Furniture - World Styles From Classical To Contemporary

["STREAMLINING 399 decorative household objects 1919\u20131940 PAYING LITTLE REGARD TO FUNCTION, MANY PRODUCT DESIGNERS APPLIED THE SOFT CURVES AND HORIZONTAL BANDING OF STREAMLINING TO A HOST OF HOUSEHOLD OBJECTS. Every type of household object \u2013 from tableware which would, in turn, stimulate the beleaguered to lamps and from the accoutrements of the jazz economy. Raymond Loewy\u2019s refrigerator design age, such as the cocktail shaker, to the radio \u2013 for Sears in 1934 embodied the style superbly, were given the streamline treatment in 1930s\u2019 with its gently rounded corners and horizontal America. Their shapes echoed the smooth, egg- stripes. Many designers experimented with shaped outlines of the contemporary railway streamlined forms in tableware made of metal. carriage or the glamorous ocean liner and were Russel Wright broke new ground in 1931 with often decorated with horizontal decorative his cylindrical cocktail shaker and spherical stripes, or \u201cspeed whiskers\u201d. cups made of spun chrome-plated pewter. Meanwhile, the chrome-plated brass The idea was to create traditional, \u201cNormandie\u201d water pitcher designed by everyday objects in the new, German-born Peter M\u00fcller-Munk in streamlined style, creating a 1935 emulated the shape demand for merchandise of an ocean liner. in the new \u201cmodern\u201d style, Extendable Bakelite lamp The shape of this lamp emulates the dynamic \u201clightning bolt\u201d form typical of Art Deco streamlining. 1940s. H:45cm (18in). ROS Chrome sculpture of a woman\u2019s face by Karl Fiesta pitcher The shape of the Hagenauer This sculpture has stylized pitcher is echoed by a pattern of features, including hair patterned like the sleek, streamlined curves. \u201cspeed whiskers\u201d that decorated trains and H:18cm (7in). K&R cars. H:53.5cm (21in); W:43cm (17in). SDR French poster advertising the Nord Express The power and speed of the streamlined locomotive is dramatically expressed in this iconic poster. Designed by A.M. Cassandre (1901\u201368), the poster is mounted on Japanese paper. 1927. H:105cm (411\u20444in). CURVED DESK streamlined style was soon adopted by interior and This desk was designed by Donald Deskey for Widdicomb. It has black product designers. The interiors of hotels, petrol lacquered surfaces and two veneered side panels with chrome detailing. stations, diners, and shops were all given the It was designed as part of a suite. c.1935. W:132cm (52in). HSD streamlined treatment. Streamlining was also strikingly evident on the glamorous sets of 1930s\u2019 Hollywood movies, such as Grand Hotel (1932). As the 1930s progressed, streamlining was adopted more frequently in the design of a broad array of consumer wares \u2013 from every kind of furniture to all manner of new household appliances. The clean lines and powerful forms made a strong statement. Practical, everyday objects, such as the vacuum cleaner, stove, and radio, made of new materials, such as Bakelite, plastic, rubber, vinyl, aluminium, and chrome-plated steel, brought a sense of glamour and modernity to familiar pastimes and household chores. They also served to domesticate the machine, cleverly concealing its moving parts and removing any awkward protrusions with its smooth surfaces. Streamlined products were to a certain extent \u201cthe technological result of high-speed mass production\u201d, as Harold Van Doren pointed out. Gently curved forms with no surface decoration were easy to manufacture using plastic mouldings and pressed- sheet steel, and assembly-line techniques. However, they were also affordable and hugely popular. With streamlining, American Art Deco finally arrived.","400 ART DECO 1919\u20131940 britain DURING THE FIRST HALF of the 1920s, displayed fine furniture in the high OAK BOOKCASES square shapes of the cupboards and shelves. most British furniture designers Art Deco style in an exhibition called The bookcases stand on fluted square feet. remained loyal to the principles of the \u201cModern Art in French and English This pair of Betty Joel bookcases is made Each one bears the following label on the base: Arts and Crafts Movement (see p.330), Furniture and Decoration\u201d. The from Australian silky oak. Each bookcase is \u201cToken Hand-Made Furniture by Betty Joel, but occasionally used decorative exhibition marked the launch of their asymmetrical, with random open and enclosed made by J. Emery at Token Works Portsmouth.\u201d elements inspired by French Art Deco Department of Modern Art, which shelves and two cupboard doors. The circular 1932. W:92cm (361\u20444in). L&T in their work. One of London\u2019s most was headed by the Russian \u00e9migr\u00e9 door handles contrast with the rectangular and successful retailers and manufacturers, Serge Ivan Chermayeff. Although rectangular top with rounded corners. The U- Heal & Son, produced Arts and Crafts Chermayeff favoured the use of BURR MAPLE TABLE shaped base is a typical feature of Epstein\u2019s designs made from sycamore, oak, or opulent veneers, he soon moved work and was much used by Art Deco designers. limed oak, quietly embellished with away from the French Art Deco style This Epstein table is part of a set, made up It gives a modern twist to the traditional some Art Deco features. The furniture towards a more Modernist aesthetic. of a table and eight chairs (see below). The pedestal base of a table. c.1932. W:198cm was essentially machine-made but was His sofas and coffee tables were table is crafted from burr maple, one of the (78in). JAZ finished by hand. geometric in form and the upholstery most expensive woods of the time, and has a and carpets featured geometric MIRROR RESTRAINED STYLE patterns. His designs were widely DINING CHAIR Gordon Russell\u2019s furniture designs of copied, using less expensive materials, This Art Deco mirror, by Whytock and Reid the 1920s exhibited the more traditional and were mass produced for the This chair by Epstein is made of burr maple of Edinburgh, has a shaped, rectangular red- Art Deco style. He adopted motifs, such middle class home. and is one of eight designed to accompany the lacquered frame. The stylized plant motifs in as sunbursts and chevrons, and used table above. The chair is simple in form, has the crested moulding are highlighted in gilt. exotic materials such as ivory and A TASTE FOR LUXURY lightly splayed legs, and is upholstered in H:101cm (393\u20444in). L&T macassar ebony. Exhibiting to great Fashionable Art Deco furniture made cream. c.1932. H:89cm (35in). JAZ acclaim at the 1925 Exhibition in of sumptuous, expensive materials, Paris, Russell rejected the opulence and echoing traditional shapes \u2013 albeit favoured by his French counterparts, with a Modernist twist \u2013 was also and displayed a cabinet that celebrated created in Britain by Betty Joel and the simplicity of traditional Georgian Sir Edward Maufe. Sir Edward Maufe design with a minimum of decoration. had won a medal at the 1925 Paris Exhibition for his mahogany, camphor The 1925 Paris Exhibition influenced wood, and ebony writing desk, which the Heal\u2019s designer, J.F. Johnson. From was gessoed and gilded with white 1926 to 1927, he displayed a range gold, and featured silk tasselled of bedroom furniture made from handles. Betty Joel\u2019s prestigious and macassar ebony and influenced by the exclusive clientele included the King high Parisian Art Deco style of \u00c9mile- and Queen and Louis Mountbatten. Jacques Ruhlmann (see p.393). In 1928, Waring & Gillow, who provided By the 1930s, Gordon Russell was luxury furniture for ships and hotels, producing more Modernist pieces, developing a successful range of good quality, mass-produced furniture that made use of new materials such as tubular steel. Sir Ambrose Heal was also firmly aligned with the Modernist movement. However, elements of Art Deco persisted in Britain. The sunburst motif and stepped tiling could be seen in many suburban houses, and household objects, such as radios, telephones, and vacuum cleaners, exhibited the streamlined style of American Art Deco (see pp.398\u201399). In 1933, Maurice Adams produced the archetypal streamlined cocktail cabinet in ebonized mahogany with metal casing and chromium mounts. The lobby of the former Daily Express building in Fleet Street, London The lobby was designed in 1932 by Robert Atkinson and was inspired by Hollywood film sets. It features a starburst ceiling with a silvered pendant lamp and a huge silver and gilt plaster relief panel along one side.","BRITAIN 401 1919\u20131940 CHEST OF DRAWERS NEST OF TABLES TUB CHAIR This English chest of drawers, made from walnut, has black- These three tables are made from amboyna and satinwood with a This squat, geometric tub chair, one of a pair, has a U-shaped lacquer banding around the drawers and the edges of the case decorative inlay. Each table top has a geometric sunburst design, framework with a curved back and arms that are veneered in oak which accentuate its rectilinearity. The distinctive, slender made from contrasting woods, and a moulded edge. The tables from top to bottom. The back and apron of the chair, and the drawer handles are attached vertically in juxtaposition to the are supported on tapering splayed legs and have moulded pad loose cushion seat, are upholstered in a striped fabric. The other horizontal, rectangular drawers. c.1930. W:123cm (48in). JAZ feet. c.1925. H:68cm (27in); W:79cm (31in). JAZ chair of the pair has a slightly taller back. L&T Panels of green shagreen create an unusual surface. The sideboard echoes the Square, tapering ivory Geometric borders of ebony shape of an 18th-century handles contrast with the and ivory line the top and French commode. boldly figured veneer. bottom of the sideboard. The fluted, turned legs MACASSAR SIDEBOARD the top and base of ebony with ivory lines. The fluted, turned terminate in ivory feet. legs terminate in ivory feet, and the square door and drawer Heal & Son designed this Art Deco, ebony-veneered macassar handles are also made of ivory. The overall shape of the sideboard. Its unusual appeal arises from the panels of green sideboard is reminiscent of an 18th-century commode. c.1930. shagreen on the surface of the sideboard combined with an H:89cm (35in); W:152.5cm (60in); D:51cm (20in). MAL ogee-moulded ebony edge. The sides and front of the sideboard are veneered in boldly figured timber with a geometric border at","1919\u20131940402 ART DECO ART DECO INTERIOR ART DECO, WITH ITS BLEND OF MODERNITY AND EXOTICISM, FOUND A SHOWCASE IN A NEW MUSEUM IN PARIS \u2013 THE CITY WHERE THE STYLE WAS BORN. Sculptural uplighter This IN 1931, AN Art Deco design was chosen for the ambitious distinctive lamp, designed new Mus\u00e9e des Colonies (now renamed the Mus\u00e9e des Arts by Eug\u00e8ne Printz, is made d\u2019Afrique et d\u2019Oc\u00e9anie) which was built specially for the of palmwood and has a Colonial Exhibition, to glorify the relationship between trumpet-shaped top. The France and its colonies. The original plans for the building, shelf near the base of the incorporating motifs from North African architecture, were lamp serves as an rejected in favour of Albert Laprade\u2019s clean, modern design occasional table. inspired by European Classicism. The exterior of the museum was decorated with an enormous stylized frieze designed by the prominent Art Deco sculptor Albert Janniot. The interior also became a spectacular showcase for Art Deco design, as well as for art and artefacts from Africa and Asia. Although the rooms designed to display colonial artefacts were kept fairly plain, two oval rooms were lavishly decorated and were used as reception rooms. The Salon de l'Afrique celebrated contributions from the African colonies, whilst the magnificent Salon de l\u2019Asie, also known as the Salon Lyautey, was dedicated to the arts of Asia. THE SALON LYAUTEY Designed by Eug\u00e8ne Printz, and with frescoes by Andr\u00e9-Hubert and Ivanna Lemaitre, the Salon Lyautey remains a fine example of 1930s\u2019 French Art Deco. The majestic parquet floor, with its radiating geometric design typical of the era, is made of Gabonese wood, with highlights of ebony and rosewood. The rich colouring of the floor, enhanced by the dark draped curtains, sets the tone for the whole room. In keeping with the Art Deco fascination with exoticism, the dramatic frescoes depict Asian figures, scenes, and deities and dominate the room. The furniture, which was also designed by Printz, is typically Art Deco: bold and simple in form with clean, lines and minimal ornamentation. The doors of the Salon and most of the furniture are made of patawa (palmwood), a vividly patterned wood much favoured by Printz. The beauty of the two imposing desks lies in the figuring of the palmwood as much as in their sleek, curved forms. The dramatic outlines of the uplighters, which resemble exotic trees, echo the curves of the desks and the armrests of the matching chairs. The overall effect is striking; the blend of natural materials, modern shapes, and Oriental- inspired frescoes creates an impression of exoticism, whilst remaining distinctly French. The Salon Lyautey is both a lasting momento of Art Deco and a monument to a European empire on the point of decline. Armchair This colonial-style armchair, upholstered in a golden- yellow fabric has a curved bentwood frame and a rectangular back. The upholstered armrests create fan shapes between the seat back and the curved arms, which continue into the legs.","","404 ART DECO 1919\u20131940 europe TREMENDOUS UPHEAVALS came about bring together the talents of creative restrained form of Art Deco that was in 1917 by the painters Theo van in Europe in the wake of World War I. artists, designers, and craftsmen, to pursued by these German designers. Doesburg and Piet Mondrian. The The need for change was keenly felt create prototype designs suitable