whose existence is proven in catalogue photographs as the very finest example of forging ploughshares from swords." —Burkhardt Rukschcio, author Adolf Loos: Leben und Werk, Eileen Gray furniture restorer, Jean Prouvé restorer

"The life and work of James Leonard, and his boss Johnny Appleton, presents a remarkable example of design creativity and entrepreneurial initiative that deserves to be far more widely known and celebrated. Their innovations in school furniture, as well as the ESA's pivotal role in the education supply industry, stand as conspicuous outliers in the narrative of Britain’s post-war recovery. Specifically, the mass production of the unique X200 chair contrasts sharply with the conventional history of modern chair design as a succession of exclusive and expensive classics. Peter Wyeth’s tenacious research in exhuming this enthralling story will now restore the name of James Leonard to its proper place in the pantheon of modern furniture design." —John Allan: Chairman, The Isokon Gallery Trust, former Director of Avanti Architects, author of Revaluing Modern Architecture and Berthold Lubetkin