If a single design springs to mind at the mention of Jonathan Crinion, odds are very good that it’s the Gazelle chair. As graceful as its namesake, it has expressively loopy arms and slightly splayed tubular legs. (To be precise, as Crinion wrote on , “the chair is made from 16 gauge cold rolled steel – two computerized mandrel bendings, which form the arms and back structure, and two stampings which make up the seat pan and back insert.”). Designed in Toronto for now-defunct brand Area and manufactured in Udine, Italy, Gazelle came out in 1987 and soon became a modern Canadian classic.
In their seminal 2001 book, , Rachel Gotlieb and Cora Golden describe its “sweeping, hornlike arms that flow gracefully into its legs,” and compare it to Ernest Race’s Antelope and Arne Jacobsen’s Swan – two mid-century marvels with which it shares a kinship. “Jonathan made a significant impact on Canadian design with his high standards and rigorous approach to system furniture,” Gotlieb told Azure recently. “Alongside his serious side, he also had a playful aspect to his work, exemplified by the Bebop chair. But my favourite piece remains the Gazelle.” Instantly popular upon its release, it furnished such diverse places as Disneyland, the studios of ABC and CNN and the Art Gallery of Ontario. “Gazelle really put Jonathan’s name on the map,” explains Elizabeth Aikenhead, Crinion’s former wife. “It was even on a Canada Post stamp!”
The icon exemplifies the less-is-more philosophy of Crinion, who died on March 15, 2025 at the age of 71. “The well-considered use of materials and processes reflect his commitment to simplicity and functionality,” Aikenhead explains, “and his zeal for minimalism and a ‘less is more’ approach.” The pragmatic chair was designed for indoors and out, for commercial and residential settings, and was offered at a reasonable price point. “Almost 40 years on, they’re still holding up and looking great – in fact, we have a few on our patio, year-round. They’re almost indestructible!” Crinion himself, in a talk held by the Italian Trade Commission, once gushed about the design’s hard-working timelessness: “There are still thousands of original chairs around and every now and then some high-use chairs come back for repainting by the owners. I find this amazing: They weren’t chucked in the garbage; they want to repaint them. This is fantastic!’”
Born in Liverpool, U.K. in 1953, Crinion moved with his family to Canada when he was just a toddler. In Ottawa, where they settled, he enrolled in Carleton’s industrial design program, followed by OCAD, where he studied under the mentorship of Carl Christiannson. After graduating in 1980, he worked for Jan Kuypers in Toronto, then with Christiannson in Sweden and again for Kuypers – this time in Vancouver, where he established the west coast office of Kuypers, Adamson, Norton. In 1983, he and Elizabeth got married; they had known each other as kids at Lisgar Collegiate and bumped into each other for the first time since at Toronto’s Cameron House pub just a year prior to their nuptials. Soon, they moved back to Toronto, where he set up his own practice, Crinion Associates, at Queen St W and Crawford, then a scrappy neighbourhood.
In the Dec/Jan 1986/87 issue of Azure, Nelda Rodger caught up with Crinion at the beginning of his career and found him eager to experiment with new technologies with a focus on sustainability. “Christiannson’s vision of industrial design as a tool for resolving world problems inspired Jonathan to develop a solar hot water heating system,” she wrote. “He began to differentiate himself and his work from the ‘aimless styling’ he saw around him and a commitment was made to ‘design things for which there was a real need.’”
Crinion’s concept developments for alternative energy applications, including a sleek and über-modern wind turbine for urban settings and a solar-powered fan, never went into production, Aikenhead explains. “Yet they reflect his commitment to pursuing sustainable design options.”
Meanwhile, he began to collaborate with some of the design world’s most progressive manufacturers. A visit to Norman Foster’s studio, where he was hired to help refine the Nomos furniture system for Italian company Tecno, led to office system designs for numerous North American brands. With Teknion, he crafted the Ability Mobile Storage System and, in 1993, developed one of the first LCD flat screens; with Keilhauer, he designed the Ellesmere soft seating range. Among the many designs that he lent his name to were a few chairs as expressive as Gazelle – his Bebop chair for Kiosk and Crinion Chair for Knoll Group are standouts. Even more impressive in his collaboration with Knoll was the Crinion Open Table (introduced alongside the Crinion Chair in 1999), which the brand described as “unique in offering individual height-adjustability and extraordinarily deep work surfaces.” The company credits the concept with transforming the open-concept office and helping “keep Knoll at the leading edge of the industry.”
As time went on, however, Aikenhead says Crinion became “disillusioned with the materialism associated with design” and left Canada for the UK. There, he earned a master’s at Schumacher College and later a PhD at the University of Exeter “which explored his notions of ecology and sustainability.”
“He would probably say that his greatest success in his design work was the Gazelle, and his work with Knoll, but he truly enjoyed so much of the collaborative process on any of the projects,” Aikenhead says. “Beyond his design career he might consider his solo sailing voyage from South Africa to England amongst his successes. And, in his last weeks we talked about personal achievements and agreed that raising our two daughters, Jennifer and Zoe, to be such good, decent, compassionate people was the greatest one.”
Jonathan Crinion was a prolific Canadian designer who left behind a portfolio of clean minimalist pieces deserving of appreciation. Especially at a time when opulent styles are usurping notions of democratic design, Crinion’s quest for simple, elegant solutions to everyday problems remains inspiring. His most enduring vision, Gazelle, is no longer being manufactured. Hopefully, that is just a blip in the long life of the chair (after Area stopped making it, Keilhauer picked up the license and was the last brand to produce it); or perhaps so many originals are still out there that it has achieved the purest form of longevity – one that Crinion, who cared deeply about the environment, would appreciate. “I was so excited when I spotted a bunch of them on a patio in Sacramento recently,” Gotlieb says. “It totally made my heart swell with pride seeing Canadian design hanging out in California! Those swooping arms just make you smile!”
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