for The room contained lacquered furniture functionalist furniture designed by the by architects and designers from Italy industrial mass production (see p.426). with inlay work, and a rug with a group was conspicuously absent from to Belgium and the Netherlands, and geometric design. Many German and the 1925 Paris Exhibition. The Dutch from Germany to Scandinavia. Although the Modernist Bauhaus Austrian \u2013 mainly Jewish \u2013 designers pavilion there was designed by J.F. style prevailed in Germany during emigrated to America in the late 1920s Staal, a member of the Amsterdam At the heart of this longing for change the 1920s and 1930s, there were also and early 1930s, and joined Paul School, which favoured the use of lay a functionalist ideology and a desire architects and designers working Frankl (see p.397) in developing the theatrical, expressionist, and Oriental for art to accommodate the exciting in a more decorative manner. Using Art Deco style there. motifs in furniture designs. Among the technological advances of the early 20th vibrant colours, and drawing on the exhibits was furniture by C.A. Lion century. Mass-produced, functional Rococo and Biedermeier styles for NORTHERN EUROPEAN TRENDS Cachet, designed for a Dutch ocean furniture designs became the order of inspiration, German Art Deco furniture It was in the Netherlands that the liner. He used dark tropical woods the day, a philosophy that was realized exhibited Oriental touches in its use of concept of abstraction was first applied inlaid with ivory and lighter woods in by Alvar Aalto in Finland and with the lacquer, together with Cubist detailing. to furniture design. At the helm of this traditional-shaped pieces with Oriental formation in 1919 of the Bauhaus Bruno Paul\u2019s \u201cRoom for a Gentleman\u201d, revolutionary artistic idea was the decoration and parchment panels. Jaap by Walter Gropius. Internationally shown at Macy\u2019s department store in avant-garde De Stijl group, formed Gidding\u2019s cinema and theatre interiors acclaimed, the Bauhaus sought to New York in 1928, was typical of the SWEDISH CHAIR BELGIAN BRIDGE CHAIR ITALIAN COFFEE TABLE in European Art Deco furniture. The dark ebony highlights the simple geometric structure of This Swedish Art Deco chair is upholstered This bridge chair is one of a pair designed by This fine Italian coffee table has a rectangular the coffee table. W:99.5cm (391\u20444in). SDR in brown leather and supported upon tapering De Coene Fr\u00e8res. The curved armrests form glass-topped surface on tapering plank legs. It legs, with two slightly splayed rear legs, and a continuous \u201cU\u201d shape with the bowed seat has been crafted from bird\u2019s-eye maple and curvilinear arm rests. The backrest has a frame. The chair is upholstered in a red, ebony veneer. Exotic wood veneers, such as the central panel with burr wood and satinwood checked fabric and has tapering front legs. ebony used in this piece, were commonly used details. c.1920. W:61cm (24in). LANE c.1930. H:82cm (321\u20444in). LM BELGIAN DESK SWISS DESK on square feet. The grain of the walnut has been highlighted, providing additional visual Designed by De Coene Fr\u00e8res, this Belgian desk has four drawers, tapering This Swiss walnut desk has a rectangular top interest. c.1925. W:145cm (58in). VH legs, and nickel feet, and is covered in black lacquer. The sleek black with rounded corners. The central drawer and design demonstrates a relinquishing of unnecessary decoration in favour two flanking cabinets have decorative \u201cEnglish- of pure functionality. c.1930. W:172.5cm (68in). LM style\u201d handles, and the whole piece is raised","EUROPE 405 also followed the French Art Deco mahogany were superbly set off by the inlaid patterns of flower 1919\u20131940 style. The Tuschinski cinema in batik wall-covering of Ebbe Sadolin in baskets, garlands, or Amsterdam (1918\u201321) was typical, the Danish pavilion. geometric motifs that with its decorative, opulent interior, were typical of Art Deco. and special light effects. ITALIAN BALANCE Italian furniture designers struggled The Italian version of In Scandinavia, Art Deco took a to find a balance between the demand Art Deco reached its fullest more classical turn with an emphasis for classical elegance and the language expression in the hands of on elegance, proportion, luxurious of the sophisticated modern style. the innovative architect materials, and hand-crafting. In 1930, Although ill at ease with the display Gio Ponti. He successfully British writer, Morton Shand, defined of sumptuous luxury that was the managed to combine the the Swedish restrained Neoclassical hallmark of French Art Deco, Italian functional, geometric, style prevalent at the 1925 Paris cabinets, tables, writing desks, and spare structure promoted Exhibition as a \u201cline characterized chairs made full use of the beauty by the Wiener Werkst\u00e4tte by its slender and almost elfin grace\u201d. of lustrous local and exotic timbers. designers with the Exhibiting a similar style, Otto Meyer\u2019s Many of them were embellished with sophisticated and elegant and Jacob Petersen\u2019s graceful, curving bronze mounts, or lightly carved or refinements of the French chairs crafted out of sycamore and Art Deco style. Mirror glass is The strict geometric shape of commonly used as a the buffet is highlighted by decorative feature of the warm colour of the burr Art Deco furniture. wood veneer. The burr wood veneer ITALIAN CABINET makes a boldly This rectangular Ulrich Guglielmo cabinet has two doors and luxurious statement. is supported on a square plinth lined with goat parchment. The doors have ivory mounts and the plinth is veneered with kingwood. Round ebony knobs, with gilded bronze mountings and keys, are attached to the 14 interior drawers. c.1930. H:150cm (60in). QU The rectilinear structure of The ivory inlay used for the buffet is emphasized the drawer pulls is a by the austere placement typical Art Deco detail. of the doors and drawers. ITALIAN BUFFET cabinet door enclosing an adjustable shelf. Subtle, inlaid WALNUT EASY CHAIR handles are attached to the four drawers and the cabinet doors. The shelf structure of this Italian buffet is characteristic of Art The geometric shape is typical of Italian Art Deco, which took This continental walnut easy chair is upholstered in cream, a Deco design, combining clean lines and asymmetry with a its lead from the Wiener Werkst\u00e4tte. The use of exotic timber popular colour in Art Deco furniture design. The chair has broad, luxurious and decorative burr wood finish. The shelf structure is more typical of the French style. W:177.75cm (70in). FRE curving armrests, each supported on three vertical fluted rods, contains a mirror on a case with four small drawers and a twin and moulded sledge-like block feet. DN","406 ART DECO 1919\u20131940 india and east asia ALTHOUGH THE Art Deco style had keen knowledge of the style, along form of Art Deco. By the end of the spare, nature-inspired decoration, and its origins and greatest success in the with a calculated eye to receiving 1930s, Bombay contained nearly 300 the use of sumptuous, exotic materials West, it also found voice in the East. patronage from wealthy, cultivated, cinemas, all of which were glamorous such as lacquer, ivory, and mother-of- and influential benefactors. Art Deco palaces, both inside and pearl \u2013 came from the traditions of East INDIAN GLAMOUR out. The sophisticated and luxurious Asia in the first place, so there was Despite a strain of social conservatism At the heart of the Art Deco style residences commissioned by wealthy already an affinity between the two. and an economy that remained in India was Mumbai (then called Indian princes also reflected the sluggish and underdeveloped, Indian Bombay), the centre of international Art Deco style. The furniture often Throughout Japan, and especially designers welcomed the aesthetic communication and a thriving port. combined the \u201chigh-style\u201d French Art in Tokyo, economic and industrial ideals and stylish visual viewpoint Here, the mercantile classes and the Deco with native decorative traditions. development after World War I was promoted by the fashionable modern Westernized ruling communities came accompanied by democratization and taste for Art Deco favoured by the together with the development of the EAST ASIAN AFFINITY cultural change. Western ideas were colonialists. Appreciation for, and Back Bay area between 1929 and 1940. During the 1920s and 1930s, a lot of the promoted through exhibitions and support of, the Art Deco style was The Development Trust insisted that Japanese and Chinese architecture, also fostered by designers who had all the buildings conform to the same interiors, and furnishings were inspired emigrated to India from Central and architectural style to ensure \u201cuniformity by the Art Deco style. Much of Art Eastern Europe, taking with them a and harmony of design\u201d. The style was Deco\u2019s inspiration \u2013 simple design, an elegant, streamlined, yet decorated The shelves are formed The abstract curving lines The curved, geometric handle The outer frame is created from the side panel, are executed in different- emulates the line of the top of from one continuous piece enclosing the space. coloured lacquers. the chest and locks the doors. of bent wood. CHINESE JADE TABLE SCREEN This large Chinese screen has a striking central panel made of jade, which is carved to depict a pavilion and figures under pine trees. The panel is set within a fretwork frame. c.1930. H:53.5cm (21in). S&K JAPANESE CHEST The drawer handle is CHINESE HARDWOOD CABINET shaped like the individual This boldly curving, geometric chest features a trailing smoke design in elements of the patterns. The case of this cabinet is rectangular in outline gold and coloured lacquer. It was designed by the leading Kyoto lacquer with rounded corners. Two panelled doors open artist Suzuki Hyosaku II, who was a member of Ryukeiha Kogeikai (the of the two outer drawers. The upper shelf above each drawer is formed onto two sections, one with two shelves. The Streamline School Craft Association). Continuous pieces of bent wood from a piece of wood cut out of the side of the chest and bent horizontally. case stands on moulded bracket feet. c.1930. create the outer frame, the frames of the two central doors, and those Black lacquer is used to define the outer rim of each of the doors and to H:124.5cm (49in). S&K set off the abstract design that decorates them. The curving, asymmetrical patterning in shades of red, orange, and gold blend with the overall streamlined form of the chest as well as contrast with its symmetry. 1937. H:83.5cm (323\u20444in); W:112.5cm (441\u20444in); D:30.5cm (12in).","INDIA AND EAST ASIA 407 publications, and by Western designers Chinese architects and designers with 1919\u20131940 themselves. The Tokyo earthquake of enthusiasm. Known as the \u201cParis of 1923 left a devastated city ripe for the East\u201d, Shanghai was a prosperous renewal, and many of the new buildings and cosmopolitan city of business and reflected the Art Deco style. Numerous pleasure. The American Art Deco style cinemas, caf\u00e9s, and dance halls were dominated in the new high-rise hotels, built, their interiors filled with modern apartment blocks, offices, department materials such as aluminium, glass, stores, caf\u00e9s, and restaurants. and stainless steel. The 12-storey Cathy Hotel, built by In China\u2019s thriving metropolis of Palmer & Turner in 1932, set the tone, Shanghai the spirited Art Deco style with its green pyramidal roof and Art was appropriated and assimilated by Deco features. The Grand Theatre, designed by Czech-Hungarian \u00e9migr\u00e9 The Umaid Bhawan palace, Jodhpur, India Laszio Hudec, was a monument to This bathroom is typical of the palace\u2019s interior in Hollywood glamour with its sparkling its use of streamlining, bold curves, and luxuriant Art Deco interior, complete with a materials. The architect, Henry Vaughan Lanchester, marble lobby and neon lighting. brought the state architect, G.A. Goldstraw to Jodhpur to ensure the integrity of the design. eckart muthesius (1904\u201389) IN HIS DESIGNS FOR THE MAHARAJAH OF INDORE, ECKART MUTHESIUS SUCCESSFULLY MARRIED THE SIMPLE AND FUNCTIONAL WITH THE MORE DECORATIVE AND FANCIFUL FRENCH ART DECO STYLE. JAPANESE SCREEN Nowhere was the desire for the fashionable and the floors and window frames to light fittings, switches, and modern better demonstrated than in the luxurious door handles, were ordered from companies in Germany This wooden screen was designed by Ban-ura Shogo. The spare, palaces designed by Western architects for the wealthy and shipped out to India. The furniture was bought from asymmetric pattern of flowers and foliage was created with and sophisticated Indian princes. some of the best French designers, mainly from the Union different-coloured lacquers and is typical of Japanese design. It des Artistes Modernes. provides a decorous foil for the geometric shape of the screen. One such palace, built with an eye for practical 1936. H:91cm (353\u20444in); W:109cm (43in); D:31cm (121\u20444in). considerations as well as for the latest style, was built by Muthesius furnished the palace with lavish pieces the German architect Eckart Muthesius. Commissioned made from sumptuous materials. The Maharajah\u2019s study in 1930 by the Oxford-educated Maharajah of Indore, contained fine macassar ebony furniture by \u00c9mile- Yeshwant Rao Holkar, Muthesius designed an air- Jacques Ruhlmann, while his bedroom featured an conditioned, \u201cU\u201d-shaped palace known as Manik Bagh. armchair by Eileen Gray and a chaise longue by Containing private apartments, as well as a large ballroom, Le Corbusier, covered in leopardskin. The beds a banqueting hall, and guest rooms, it had a steel frame, in the palace were made of aluminium and concrete walls, and a wooden roof. chrome, and the deep leather armchairs had frames of chrome-plated band iron and Muthesius was personally responsible for designing built-in reading lamps. There were also all the interiors and created a stylish and modern palace plush carpets by Ivan da Silva Bruhns, to Art Deco, resplendent with sparkling golden-yellow and silverware by Jean Puiforcat. walls. Nearly all of the fittings that he designed, from JAPANESE RADIO Manik Bagh side table This table Tubular steel side chair This chrome-plated chair is covered in was designed by Muthesius. The brilliant red vinyl and was commissioned by Muthesius for Manik This wooden hyperbolic radio was designed by Inoue Hikonosuke. ultra-modern geometric form of Bagh. 1930\u201333. H:100cm (391\u20443in). Lacquer was a favourite material for Japanese designers working the table echoes the \u201cU\u201d shape in the Art Deco style. The powerful stylized flower shapes of of the palace. 