Abstract
<jats:p>This research analyzes the evolution of chair design in Argentina as a sequence of paradigmatic transformations analogous to those described by Thomas S. Kuhn (1962). Through a qualitative hermeneutic approach, it examines three emblematic chair cases, situated within the American Liberal Social Order, corresponding to three successive aesthetics: non-modern (proto-rationalist), modern (neo-rationalist), and postmodern (eclecticist). The analysis draws on the categories of Jordi Llovet (1979), who critically adapted Jean Baudrillard's semiological concepts to industrial design. Llovet distinguishes four constitutive values of the designed object: functional use-value (the useful), aesthetic sign-value (the beautiful), symbolic use-value (the symbolic), and capitalist exchange-value (the economic). The study incorporates a fifth emergent value: socio-environmental use-value, which integrates ecological sustainability, social justice, and the revaluation of local knowledge. The findings show that the matera chair exemplifies a phase of Kuhnian normal science (artisanal), with functional, aesthetic, and symbolic values unified. The B.K.F. chair embodies a Kuhnian paradigmatic revolution (industrial), with fragmentation of these values and hegemony of exchange-value. Finally, the Aro chair illustrates a new crisis of the industrial paradigm and the gestation of a hybrid-sustainable paradigm (semi-industrial, semi-artisanal), where values are critically and ethically reintegrated. The study confirms that the everyday object—the chair—functions as a material document of historical revolutions, where worldviews, modes of production, and social relations are contested.</jats:p>