1930\u201333. luminous gold highlighted with silver foil stand proud against the glossy black-lacquer background. 1934.","408 ART DECO 1919\u20131940 THE SUITE specially designed matching sets of elegant and luxurious furniture became an integral feature of the art deco interior. MATCHING PIECES OF FURNITURE have had a long BEDROOM SUITE Chest of drawers This has a compartmented and rich tradition. From the second half of the Coordinating suites of furniture for blind drawer. Below this are three long 18th century onwards, fashionable rooms in French bedrooms were particularly popular drawers, with distinctive long metal houses were frequently designed as integrated during this period. The centrepiece handles. W:114cm (453\u20444in). S&K interiors and were furnished with large and elaborate of the room was usually the bed, suites of furniture. In the mid 19th century, rooms which was surrounded by a host Bedside table The table contains a blind drawer, became more densely furnished and the desire for of chests of drawers, dressing above a cupboard that is fitted to look like a comfort amongst the growing middle classes led tables, wardrobes, and so on, all drawer. H:65cm (26in). S&K to the creation of new furnishings that were often geometrically shaped and made produced as elegant, machine-made matching sets. from the same materials, as here. Pedestal desk This desk has a blind, compartmented centre drawer, ELEGANCE AND COMFORT flanked by two small blind drawers, In the 1920s and 1930s, designers working in set over two banks of two deep the Art Deco style also responded to the drawers. W:120cm (48in). S&K demand for integrated interiors. They aimed to make a bold visual statement whilst also providing comfort. French Art Deco designers created luxurious suites of furniture. Each piece of furniture was embellished with a sumptuous material, such as shagreen or animal skin, lacquer, or an exotic veneer, and matching upholstery. \u00c9mile-Jacques Ruhlmann exhibited a complete set of furniture for the \u201cresidence of a rich art collector\u201d to great acclaim at the 1925 Paris Exhibition. Paul Follot created suites in the 18th-century style and Jules Leleu designed luxury suites for embassies, ministries, and ocean liners. Andr\u00e9 Groult created a spectacular bedroom suite veneered in green galuchat (ray skin) and upholstered in pink satin, which was exhibited as the \u201cChambre de Madame\u201d in the Ambassade Fran\u00e7aise pavilion at the 1925 Paris Exhibition. This extravagant ensemble caused a sensation. FROM ART DECO TO MODERNISM Gentleman\u2019s tall chest of drawers This piece has a Suites of Art Deco furniture were also blind top drawer containing an adjustable mirror, designed in Britain. Betty Joel produced above five graduated drawers. The bottom drawer is room sets in the style of Ruhlmann, while cedar-lined. The chest is flanked by a cedar-lined Syrie Maugham created beige and white hanging compartment. H:140cm (56in). S&K colour schemes featuring mirror glass and silvered wood. It was the more Modernist style that took hold, however. In 1929, Serge Chermayeff designed a comfortable, but practical, suite of living-room furniture for Waring & Gillow. The room featured geometric sofas upholstered in Cubist- inspired patterned fabric, set around a hexagonal coffee table and rug, also decorated with geometric patterns.","THE SUITE 409 1919\u20131940 Bedroom mirror This mirror is one of a pair. It has a simple THE SAVOY HOTEL rectangular design with a gently arched top and bottom, and wooden strips at the sides. W:101cm (39 3\u20444in). S&K This well-appointed room in the Savoy Hotel, London has STREAMLINED GEOMETRY a pastel d\u00e9cor and is complemented by original Art Deco The October 1935 issue of House Beautiful shows an elegant Art Moderne interior on its cover. The red upholstery stands out from furnishings, including the curvaceous bedroom suite. the clean white lines of the curved chairs, which are grouped symmetrically around a rectangular black backgammon table. AMERICAN SUITES In the United States in 1928, at the American Designers\u2019 Gallery, ten designers contributed complete, integrated room sets. Among them was Donald Deskey, who designed a \u201cMan\u2019s Smoking Room\u201d, with elegant, rectilinear furniture, often decorated with geometric motifs, and made from new materials such as chrome-plated steel, glass, and Bakelite. Paul T. Frankl (see p.397) displayed an entire room full of his furniture shaped like miniature skyscrapers at the same exhibition. Also in 1928, at Macy\u2019s department store in New York, Bruno Paul integrated Oriental and Western traditions in his \u201cRoom for a Gentleman\u201d. The Japanese screen-style windows were a perfect complement to the plush armchairs and veneered sideboard. The following year, in Good Furniture magazine, Paul stated that \u201cthe whole interior is more important than any of its parts\u201d. Norman Bel Geddes did much to popularize the American streamlined Art Moderne look. His suites of furniture, characterized by horizontal lines and rounded corners, were frequently made of machine- age materials, such as enamelled metal.","410 ART DECO 1919\u20131940 CHAIRS sumptuous timbers, such as mahogany, rosewood, and macassar ebony, and ART DECO CHAIRS tended to delight in were often decorated with carving or FRENCH DESK CHAIR ENGLISH C-SHAPE ARMCHAIR the taste for comfort and luxury. They inlays of exotic materials, including boast generous proportions and were lacquer, tortoiseshell, sharkskin, and This mahogany desk chair, by Maurice Dufrene, One of a pair of open armchairs, this has made from luxurious and inviting mother-of-pearl. has an arched tub back and padded seat. The prominent, reverse C-shape armrests on squat, materials. Many chairs were designed armrests end in bold scrolls and the seat is sabre legs. The avant-garde Cubist and Futurist as part of a salon suite that included Upholstery played an important part raised on scrolling, tapering legs. c.1920. movements influenced the pattern of the a sofa and several chairs. Whether in Art Deco chair design. Luxurious shaped in clean lines based on materials, such as the finest leather, \u25cfH:71cm (28in); W:66cm (26in). CAL 5 \u25cfupholstery. c.1930. BL 3 traditional forms or in more avant- exotic animal skins, and velour were garde, abstract forms, chairs were used, and vivid colours and geometric created to be both comfortable and or exotic patterns prevailed. The pleasing to the eye. set designs and costumes of Serge Diaghilev\u2019s Ballets Russes, Cubist LUXURY AND EXOTICISM and Fauve paintings, and African, The French designers \u00c9mile-Jacques Oriental, and folk art were all key Ruhlmann, S\u00fce et Mare, and Paul decorative influences. Follot often based their chair designs on 18th-century forms, such as the By the 1930s, many Art Deco chairs berg\u00e8re and the fauteuil \u00e0 la reine. With were designed along more geometric, shaped backs, slender tapering legs abstract lines, with simple contours, terminating in delicate sabots of ivory and were made from new materials, or bronze, and graceful, scrolling arm such as laminated wood, tubular steel, supports, these chairs were made from chromed metal, aluminium, and vinyl. The cream-coloured leather upholstery coupled with the walnut frame creates a sense of opulence. The black-leather trim contrasts dramatically with the broad, cream-coloured surfaces. SWEDISH CLUB CHAIR AMERICAN D-SHAPE CHAIR This Swedish club chair is box-like in shape One of a pair of chairs designed by Paul Frankl, and has rounded, wooden armrests. The back, the armrests are curved and finished in black seat, and sides of the chair are upholstered in lacquer. The seat is upholstered in black vinyl matt black leather with brass rivet details on with red piping. c.1927. H:68cm (263\u20444in); W:61cm (24in); D:76cm (30in). MSM \u25cfthe arms. W:64cm (251\u20444in). LANE 3 The frame is made The box-like shape and FRENCH DINING CHAIR FRENCH NIAGARA CHAIR of walnut \u2013 a richly generous proportions of coloured fruitwood the chair recall the form This elegant tall-backed dining chair is one of One of a set of four, this chair was designed by of the berg\u00e8re. a set of six designed by Maurice Jallot. The Maurice Dufrene. The \u201cNiagara\u201d patterned favoured in the chair is padded and upholstered in red, with upholstery sits within a plain moulded frame, 18th century. corners, and is supported on a square, elliptical detailing, and has tapering, slightly on distinctive, stepped, \u201cfalling water\u201d legs. moulded, block base. The seat and the BRITISH WALNUT CHAIR matching cushion are upholstered in fine \u25cfsplayed legs. 1940s. LM 5 \u25cfH:94cm (37in); W:48.25cm (19in). CAL 6 cream leather and have a contrasting narrow Part of a three-piece suite, this comfortable black-leather trim. The U-shaped frame was a and luxurious armchair was produced by Hille popular feature of many Art Deco pieces of & Co., who were manufacturers of reproduction furniture. The chair has a U-shaped walnut \u25cffurniture. c.1928. W:184cm (721\u20442in). JAZ 5 frame that forms armrests with gently rounded","CHAIRS 411 1919\u20131940 FRENCH ARMCHAIR FRENCH LACQUERED ARMCHAIR FRENCH ARMCHAIR FRENCH MAHOGANY SIDE CHAIR This armchair is one of pair designed by Pol This armchair is one of a pair by Francisque This armchair is one of a pair designed One of a pair, this Jules Leleu chair has an Buthion. It has a chrome and red-lacquered Chaleyssin and is made from black-lacquered by Soubrier. It has an arched back and is arched back, inverted heart base, and stepped, wooden frame and flat paddle arms. The seat wood. The seat, back, and tubular arms are upholstered in a diamond-patterned fabric. scroll arm terminals. The tapering legs and back are upholstered in dark brown fabric. upholstered in brown and beige velvet. The armchair stands on block feet. H:79cm terminate in gilt-bronze sabots. c.1930. \u25cfH:84cm (33in). CSB 6 \u25cfH:85cm (331\u20442in). CSB 5 \u25cf(31in); W:66cm (26in); D:74cm (29in). MOD 6 \u25cfH:73.65cm (29in); W:63.5cm (25in). CAL 6 AMERICAN V-SHAPED CHAIR BRITISH CURVED CHAIR FRENCH DINING CHAIR FRENCH CHAIR One of six mahogany dining chairs designed by Tapering splayed legs support this sycamore This L\u00e9on and Maurice Jallot dining chair has This black-polished and upholstered chair Paul Frankl and produced by Johnson Furniture chair, attributed to Hille and Co. The padded an ebonized frame and legs. The seat and back is one of a pair by Alfred Porteneuve. It has Co., this armchair has a distinctive V-shaped seat and arched tub back are upholstered in a are upholstered in green leather, above sides slender, flattened arms and tapering legs, upholstered back and curved mahogany arm geometrically patterned fabric, with one curving mounted with three chrome rails. c.1930. which end in bronze sabots. 1940s. H:89cm \u25cfrests. H:79cm (31in). FRE 2 \u25cfside. c.1930. H:69cm (271\u20444in). TDG 1 \u25cfH:84cm (33in); W:61cm (24in). CAL 5 \u25cf(35in); W:53.35cm (21in). CAL 6 FRENCH ROSEWOOD CHAIR AMERICAN CHAIR BLACK-LACQUERED CHAIR FRENCH GAMES CHAIR This S\u00fce et Mare rosewood side chair has an This mahogany dining chair is part of a Designed by De Coene Fr\u00e8res, this Belgian One of a pair, this Dominique cherry armchair upholstered arched back above a padded seat. black-lacquered armchair has a framed, square, is late for the period but its square form, The carved frame has feather detailing and the dining suite comprising eight chairs. It has a padded back and seat upholstered in green Aubusson upholstery, and tapering legs are all cabriole legs terminate in scroll feet. c.1925. leather. The armrests are flattened and the Art Deco in style. 1945. H:78.75cm (31in); solid, rectangular back and a padded seat tapering legs terminate in nickel feet. LM \u25cfH:99cm (39in); W:51cm (20in). CAL 5 \u25cfW:61cm (24in). CAL 5 upholstered in striped fabric. The chair is \u25cfsupported on tapering, splayed legs. FRE 3","412 ART DECO 1919\u20131940 tables AFTER WORLD WAR I, designers working were frequently defined by different- FRENCH SIDE TABLE Geometric form in the Art Deco style created tables of coloured lacquers and costly inlays extraordinary richness and originality, of foil and mother-of-pearl. This rosewood side table, designed by Michel Maker\u2019s label continuing the Art Nouveau tradition Dufet, is composed of geometric forms, which whole table is supported on a lipped tray base. in a less flamboyant manner. BOLD INNOVATIONS are characteristic of the Art Deco style. The Furniture designers who favoured the Modernist The furniture designers who followed circular rosewood surface has a glass top, and thread of the Art Deco style created all kinds of TRADITIONAL FORMS a more Modernist Art Deco path, such is placed on two rectangular supports. The tables with strong geometric outlines, including Many Art Deco furniture designers as Marcel Coard and Pierre Chareau interlocking circles, triangles, and cubes. c.1930. based their designs on traditional table in France, and Donald Deskey in the forms, such as the early oak trestle United States, made tables for a \u25cfH:59.5cm (231\u20442in). CAL 6 table and the drop-leaf designs of the wide variety of uses in bold geometric 18th century. They used richly figured shapes, such as cubes, cylinders, timbers, such as walnut, yew, and and pyramids. They used innovative mahogany, and decorated their tables materials characteristic of the machine with crossbanding in exotic woods, age, including mirror glass, chrome, such as ebony and tulip wood. and tubular steel, and interpreted traditional forms, such as the tilt-top \u00c9mile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Jules table with great ingenuity. Leleu created writing tables, dressing tables, and pier tables that echoed the Pierre Legrain combined luxurious forms favoured by the French \u00e9b\u00e9nistes and machine-age materials with of the 18th and 19th centuries. They severity of form in a striking low table used exotic materials, such as lacquer entitled \u201cPython\u201d, which he designed and expensive wood veneers, and their in 1928 for Pierre Meyer. Made entirely tables often featured decorative details, of wood, the long, rectangular top and such as drawer pulls of ivory, slender two supports are entirely sheathed in legs terminating in sabots of gilded snakeskin. The supports fit into a bronze, and table tops covered with rectangular base, which is the mirror leather, sharkskin, or marble. image of the top, but is veneered in nickel plate. Two nickel-plated ovoid The Irish-born designer Eileen Gray discs encircle the square supports, designed finely crafted and exquisitely completing the symmetry of the design. lacquered tables whose abstract shapes The stepped top of the The octagonal shape of The substantial apron OCCASIONAL TABLE WALNUT TABLE table is a distinctive Art the table top is adds strength to the Deco feature. innovative and striking. table design. This 12-sided table is decorated all over This geometric occasional table is made from with mirrors to create an unusual, completely walnut and has an octagonal, crossbanded top mirrored surface. The table top is supported by that is raised on a rectangular column. The slightly tapering square legs. c.1930. W:51cm column is centred on a square, spreading base. \u25cf(20in). L&T 1 \u25cfH:55cm (22in). L&T 1 The central support links the two table legs. The overhanging top is The two box-shaped table reminiscent of early trestle legs replace the usual four and refectory tables. supports at either end. BRITISH DINING TABLE with block feet, connected to each other by a FRENCH MAHOGANY TABLE MIRROR TABLE rectangular panel, support the table top. The This solid, architectural table is from a table crossbanding around the edge and the thick This Lucie Renaudot rosewood, mahogany, and This table is made from walnut and has a and six chair set designed by H&L Epstein. inlaid band of crossbanding across the table ivory-inlaid side table, has a circular top with circular top, attached to tapering square legs Made from walnut, the table top is octagonal in top add a subtle but decorative touch to the ivory dentil edging. The stepped, square-section that support the whole table. The table top is shape, with black-lacquered banding running distinctive markings of the walnut veneer. legs are united by a square undertier. c.1925. covered with a mirrored surface. c.1930. around the edge. Two rectangular block legs \u25cfc.1935. W:183cm (72in). JAZ 6 \u25cfH:68.5cm (27in); D:59.5cm (231\u20442in). CAL 6 \u25cfD:58.5cm (23in). TDG 1","TABLES 413 1919\u20131940 BELGIAN LYRE CONSOLE TABLE BELGIAN COFFEE TABLE FRENCH U-SHAPED TABLE Designed by De Coene Fr\u00e8res, this Belgian lyre console table This rosewood coffee table, designed by De Coene Fr\u00e8res, is This graceful French side table has a rectangular top with a stands on a lipped tray base. The base supports a highly veneered in walnut and has two legs made of chrome tubing. stepped edge. It is supported by a tulip-shaped structure, rather polished lyre-shaped frame, a popular feature of the Art Deco Two crossed, lipped tray bases support the U-shaped structure. than conventional legs, with decorative chrome detailing at the style. The frame in turn supports a narrow, rectangular table top. The chrome tubular legs reinforce the rectangular table top, base. The table has been restored and piano varnished, hence its glossy black appearance. c.1930. SWT \u25cfc.1930. H:75cm (291\u20442in). LM 3 \u25cfwhich has rounded corners. c.1930. H:62cm (241\u20442in). LM 3 BRITISH DRUM TABLE BRITISH QUARTETTO TABLE CHROMIUM TABLE MAPLE CONSOLE TABLE This sturdy oak drum occasional table is The quartetto table is designed by H&L Epstein This chromium-plated occasional table has This console table has a maple top with a designed in the style of Betty Joel. A broad and is made from burr maple. The set of four a circular top inset with a black glass panel moulded mahogany edge, and a single drawer central oak cylinder supports three circular small tables of graduated size nest together above three curved supports. The supports at the front. The two U-shaped supports are table tops, each arranged one above the other. and are supported on square legs. c.1930. are attached to a circular ebonized base on united by a stretcher beneath and have arched \u25cfc.1935. D:61cm (24in). TGD 2 \u25cfH:56cm (22in); D:76cm (30in). JAZ 3 \u25cfflattened bun feet. H:51cm (20in). L&T 1 \u25cffeet. W:94cm (37in). FRE 1 AMERICAN DINING TABLE incorporates three V-shaped slats. The robust, DINING TABLE that accompany the dining table have solid architectural nature of this piece is typical of backs with upholstered seats. The graceful This extension dining table, designed by Paul Paul Frankl\u2019s furniture designs, which reflected This elegant dining table is part of a table interaction of interlocking arcs and rectangles Frankl, has a white rectangular gesso top with trends in contemporary architecture. The chevron and eight chair set. The table has a simple adds a powerful three-dimensional and gently bowed edges and two 30.5cm- (12in-) pattern of the supports is reminiscent of key rectangular top, with pull-out extensions. A distinctively avant-garde element to the shape long leaves that rest on two curved mahogany design elements on the Chrysler Building (see pedestal base, with two C-shaped supports, of the conventional rectangular dining table. supports. Each of the mahogany supports carries the solid table top. The eight chairs \u25cfp.387). H:73.65cm (29in). FRE 3 \u25cfW:156cm (611\u20442in). FRE 3","414 ART DECO 1919\u20131940 cabinets bouquets appeared sparingly. Drawer pulls were defined by their contrasting THE CLEAN LINES and geometric shapes shapes or finishing material. Decorative BRITISH DISPLAY CABINET BRITISH DISPLAY CABINET of Art Deco cabinets gave free reign motifs were created from rare and to the prevailing taste for luxurious expensive materials, such as ivory, This stylized display cabinet is veneered in This unusual display cabinet, possibly veneered finishes. The cocktail cabinet made shagreen, tortoiseshell, and wrought walnut. The upper section of the cabinet is in walnut, is carried on two, deeply grooved its first appearance in the jazz age. iron. Oriental lacquerwork in strong circular in form, with two glazed doors enclosing triangular supports that resemble a fish\u2019s fins. Featuring mirrored interiors and door colours was also used by some cabinet- two glazed shelves. The cabinet is raised upon The cabinet itself is circular and has two panels, it contained enough shelving makers, especially Jean Dunand and a panelled base and has block feet. H:109cm minimally decorated glass doors, which to house all the accoutrements for Eileen Gray. making cocktails. \u25cf(43in); W:187cm (73 1\u20442in). L&T 1 \u25cfenclose four wooden shelves. BW 1 CLEAN LINES REFINED OPULENCE Furniture-makers working in the French furniture designers, such Modernist strand of Art Deco, such as Paul Follot and Emile-Jacques as Sidney Barnsley in Britain and Paul Ruhlmann, created cabinets that Frankl and Eliel Saarinen in the were veneered in a wide range of United States, created streamlined exotic timbers, including amboyna, cabinets in geometric shapes. These bird\u2019s-eye maple, mahogany, zebrawood, designers still used lacquerwork and rosewood, and sycamore, which were exotic veneers, but they combined admired for their distinctive markings them with modern materials, such and lustrous sheen. Understated and as Bakelite, mirror glass, and tubular refined decorative features adorned steel. Ivory, metal, and chrome were their cabinets. Crossbanding was used used to provide decorative details. as edging along the top of a cabinet and delicate marquetry flower The stepped top of the The cabinet is veneered The rectangular shape of cabinet is a distinctive with coromandel, an the cabinet recalls 18th- Art Deco feature. unusual variety of ebony. century French commodes. BELGIAN SIDEBOARD doors with understated bronze handles, and the whole piece is raised on short, circular This Belgian sideboard is crafted from bronze feet. The clean-lined, geometric shape mahogany, and veneered with rosewood. The of the piece is complemented by the distinctive shape recalls the forms of late 18th-century vertical figure of the lustrous rosewood veneer commodes. The minimalist design of this used all over the case. c.1935. W:235cm rectangular sideboard consists of two simple \u25cf(94in). SWT 5 The handles are painted red to look like lacquerwork. The bracket feet are similar to those on late 17th- and 18th-century case furniture. BRITISH SIDE CABINET is a central drawer and the main cabinet, which BRITISH SIDEBOARD pull-out drawers are slightly protruding, arching has two doors. Two cabinets compose the outer outwards. The strongly marked, distinctive figure This rectangular side cabinet, flanked with sides. The bracket feet and the door and drawer This sideboard, designed by M.P. Davis of of the mahogany veneer gives the geometric a further two slim cabinets, is veneered with handles are painted red, the only obvious form London, is crafted in bleached mahogany. The sideboard a rich opulence that needs no coromandel, a variety of ebony sometimes of decoration. The cabinet was designed by three central drawers are flanked by two side additional ornament \u2013 a characteristic common known as zebrawood because of its distinctive Whytock and Reid of Edinburgh. H:77cm cabinets, of a slightly lower height, which have of much Art Deco furniture. c.1929. H:96cm striped markings. Below the stepped top, there small, circular mahogany handles. The central \u25cf(30 1\u20443in); W:140cm (55in). L&T 1 \u25cf(38in); W:162cm (64in). JAZ 3","CABINETS 415 1919\u20131940 FRENCH SIDE CABINET FRENCH COMMODE BURLED MAPLE CONSOLE This side cabinet is made from mahogany, with Designed by S\u00fce et Mare, this rectilinear, mahogany-veneered commode This rectangular burr maple console has four centrally placed drawers amboyna veneering and a stylized ebony inlay. is a good example of their understated yet luxurious style. The two cabinet with nickled brass handles. These are flanked by a pair of cupboard The three drawers have circular metal handles doors have subtly stylized circular handles, and the legs and the lower doors with circular wooden handles. The whole console is supported on and the whole cabinet is raised on tall, edge of the cabinet are lightly embellished with carving. The cabinet is two rectangular side panels. Beneath the cupboards and drawers there cylindrical, tapering legs. c.1935. H:78cm raised on four slightly tapering, moulded legs. c.1919. H:89cm (35in); is a lower shelf that connects the two side panel supports. (31in); W:46.5cm (18 1\u20443in); D:32cm (13in). SWT \u25cfW:114.3cm (45in). LM 5 \u25cfW:119.4cm (47in). FRE 1 BRITISH WALNUT SIDEBOARD SWEDISH SIDEBOARD This sideboard, designed by Whytock and Reid of Edinburgh, has a This Swedish sideboard is made from birch, a popular light timber native to rectangular crossbanded top, above an ornate, relief-carved cupboard Scandinavia, with ebony and burr ash details. It has two cupboards with door. Burr walnut doors flank the cupboard door, and the whole sideboard simple rectangular handles, short cabriole legs, and moulded, splayed stands upon shaped legs with moulded feet. H:85cm (33 1\u20442in); W:182cm feet. The centrally placed, geometric, dark wooden motif is influenced by \u25cf(712\u20443in); D:63cm (25in). L&T 3 \u25cfAsian decorative motifs. c.1930. W:150cm (59in). LANE 4 FRENCH SIDEBOARD of chrome and a central circular feature. BRITISH SIDEBOARD slatted-wood design. Two more cupboards with This mahogany sideboard is a good example The whole sideboard is raised on a pedestal Designed by H&L Epstein, this fine rectangular moulded oblong wooden handles flank the of French Art Deco, with its simple elegant maple sideboard has rounded corners and a forms, rectilinear design, and high standard block base. It is typical of Art Deco styling in stepped top. The central section is made up central section of the sideboard. The whole of craftsmanship. The cabinet has four cabinet of two drawers with circular, moulded handles doors, decorated with narrow horizontal bands combining fine woodwork with chrome details. above a cupboard with a decorative vertical, sideboard is set on a block base. c.1935. \u25cfc.1925. W:165cm (65in). JAZ 3 \u25cfH:104cm (41in); W:152cm (60in). JAZ 3","","Modernism 1925-1945","1925\u20131945418 MODERNISM A new age World war I and the rise of industry and Cantilever armchair This tubular-steel technology brought about radical changes in frame supports a cane seat and back. society that were reflected in modern design. 1927. Re-issued by Tecta in 2004. H:79cm (31in); W:48cm (19in); THE EFFECTS OF World War I on the nations of became an integrated part of civilized societies, D:74cm (29in). TEC Europe and North America were considerable. although many still resented its existence. Allied People were psychologically scarred by the to the march of industry were the technological an unprecedented amount of free time. The atrocities of the war, and the economies of many breakthroughs that occurred during this era: the prospect of national and international travel also countries were in ruins. Homelessness, too, car, the telephone, electricity, and air travel all became more realistic, and a spirit of adventure proved a major problem, as bombs had destroyed became relatively common aspects of daily life. took hold of many people\u2019s imaginations. large areas of housing. Indeed, such was the devastation that many had witnessed, it was Such rapid and momentous advancements This optimism was short-lived, however, as inevitable that some would question the cultural inevitably had their side effects. For many, this the interwar years were also a time of economic values that had caused the war in the first place. progress was seen as a licence to dream of a turmoil. In 1926, Britain was rocked by the It is no coincidence, then, that the period after new, utopian future, while for others, it was General Strike, while the Wall Street crash of World War I saw some of the most radical a worrying sign of moral degeneration. 1929 ushered in the Great Depression in the cultural shifts the world had seen in centuries. United States. By the mid 1930s, poverty was Mass production, in particular, was changing a grave concern. A sense of disillusionment The interwar years must be considered a new society and was a direct cause of the growth of descended across Europe and North America, as dawn, too, in terms of industry. During the the leisure industry. Mass production meant it became clear that widespread industrialization years leading up to World War II, industry cheaper products, and long days of labour was not the panacea some had painted it to be. became increasingly unnecessary, giving many This increasingly sour climate proved the ideal breeding ground for extremist political parties. Promising to bring drastic change to the everyday lives of citizens, these parties took advantage of the economic instability and uncertainty that many felt in the face of cultural changes brought on by the rise of industry and technology. The National Socialist Party of Germany would, of course, prove the most powerful of these factions, as it was Adolf Hitler\u2019s rise to power in the 1930s that eventually sparked World War II. Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine This is an early and classic example of Modern architecture. Typical of what became known as the International Style are the strip windows, flat roof and deck, and rectilinear lines of the design. Designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. 1929\u201330. TIMELINE 1925\u20131945 1925 Le Corbusier presents a one-party state under Benito economy. Ludwig 1929\u201333 Alvar Aalto creates a Mies van der Rohe Pavilion de l\u2019Esprit Nouveau Mussolini. General Strike in Britain. completes the range of fittings for the at the Exposition des Arts German pavilion at the D\u00e9coratifs et Industriels Modernes 1927 The first transatlantic Exposici\u00f3n Internacional Paimio Sanatorium. in Paris. Chromium becomes in Barcelona. Die Wohnung commercially available. Marcel Breuer telephone call is made. An electronic exhibition in Stuttgart is 1930 The Swedish designs his first tubular-steel chair. organized by Deutscher Josef Stalin comes to power in USSR. television system is developed in the Werkbund. The Functionalism exhibition US. Charles Lindbergh makes the Museum of Modern is held in Stockholm 1925\u201326 The Bauhaus moves from Art (MoMA) opens first solo flight across the Atlantic. in New York City. and sparks debate. Weimar to Dessau. 1928 Penicillin is discovered 1931 Wohnbedarf store 1926 Mart Stam designs a tubular- by Alexander Flemming. opens in Zurich; the steel cantilever chair. Italy becomes 1929 The Wall Street Crash catalogue gives Modern Josef Stalin cripples the American Paimio chair by Alvar Aalto designs international exposure. Empire State","Interior of the Schroeder House, Utrecht, the Netherlands Built of steel, wood, and concrete, this early Modernist house is a composition of abstract planes. The moveable walls make it possible to transform the upper floor from a single space into a series of rooms. Furnishings and design by Gerrit Rietveld. 1924\u201325. Gerrit Rietveld\u2019s Beugelstoel The chair has a lacquered plywood seat and back, which curves over the aluminium frame to provide stability. 1927. H:59.75cm (231\u20442in); W:40cm (153\u20444in); D:58.5cm (23in). Building is opened. Collapse Hitler becomes German Chancellor. lighting company in Milan, helping to Charles Eames and Eero Franklin D. Roosevelt of banks in Central Europe establish Italy\u2019s reputation as the Saarinen. World\u2019s Fair results in major recession. 1934 Wells Coates designs leader in lighting design. held in New York. 1931\u201332 The Bauhaus London\u2019s Isokon Flats, which 1939 World War II begins. The 1940 Roosevelt become a magnet for Modernists moves to Berlin after the in Britain. \u201cMachine Art\u201d first successful jet aeroplane elected for a third National Socialists force exhibition at MoMA in New York. is flown in Germany. term in office. the school out of Dessau. 1936 SLR camera is developed 1939\u201340 Organic 1942 First nuclear 1933 National Socialist in Germany. Spanish Civil War Design in Home reactor built in USA. Party closes the Bauhaus. begins (ends 1939). Furnishings competition First annual Triennial held at MoMA; designs 1945 United Nations exhibition held in Milan. 1939 Gino Sarfatti include a plywood chair by Empire State Building SLR camera, 1936 is established. World War founds the Arteluce II ends.","420 MODERNISM MODERN DESIGN 19235\u201319405 THE STRIPPED-BACK, EXPOSED STYLE of much this and proposed a style Modern furniture had already been experimented that fearlessly articulated Black-and-white desk The desk\u2019s steel with by designers years before it became common the processes by which case has alternating black-and-white across Europe in the 1930s. Adolf Loos, an Austrian furniture was made. Thus, drawer fronts and a glass top. A chrome architect, wrote his influential text \u201cOrnament and they hoped, mass-produced leg supports the black-stained ash desktop. Crime\u201d as early as 1908, and the designers of the furniture would finally By Marcel Breuer in 1932. Re-issued by Wiener Werkst\u00e4tte (see p.367) produced a few stark, be afforded the dignity Tecta in 2004. H:69cm (27in); W:160cm minimal designs long before the outbreak of World it deserved, especially (63in); D:61cm (24in). TEC War I. These early efforts, however, seem tentative considering the urgent need compared with what followed. In the aftermath of for inexpensive furniture at from the folding furniture found on ocean liners. The the war, many designers gave up decoration for the time. lightness of furniture also became a key feature, as good, developing a severe, anonymous style that the concept of a fluid space filled with multipurpose valued structure over surface. It was in Germany, which furniture made its presence felt. was particularly hard hit by Although the Modernists\u2019 reductionist style was World War I, that the most significant advances When considering the breadth of the innovations certainly intended as an aesthetic affront to what had in furniture design were made in the interwar years. that occurred in furniture design in this era it is worth gone before, it also had more practical aims. It was In an earnest attempt to produce viable prototypes remembering that this was a period of unprecedented a considered attempt by designers to develop a new for industrial production, students and staff at the communication between countries. The telephone and language for industrially manufactured furniture. celebrated Bauhaus school (see p.426) instigated a advances in the travel industry made it easier than ever Previously, manufacturers had preferred to reproduce new approach to design that was mimicked, with before for designers to keep abreast of developments old styles, making their mass-produced furniture varying degrees of success, the world over. elsewhere. The use of tubular steel spread rapidly after rather duplicitously appear hand-crafted. A new the initial experiments made by Marcel Breuer at the MATERIALS OF MASS PRODUCTION Bauhaus in 1925, and, by 1934, some American generation realized It was not only the forms of furniture that came academics were referring to an International Style that the absurdity of under scrutiny from Modernists at the Bauhaus and encompassed developments in architecture and the beyond, but the materials as well. Tubular steel, decorative arts. Of course, each nation developed its Child\u2019s NE60 stool This simple stacking stool is made from lacquered plywood, and plate glass \u2013 all little explored in terms own idiosyncrasies \u2013 the Scandinavians, for instance, birch. The circular, linoleum-covered seat rests on rectangle-section legs of furniture design before 1925 \u2013 were introduced in steered clear of tubular steel, preferring the warmth of that curve in under the seat. Designed by Alvar Aalto for Artek in the interwar years as the materials to take furniture wood in their harsh climates \u2013 but overall it was an 1932\u201333; this example is a re-issue. H:34cm (131\u20443in). forward. Indeed, metal, which had none of the era of standardization, a time when feats of audacious mystical, emotional qualities of wood, soon came craftsmanship became firmly unfashionable. to symbolize the ruthless, reforming character of Modernism. First used by a few pioneers in the late Designers of the interwar years attempted to let 1920s, these materials would eventually become a the processes of manufacturing guide the shapes of common, if controversial, sight across the developed their furniture. The simple, angular shapes of much world by the end of the 1930s. tubular-steel furniture of this period expresses the way it was made, while the more organic lines of As well as throwing up new materials and processes plywood furniture reflect the gentle bending done with which designers could work, the relentless march to produce it. The furniture of Modernist designers, of industrialization also provoked a shift in lifestyles. while certainly ideologically motivated in its rejection Leisure became an increasingly prominent feature of of all that their predecessors held dear, was also family life and, as such, the formality and structure largely inspired by nothing more radical than mere of day-to-day existence began to loosen. Designers common sense. responded by concentrating increasingly on lounge chairs aimed not only at the affluent elite, but also at the working classes. Chaises longues became increasingly popular and designers took inspiration THE CHAISE LONGUE users lie on their backs, not sideways. Modernists were A couch on wheels This chaise longue by Marcel smitten with the idea of healthy living, and chaises Breuer has a chrome frame and cane seat. In the 1920s and 30s almost all the major Modernist longues were in vogue due to their association with c.1928\u201330. This is a 2004 Tecta designers created a chaise longue. Mies van der Rohe, sanatoriums and bracing ocean-liner voyages. re-issue. H:63cm (24 3\u20444in); L:186cm Walter Gropius, and Alvar Aalto all produced their take (731\u20444in); D:61cm (24in). TEC on the chaise longue (which means long chair). Le Corbusier designed his B306 chaise longue with Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, while Marcel Breuer produced versions in tubular steel, plywood, and aluminium. He even made one with wheels, to be dragged outside when it was sunny. Originating in 16th-century France, the chaise longue differs from the day bed, or r\u00e9camier, in that","MODERN DESIGN 421 EASY CHAIR The seat is made of canvas, The chair\u2019s structure is 19325\u201319405 a material that had previously exposed, allowing the The forms, materials, and mechanisms of industry been used exclusively for portable sitter to see how the provided significant inspiration for all designers military or nautical furniture. of the Modern era, but never is this more apparent chair was made. than in the work of Jean Prouv\u00e9. The fauteuil de grand repos, or easy chair, created by the French The long, sloping back designer in 1928 almost appears to be ripped from of the chair gives it an the interior of a car, plane, or train. The long, low unexpected elegance. shape of the chair, too, reminds one even more of a form of vehicle. Never one to spare a thought for Padded armrests offer those with more delicate aesthetic sensibilities, Prouv\u00e9 additional comfort. produced furniture as if he were building a functional machine. The crudely sprung adjustable seat is proof that Prouv\u00e9 thought primarily on a practical level, using whatever means necessary to make the chair comfortable. First shown to the public in 1930 at an exhibition of work by the members of the UAM (Union des Artistes Modernes), the fauteuil de grand repos has recently been refined by the Tecta furniture company in Germany and put back on the market. Steel armrests provide leverage when sitters push the seat forward or pull it back. Obscured ball bearings allow the seat to move back to a reclining position. Springs beneath the seat Side sections are of varnished A bar at the rear of the provide comfort and also steel, a material borrowed chair provides the structure ease the seat\u2019s movement. from the automobile industry. with added strength. Jean Prouv\u00e9\u2019s fauteuil de grand repos The chair is made from varnished steel. It is upholstered with horse hair and covered in canvas. The seat is adjustable. 1930. H:94cm (37in); W:68cm (26 3\u20444in); D:108cm (42 1\u20442in).","422 MODERNISM ELEMENTS OF STYLE 1925\u20131945 There is the sense that the Modern era of furniture was a period of cleansing the palette. Furniture forms became Wooden frame and upholstered armrest Tubular-steel chair remarkably stark after World War I, with stylistic flourishes occurring only very rarely and even then with great Plain surfaces Tubular steel understatement. The skills of the hand-craftsman became increasingly marginalized as designers fell in awe of the In their constant effort to align their The strength, affordability, and capabilities of the machine. The arrival of new technologies work with industrial methods of pliability of tubular steel made and new materials in the field of furniture design also gave production, Modernist designers it the ideal material for Modern rise to new forms and techniques that soon spread across almost entirely abandoned the furniture. The fact that it produced Europe and North America. Particular emphasis, too, was notion of surface decoration on their such lightweight furniture was also placed on lowering the cost of furniture production, as furniture. The decreasing use of solid of crucial importance at a time when World War I had left many countries economically shattered. wood, too, dictated the decline in many people had lost their homes Furniture acquired a lean quality in the Modern era that had decorative carving and ushered in in World War I and were living in never been seen before, and has never been seen since. an era of streamlined simplicity. temporary housing. Starburst-patterned table Birch While many Modernist designers adopted the new-found materials of the industrial age \u2013 glass and metal \u2013 some, particularly in Scandinavia, turned to birch, which suited the fashion for light-coloured furniture. Birch is lightweight and easily stripped into layers, so is ideal for plywood. Chrome-plated legs and armrests Armrest made of bent plywood Chrome-plating Bent plywood While surface decoration may have Plywood is made by bonding thin been outlawed by Modern designers, strips of wood together. When it many of them were drawn to the shiny is softened by steam, plywood can effect of chrome-plating on the dull easily be bent. It is inherently more surface of tubular steel. Americans, flexible than solid wood and was in particular, were enamoured with adopted by Modernist designers who the technique of chrome-plating and recognized that it could eradicate the used it to dazzling effect in their need for numerous joints on a piece furniture designs. of furniture.","ELEMENTS OF STYLE 423 1925\u20131945 Detail of buttoned-leather seat back Detail of tubular-steel chair frame Heavy plate-glass table top Structure of seat back in plain view Leather and hide Curvaceous lines Glass Exposed structures Leather was much appreciated in the The process of producing both Glass appealed to furniture designers With surface decoration considered Modern era for its versatility and ready tubular-steel and plywood furniture of the Modern era because of its superfluous, the structure of Modern availability; as such, it became a very often involves a great deal of bending, associations with both architecture furniture became all-important, for popular material and was widely used especially if one is attempting to avoid and industry. Its transparency, and stylistic as well as functional reasons. by furniture designers. Hides were welding or joining. Allowing this thus its integrity, was appreciated too \u2013 Designers equated exposed structure often employed to add an exotic action to inform the shapes of their as was the fact that glass could provide with integrity and rationality and saw element of to furniture designs, furniture, many Modernist designers the sort of clean, concise lines that the stripped-back style as a way to particularly when designers were trying created works that incorporated many furniture designers wanted minimize the use of costly materials to appeal to more affluent clients. flowing, curvaceous lines. to create. and create an egalitarian style of design. Cantilevered chair base Chair back and seat of woven cane Boldly coloured, geometric cradle Detail of black leather headrest and seat Cantilevering Cane Geometric forms Black Cantilevered chairs, which did away Of all the pre-Modern furniture admired In an era when many designers were In an effort to distance themselves with the accepted notion that a chair by Modernist designers, none received seeking to align themselves with from the decorative designs of their need to have four legs, were the most more praise than the mid 19th-century industry and steer clear of whimsical predecessors, many Modernist designers obvious expression of the reductionist work of Michael Thonet (see p.284). associations with nature, it seemed an abolished colour from their furniture. tendencies of the Modernist style. The Many adopted Thonet\u2019s use of cane, obvious move to employ geometric The use of black deflected attention sinuous shape of a cantilevered chair recognizing it as lightweight and forms. The use of geometric shapes, away from the furniture\u2019s surface to its also achieved the purity of form that inexpensive. The decorative effect of often rendered in primary colours, structure. Black leather was a favourite, many Modernist designers were cane is expressive of its construction, was also a response to the new forms and plywood was often painted to hide constantly striving to create. which also appealed to Modernists. of abstract art of the time. the wood\u2019s grain.","424 MODERNISM 1925\u20131945 GERRIT RIETVELD known for modern classics such as his famous Red-and- Blue chair and zig-zag chair, Dutchman gerrit rietveld was one of the most influential designers of the 20th century. GERRIT RIETVELD WAS BORN the son of a GERRIT RIETVELD The CRATE DESK This desk is part of a range of furniture that also cabinet-maker in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in designer and architect is included an easy chair, a table, a bookcase, and a stool. It is 1888. His early years, working in his father\u2019s preoccupied with a model of made of identical strips of pine, which have been fixed together workshop and as a goldsmith\u2019s draughtsman, his design for the Schroeder and painted white. By Metz & Co. 1934. H:71cm (28in); W:100cm gave no indication that he would later House. Built in 1924, the become one of the most influential and house conforms to De Stijl (39 1\u20442in); D:59.5cm (23 1\u20442in). uncompromising furniture designers of the ideals. The walls on the 20th century. Initially, he planned to become upper floor of the house can a painter, but pressing financial needs and the all be removed to make a birth of the first of his six children in 1913 single space, rather than a pushed him to take up the family profession. number of rooms. Rietveld designed not only the house, Even as the first works emerged from but also the furnishing Rietveld\u2019s furniture studio, he appeared to that went in it. be producing pieces reluctantly. The chairs seemed defiantly inelegant when compared ZIG-ZAG CHAIR This cantilevered END TABLE This end table to those of his contemporaries, and even chair is made from four rectangles of consists of four sheets Rietveld himself referred to his furniture oak held together with nuts and bolts. of lacquered wood. The works as \u201cstudies\u201d. If we look at Rietveld\u2019s celebrated The seat and back are dovetailed asymmetry of the table\u2019s Red-and-Blue chair, of which an early, unpainted and the zig-zags are reinforced with design, with the square version was made in 1918, it certainly has the wedges. 1934. H:70.5cm (27 3\u20444in); table top above two end-on appearance of being unfinished \u2013 as if the rectangular sheets of wood chair is waiting to have the overlapping bars W:37cm (14 3\u20444in); D:37cm (14 3\u20444in). BonE and the circular base, gives of its structure cut down to size. the piece a precarious look, and yet the pieces are well MONDRIAN ET AL balanced and the table It was the startling nature of Rietveld\u2019s designs that perfectly stable. Designed for brought him to the attention of a radical group of the Schroeder House. 1924. artists, architects, and thinkers who went by the name of De Stijl. Led by Piet Mondrian and Theo van H:58cm (223\u20444in); W:50cm (19 3\u20444in); Doesburg, De Stijl expressed \u201ca new spirit\u201d, one that overlooked the charms of nature in favour of a D:50cm (19 3\u20444in). rigorous, abstract approach to design. Rietveld, in turning his back on refined hand- craftsmanship, clearly intrigued Mondrian and van Doesburg. On seeing Rietveld\u2019s work, van Doesburg proclaimed that it held a particular form of beauty, an \u201cunspeaking elegance like that of a machine\u201d. Rietveld\u2019s work, unlike that of his contemporaries, articulated only its construction and made no attempt to seduce by aping natural forms. So closely did this approach mirror the aims of De Stijl that it is often assumed that Rietveld constructed the Red-and-Blue chair, and other similar works, whilst a member of De Stijl. Indeed, this chair is often described as \u201ca 3-D Mondrian painting\u201d: the strong line definitions and geometric shapes of the seat and back suggest that they are merely fragments of a larger structure that continues beyond the actuality of the","GERRIT RIETVELD 425 Mondrian chair. This similarity with Mondrian\u2019s work, however, 1925\u20131945 was entirely serendipitous. Although it was his AS A LEADING MEMBER OF THE DE STIJL GROUP, PIET MONDRIAN LAID DOWN MANY OF THE FOUNDATIONS contact with De Stijl designers that prompted FOR THE GROUP, WHICH PROMOTED A RIGOROUS, ABSTRACT APPROACH TO ART AND DESIGN. Rietveld, in 1923, to paint the Red-and-Blue chair in red, black, yellow, and blue, he came up with the The De Stijl group, of which Gerrit Rietveld was a Large Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow, 1928. Oil on chair\u2019s form independently. member, is probably best recognized today by the canvas. Piet Mondrian. Stefan T. Edlis Collection. \u00a9 2005 geometric paintings of Piet Mondrian. Where Rietveld, Mondrian\/Holzman Trust c\/o HCR International, Warrenton, In 1924, by this time a committed member of De who was working in his father\u2019s furniture workshop Virginia, USA. 1928. H:123cm (481\u20442in); W:80cm (311\u20442in). Stijl, Rietveld completed his first major architectural at the age of 12, was essentially a practical man, work, the Schroeder house in Utrecht. It was a Mondrian was more cerebral. In 1917, inspired by the Rietveld\u2019s Red-and-Blue chair This is the three- building based on strict De Stijl principles. Curves Cubist work he had seen in France, Mondrian wrote dimensional equivalent of Mondrian\u2019s art. Designed of any sort were absent, and the house became \u201cAbstraction as Representation of the Pure Spirit\u201d. It was in 1918 mostly for visual effect, it is made from something of a celebration of \u201cthe tensed line\u201d, a dense, polemical text that laid the foundations for the dyed pine wood and plywood. This example is by which, according to Mondrian, \u201cmost purely De Stijl movement, which was started in the same year. Cassina. c.1980. H:101.5cm (40in); W:53cm expresses immutability, strength, and vastness\u201d. (20 1\u20442 in); D:68.5cm (27in). BonBay Although Mondrian was always clear that the \u201cnew Almost all the furniture and fittings for the house spirit\u201d of De Stijl should be \u201cmanifested in all the arts were designed by Rietveld, and it is interesting that without exception\u201d, he was, understandably, concerned among them were some tubular-steel chairs. The primarily with painting. Mondrian stressed repeatedly dining chairs owe a clear debt to the tubular-steel in his writings, and expressed in his pictures, the belief designs of Marcel Breuer (see p.434). Breuer is known that a painting should \u201caim to express equilibrium and to have greatly admired the work of Rietveld, to the harmony as purely as possible\u201d (his italics). By \u201cpurely\u201d, extent that he adopted the Dutchman\u2019s geometric he meant without recourse to the representation of approach to chair design when tackling the Wassily nature. A painting of a tree, he argued, was primarily chair, his first work in tubular steel. It is intriguing, enjoyed as a harmonious composition of colour and then, to see Rietveld follow the younger man with line, so why paint a tree when you can paint pure colour and line instead? metal designs of his own. Mondrian called this approach \u201ca new plasticity\u201d, A RETURN TO WOOD and with it he attempted to express a standardized, Rietveld\u2019s experiments with bent tubular steel universal beauty of the sort rarely found in what he were short-lived, and he soon returned to his described as the capricious world of nature. Mondrian\u2019s favoured medium of wood. In 1932, inspired once writings \u2013 and paintings, too \u2013 clearly emboldened his again by Breuer, and by the work of Dutch architect fellow De Stijl members and clarified for many of them Mart Stam, Rietveld designed a wooden cantilever the way in which they should go forward. Rietveld, in chair. He approached the problem of the cantilever particular, gained direction and momentum from the chair in a typically no-nonsense style, resulting in the ideas of Piet Mondrian, and without his input would stark forms of the Zig-Zag chair. Despite having such have certainly left a far fainter impression on the history a severe, angular silhouette, the Zig-Zag chair still of Modern design. manages to charm, thanks to its sheer simplicity. In the 1930s, the Dutch economy was in a seemingly endless slump and, in response, Rietveld produced a series of low-cost furniture designs. Never one to err on the side of luxury, Rietveld\u2019s 1934 range of Crate furniture appears amazingly minimalist even by today\u2019s standards. Some of his most avid supporters took their time to appreciate these rudimentary designs. \u201cA crate represents a method of carpentry aimed straight at its goal\u201d, Rietveld argued, \u201cand the plain materials of which it is composed often make it stronger than its precious contents.\u201d Consisting of a desk, a stool, a bookcase, a low table, and an easy chair, Rietveld\u2019s Crate collection was, perhaps, his most explicit snub to the craftsman\u2019s skills he learned as a boy. During the 1940s and 50s, Rietveld continued to work in the raw, reductionist idiom that he had established. By this time, however, design had somewhat overtaken him and, while he created exceptional pieces (many still in production today), he rarely made the impact that he had in his earlier career. In 1954, Rietveld designed the Dutch pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, and in 1963 started work on the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. A year later, though, he was to die in his hometown of Utrecht, leaving behind him a remarkable legacy.","426 MODERNISM 1925\u20131945 BAUHAUS During its short lifespan, the bauhaus became the most important design school of the modern Era, and its ideas continue to resonate. NO NAME LOOMS LARGER in the history of Modern WASSILY CHAIR This chair has a bent, furniture than that of the Bauhaus. Founded by Walter tubular-steel frame, leather slings for the Gropius in Weimar, Germany, in 1919 and dismantled back, seat, and armrests, and a sled base. by the Nazis in 1933, this avante-garde school for art, Designed by Marcel Breuer, this lightweight architecture, and design was the most important chair was revolutionary in its use of industrial institution of the era. Now known for its severe, materials. 1925. H:72cm (281\u20443in); W:79cm industrial aesthetic, the Bauhaus was, in its early days, concerned with crafts. It was Gropius\u2019s radical idea that (31 1\u20448in); D:70cm (271\u20442in). SDR the School contain many disciplines, all of equal status. \u201cLet us create a new guild of craftsmen without the class distinctions\u201d, he wrote. The \u201cbuilding of the future will combine architecture, sculpture, and painting in a single form...and will one day rise towards the heavens from the hands of a million workers as the crystalline symbol of a new and coming faith.\u201d This spiritual rallying cry was reflected in the teachings of the most important tutor of the School\u2019s early years, Johannes Itten. Itten initiated a preliminary course for newcomers that became the precursor to the the bauhaus building WALTER GROPIUS\u2019S VISION FOR THE BAUHAUS \u2013 TO ALIGN ART WITH INDUSTRY \u2013 IS REFLECTED IN THE BAUHAUS BUILDING IN DESSAU. In 1925, having been forced out of their original location in Weimar for political reasons, the Bauhaus moved to Dessau. This change mirrored a shift in the School\u2019s outlook, with director Walter Gropius now wanting to cast the Bauhaus as a research centre dedicated to producing prototypes for industry. To reinforce this point, he and Adolf Meyer designed a building for the Bauhaus that borrowed heavily from the architecture of factories. Gone was any evidence of the hand-craftsmanship or decorative touches that Walter Gropius had adorned the first building designed under the umbrella of the Bauhaus (the wooden Haus Sommerfeld, built in 1921). Instead, the new building used vast expanses of industrial- looking glass and steel. The word Bauhaus appeared on the fa\u00e7ade in the new Universal typeface, designed by Herbert Bayer, a Bauhaus tutor. Before the Dessau building was erected, the Bauhaus had achieved a certain degree of recognition throughout the world, although it was nothing compared to the attention it received after the building went up. Walter Gropius\u2019s and Adolf Meyer\u2019s design proved to people that the Bauhaus meant business, and was not just another idealistic art school. Sadly, the Nazis closed the School in 1933, and the building fell into disrepair, only being renovated in recent years. Gropius\u2019s and Meyer\u2019s industrial-looking masterpiece for the Bauhaus School The dominant feature of this building was its steel-and-glass fa\u00e7ade. It Form study This is a Bauhaus model for a building was testament to the Bauhaus belief that form should follow function. proposal during the Weimar years. c.1920. MOD","BAUHAUS 427 foundation courses now found at all art schools. 1925\u20131945 Students were taught the value of interdisciplinary ADJUSTABLE TABLE This painted study and allowed to experiment in new areas. ash table, designed by Erich Brendel at Bauhaus Weimar, has four flaps In 1923, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy joined the and additional foldable tops stored Bauhaus. The Hungarian had little time for within the table base, making it possible to extend the table in a mystical idealism and encouraged Gropius number of ways. A shelf sits within to adopt a practical approach. Gropius the base and the table stands on received similar advice from Theo van casters. First designed in 1924, the Doesburg, a De Stijl founder, who table was re-issued by Tecta in 1985. suggested that the machine be adopted by architects H:71cm (28in); W:56\/147cm (22\/58in); and designers, as crafts were becoming outdated. D:56\/147cm (22\/58in). TEC Gropius\u2019s chance to redefine the Bauhaus came in The hemispherical shape 1924, when the School moved to Dessau. He launched is in keeping with the the new-look Bauhaus in 1926 under the banner of simple forms of the \u201cArt and Technology: A New Unity\u201d. Students worked lamp. in laboratories, not workshops, creating prototypes for industrial production. The aim was \u201cthe methodical The prominent use removal of anything that is unnecessary\u201d, and so the of metal gives look that we now associate with the Bauhaus was born. the lamp an DESK LAMP An opaque glass globe sits at PIONEERS IN DESIGN industrial look. the top of a nickel-plated metal column and At this time, Gropius also took the bold step of asking base. Simple in its design, this lamp became his most talented students to become tutors. Perhaps known as the Bauhaus lamp, so closely did it the most important of these was Marcel Breuer, whose embody the theories of the School. Designed pioneering work with tubular steel revolutionized the by Wilhelm Wagenfeld. 1923. H:36cm (141\u20444in); forms of furniture and became his legacy. D:18cm (71\u20448in). Another student-turned-teacher was Marianne Brandt. With Christian Dell, she dominated the Frosted glass for the metalwork department, producing designs that were shade ensures the mass produced and affordable \u2013 and among the few lamp emanates a Bauhaus products to make money. gentle light. The role of women within the Bauhaus can be The use of prefabricated viewed from conflicting angles. While the most parts makes the lamp talented women were given the credit they were due, inexpensive to produce. most were confined to the weaving workshops. The metal, disc-shaped It is worth noting, however, that the weaving base is in line with the workshop, under Gunta St\u00f6lzl, was the simple, industrial look School\u2019s most successful workshop. of the lamp. BAUHAUS CRADLE Designed by Peter Keler BAUHAUS AFTER GROPIUS while at Bauhaus Weimar, this brightly coloured In 1928, Hannes Meyer became director cradle was inspired by Wassily Kandinsky. Its form is geometric, with blue-painted circular of the Bauhaus. Meyer stressed the social rockers and red-and-yellow painted triangular responsibilities of the School, but fell foul sides. The sides are lined in wicker. Originally of the authorities because of his left-leaning designed in 1922, this example is a Tecta re-issue views. In 1930, the Bauhaus appointed its from 2004. L:98cm (38 2\u20443in); D:91cm (35 3\u20444in). TEC final director, the architect Mies van der Rohe. Although many think of him as a major figure within the School, he was only there to oversee its sad decline and fall. The Nazi Party objected to the liberal tendencies of the Bauhaus and shut it down in 1932. Mies van der Rohe attempted to re-establish the School in Berlin, but in 1933 it was closed for good. By 1937, most of the students and staff had scattered across Europe and America. Wassily Kandinsky settled in France, Marcel Breuer in Britain, and Paul Klee in Switzerland. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who fled to the United States along with Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Josef Albers, established a New Bauhaus in Chicago that ran 1937\u201346. Although the School had closed, the ideas and innovations of the Bauhaus continued, and still continue, to shape the future of art, architecture, and, in particular, furniture design.","428 MODERNISM 1925\u20131945 Germany OF ALL THE COUNTRIES in Europe, Olbrich, and Peter Behrens, aimed STANDARDIZATION the architecture that caused shock Germany was the most committed to to engender discussion between It was the desperate need for waves. This was the first time that Modern design. The reasons for this are designers and manufacturers. The economically viable products in the tubular-steel furniture had been seen many, but can be boiled down to two: DWB\u2019s members were incredibly active wake of World War I that eventually by a wider public, and the event that firstly, World War I had a particularly in making their voices heard \u2013 they brought the DWB down on the side persuaded many manufacturers to destructive impact on Germany, thus gave lectures, mounted exhibitions as of standardization. In 1924, the DWB work with avant-garde designs. kindling a desire amongst the people far afield as the United States, and published \u201cForm without Ornament\u201d to move on; secondly, the central ideas published books and magazines. \u201cThe and in 1925 re-launched the influential Despite the international flavour of of Modernism \u2013 most significantly, the German ideal for the future\u201d, wrote journal Die Form. It was the ambitious Die Wohnung \u2013 participants came from union of art and industry \u2013 had their Friedrich Naumann, a prominent Die Wohnung (The Dwelling) exhibition the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, origins in the existing cultural heritage DWB member, \u201cis to become a highly in Stuttgart in 1929, however, that Austria, and France \u2013 Germany made of the Deutscher Werkbund (DWB), educated machine people.\u201d By 1914, proved the DWB\u2019s high point. The a strong showing. In buildings designed formed in Munich in 1907. however, a split had occurred between exhibition featured a housing estate by Peter Behrens and Mies van der those who saw the future of design which was built by architects and Rohe the furniture of the Stuttgart- EARLY INFLUENCES as a process of standardization and designers including Le Corbusier, based brothers Heinz and Bodo Rasch Founder members of the DWB, such others who were reluctant to lose the Walter Gropius, Mart Stam, and J.J.P. could be found. Their cantilevered as Richard Riemerschmid, Josef Maria individual, artistic approach to design. Oud. It was the furnishings as much as Spirit of Sitting chair was a SIESTA MEDIZINAL CHAISE LONGUE This chair has a solid beech frame and a birch-plywood-slatted seat, back, and footrest. There is a tension adjustment bracket to one side. The design of the chair is such that the user can adjust the positions of the three separate supports, simply by shifting his or her body weight, and without the chair losing balance. Designed by Hans and Wassili Luckhardt. c.1937. H:113cm (44 1\u20442in). BonBay Exposed screws and joints accentuate the functionality of the chair. The slight kink in the chair\u2019s CLUB CHAIR back, and bent slats, give better support to the sitter\u2019s back. The exposed frame of this chair is made from solid oak and is held together by screws. The seat and chair back are upholstered and The surface of the covered in a hand-woven wool fabric. Designed by Erich Dieckmann wood is left unpainted for the Bauhochschule (Building Academy) in Weimar. 1926\u201328. and undecorated, a H:70.5cm (27 3\u20444in); W:62cm (241\u20442in); D:75.5cm (29 3\u20444in). WKA further indication of the functional nature of this chair. Hinges are used to SIDEBOARD allow the sitter to shift the chair from This dark-stained birchwood sideboard has a rectangular case and stands on a plinth with four short, square-section legs. It an upright to a has two short drawers above a hinged, fall-front door, which reclining position. opens to reveal a fitted interior. Attributed to the Deutsche Werkst\u00e4tte. c.1935. QU An in-built footrest allows the chair to function as a chaise longue.","GERMANY 429 talking point of the event, as was the Modernism as well, by being home could be fitted into kitchens at \u201ccultural Bolshevism\u201d) were closed. 1925\u20131945 refreshingly plain furniture of Erich to the Bauhaus. Hamburg, too, had a minimal cost. Revolutionary at Although Germany was the breeding Dieckmann and Ferdinand Kramer. thriving Modern community, while in the time, the idea later became ground for many of the greatest ideas Frankfurt the local authorities embraced commonplace. and developments of the Modern era, In Berlin, another pair of brothers, Modernism enthusiastically. it was in other countries that the full Wassili and Hans Luckhardt, were also THE MOVEMENT\u2019S DECLINE range of the breaking ground with their unadorned A slew of housing projects in the Adolf Hitler\u2019s rise to power in 1933 style was style \u2013 their ST14 cantilevered, tubular- Modern style went up in Frankfurt in signalled the decline of the Modern era eventually steel and plywood chair (1931) being, the years following World War I. In in Germany. Although in favour of the explored. perhaps, their best-known work. 1926, Ferdinand Kramer designed a Modernist ideals of efficiency and range of simple, plywood furniture cleanliness, Hitler was troubled MODERNISM EMBRACED suitable for the new houses. It was by the non-Germans involved One of the most notable features of made in workshops set up in disused in the movement. A select few Modernism in Germany is just how army barracks. Also in 1926, the German Modernists worked widespread the movement was. Berlin, Austrian architect Grete Schutte- for the Nazi government, Stuttgart, and Munich have already Lihotzky developed the Frankfurt while schools such as the been mentioned, while Weimar and Kitchen, which was a scientifically Bauhaus (accused of Dessau proved important centres of researched standardized unit that Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe CANTILEVER CHAIR ONE OF THE MODERN ERA\u2019S BEST-KNOWN DESIGNERS AND ARCHITECTS, LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE In its original condition, this cantilever chair has a metal frame WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR CREATING SOME OF THE PERIOD\u2019S MOST ICONIC FURNITURE AND BUILDINGS. within the green, upholstered seat and back. The arms of the chair are made from chrome-plated tubular steel and have Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the son of a stonemason, was born in padded elbow rests. Designed by Hans and Wassili Luckhardt. Aachen, Germany, in 1886, and was the man who coined the famous c.1930. L:175cm (683\u20444in). DOR phrase \u201cless is more\u201d. Mies, as he is more commonly known, was an architect and furniture designer whose dedication to Functionalism was allied with an instinct for graceful form. This combination, and his exacting eye for detail, has made his furniture among the most enduring of the Modern era. Although many associate Mies with the Bauhaus, he was only involved with the School at the very end of its lifespan. Such iconic designs as the Barcelona chair (created for the king of Spain) and the cantilever chair were developed in his architectural office in Berlin, some years before he became director of the Bauhaus in 1930. It is perhaps because Mies had little interest in low-cost designs (he insisted on using only the best-quality materials) that he steered clear of the Bauhaus and its more egalitarian agenda for so long. In 1938, Mies moved to Chicago to escape the Nazi regime, and, although he almost completely stopped designing furniture, he did go on to design two of America\u2019s most revered Modern buildings \u2013 the Farnsworth House in Illinois (1946\u201350) and the Seagram Building in New York City (1951\u201358). Barcelona table The X-shaped base OCCASIONAL TABLE of the table is made from chrome- plated steel and supports a heavy The circular top of this occasional table has a geometric, plate of glass. 1929. H:46cm (18 1\u20448in); rosewood-marquetry surface and is supported on nickel-plated W:100cm (39in); D:100cm (39in). Bk tubular uprights, which extend to form stretchers. The table was designed by Josef Albers for his colleague Wassily Kandinsky. Barcelona chair The simple-looking design consists c.1933. D:79cm (31in). of chromium-plated steel cross-frames, which support buttoned-leather cushions on leather straps. H:74cm (291\u20448in); W:75cm (29 1\u20442in); D:76cm (29 7\u20448in). SDR","1925\u20131945430 MODERNISM it was the Russians and a young, Swiss- prison cell compared to the lavish and Joel Martel among them. Their first born architect named Le Corbusier who pavilions designed by designers such president was Robert Mallet-Stevens, France showed the public the inspiring new as Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann (see p.404). an architect whose heavily geometric designs the organizers had promised. buildings led to the group\u2019s style being IN 1925, THE FRENCH opened a grand With his high-profile pavilion dubbed \u201cthe great nudity\u201d. international exhibition entitled the The Russian designer Konstantin design, Le Corbusier laid down a Exposition des Arts D\u00e9coratifs et Melnikov\u2019s Soviet Pavilion was a challenge to the French, and slowly Although the influence of the Industriels Modernes (Decorative and striking design in the Constructivist some designers started to respond. Bauhaus was clear, the UAM kept a Modern Industrial Arts Exhibition). style, while Le Corbusier\u2019s Pavillon de careful distance from activities in Although the exhibition promised to l\u2019Esprit Nouveau was a stark exercise in UNION OF MODERN ARTISTS Germany. In the wake of World War I, showcase the modern and industrial By 1929, a group of French architects there was bad blood between the arts, it instead highlighted just how rational geometry. and designers had come together to neighbours, so no matter how much much the French still favoured Perhaps most fight the rising tide of Art Deco. opulence and decoration. Instead, shocking to the Calling themselves the Union they admired the works public was the des Artistes Modernes (Union of of Marcel Breuer, sparse interior of Modern Artists, or UAM), they Walter Gropius, and Le Corbusier\u2019s counted Eileen Gray, Charlotte Mies van der Rohe, Perriand, Jean Puiforcat, and Jan UAM members did pavilion, which not admit as much. looked like a The blue-grey colour was in The construction of the chair keeping with the then current is very simple, making it easy vogue for neutral shades. to mass produce. Detail of \u201csandows\u201d The \u201csandow\u201d straps simply hook on to the tubular-steel frame. PLYWOOD CHAIR This is an early design for a chair by Jean Prouv\u00e9. The moulded plywood seat and back are screwed to a solid, dark-stained wooden frame. The durable plywood seat has waterfall edges. The chair can be used in a domestic or a commercial setting. 1942. BonBay The elasticated \u201csandow\u201d The frame of the chair straps mould to the is made from nickel- body shape of the plated tubular steel. person sitting down. Rubber tips on the chair\u2019s SANDOWS CHAIR RECTANGULAR CHAIR legs stop it from slipping. Designed by Ren\u00e9 Herbst, this chair has a tubular-steel frame This Modern chair is of strict rectangular construction with and blue-grey, cotton-covered, elasticated, sprung \u201csandow\u201d prominent feature screws. The back panel, seat panel, arms, straps. Inspiration is said to have come from the elastic straps and floor-level stretchers are made of ebonized wood. The panel used to fasten packages to a bicycle. c.1929. H:81cm (32in); legs and uprights are fashioned from figured oak. Attributed to W:42cm (16 1\u20442in); D:50cm (19 3\u20444in). BonBay Robert Mallet-Stevens. c.1930. BonBay","FRANCE 431 There were, at any rate, considerable which he said would \u201cprovide a healthy Chareau translated his bold approach other building construction\u201d, which 1925\u20131945 discrepancies between the Modern home for every family\u201d, he was also into furniture design. After years of is perhaps why his designs appear so styles in Germany and France. active at the affluent end of the market, designing luxurious furniture, he robust. Based in the small town of Although the French embraced designing, in 1930, a Paris apartment eventually developed a leaner style. Nancy, the prolific Prouv\u00e9 took an materials such as tubular steel and for the Prince Aga Khan. Chareau\u2019s desks of wood and bent-iron energetic and fearless approach to plate glass, they used them with strips appeared almost mechanized. furniture design. If French designers greater grace and elegance than the A close friend of Herbst, and a were accused of shying away from the Germans, who preferred to keep their member of UAM, was the architect This mechanical aesthetic, startling raw vocabulary of industry in the early designs unerringly concise. and designer Pierre Chareau. It was enough in the work of Chareau, was interwar years, Prouv\u00e9\u2019s work was Chareau who designed an icon of the taken to even further extremes by Jean inarguable proof that their attitudes The second UAM president, Ren\u00e9 Modern era, the Maison de Verre. Built Prouv\u00e9, who was younger than many changed considerably. Herbst, was among the first in France from glass bricks and exposed iron UAM members. \u201cIn my opinion\u201d, to experiment with tubular steel. A keen beams in 1928, the house caused a stir Prouv\u00e9 once said, \u201cfurniture design advocate of low-cost mass production, in Paris. It was some time later that requires the same procedure as any TEA TABLE are fashioned from solid oak; the legs MB 405 DESK AND SN 3 STOOL wrought-iron frame, where the back leg bends taper fairly sharply towards the bottom. under the stool to provide extra stability for This tea table, or coffee table, was designed The table top is supported beneath by a This L-shaped rosewood desktop is raised on a the two front legs. c.1927. Desk: H:93.4cm by the French furniture designer Jean Prouv\u00e9. lacquered iron frame in a reddish-brown wrought-iron frame, which supports additional (36 3\u20444in); W:161.2cm (63 1\u20442in); D:102.8cm Its simple design consists of an oak-veneered colour. 1934. H:34.5cm (131\u20442in); shelving above and below the desktop. The (40 1\u20442in). Stool: H:35.6cm (14in); W:50.2cm table top positioned above three legs that Diam:95cm (371\u20443in). stool has a rectangular rosewood seat above a (19 3\u20444in); D:40cm (15 3\u20444in). Eileen Gray Blocs screen An ingenious design, this screen consists of 28 black-lacquered panels that pivot on ARCHITECT AND FURNITURE-DESIGNER, EILEEN GRAY CREATED REDUCTIONIST PIECES rods to open and close holes in the screen. 1923. OF FURNITURE THAT ARE SOME OF THE MOST REMARKABLE OF THE MODERN PERIOD. H:189cm (74 1\u20442in); W:136cm (53 1\u20442in); D:2cm (3\u20444in). Bibendum chair Padded, tyre-like rings form the back Born in Ireland in 1878, Eileen Gray was to radical for its time. Built with an open-plan Eileen Gray and seat of the chair, which is covered in fabric. make her name in France. Having studied at interior, it also gave Gray the opportunity to The base is chrome-plated steel. 1929. H:73cm the Slade School of Art in London (as one of re-appraise her approach to furniture. (28 2\u20443in); W:87.5cm (34 1\u20442in); D:83cm (32 2\u20443in). its first female students), Gray headed for Paris in 1907. When she arrived, she was greeted by The furniture designs that Gray created a city enjoying a rich period of creativity. for E1027 are among her most successful. Viewing items of furniture as components Gray began to work for a Japanese in the larger \u201cmachine\u201d of the house, she craftsman, Seizo Sugawara, from whom she developed an immensely practical style learned the lacquering. Her early furniture that was the very definition of designs were heavily inspired by Sugawara form following function. and appeared as a luxuriant mix of Art Deco The economy of line and with Japanese overtones. flexibility of such pieces as the E1027 side table and the In 1922, Gray opened her own gallery in Transat chair make them Paris \u2013 Gal\u00e9rie Jean D\u00e9sert. Her work became among the most remarkable a favourite of the intellectual classes, although works of the Modern era. she soon tired of making exclusive furniture. An encounter with the De Stijl group made Throughout the rest of her her question her own design style as well. long life (she died in 1976), Gray worked in this Reductionist A pivotal year in Gray\u2019s life was 1927, as it style, although her ability to give was then that she drifted away from Paris and a sense of singular refinement to began work on a house in the South of France. her work never deserted her. Known as E1027, the house was incredibly","432 MODERNISM 1925\u20131945 LE CORBUSIER Le Corbusier\u2019s bold, minimalist architecture and industrial-looking furniture uniquely captured the forward-looking ideals of the early modernists. IF ONE MAN WERE SAID TO EPITOMIZE the spirit of the LE CORBUSIER The artist is in his studio in Rue Jacob, early Modern movement in architecture and design, it Paris. A prolific writer, he also co-founded and produced would be Le Corbusier. With his famous statement, the influential design journal, L\u2019Esprit Nouveau. 1931. \u201cThe house is a machine for living in,\u201d he encapsulated the Modernists\u2019 utopian desire for efficiency, economy, LC-6 DINING OR CONFERENCE TABLE and a radically contemporary lifestyle. AND LC-7 SWIVEL CHAIR These two pieces were designed by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Although an architect first and foremost, and Charlotte Perriand. The glass-topped table is Le Corbusier was too energetic to restrict adjustable in height to a range of approximately himself to the slow process 5cm (2in). It was designed in 1929 and of erecting buildings. He manufactured by Thonet. instigated the artistic movement known as Purism (a form of Cubism), was a biography prolific writer, and designed some of the most important furniture of the 20th century. 1887 Born Charles-Edouard Le Corbusier\u2019s approach to design reflected Jeanneret in La Chaux-de- his wider ideas, one of which was that industry should be accepted into daily life. His writings, Fonds, Switzerland. for instance, extolled the virtues of industrial designs such as the grain silo. In an era when Art 1905 Completes his first Deco was the dominant force (see pp.386\u2013415), he was understandably viewed with suspicion. architectural project: a house in La Chaux-de-Fonds. THE EARLY YEARS Although Le Corbusier became a French citizen 1910\u201311 Travels to Germany in 1930, he was born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, in 1887. His first architectural project, where he meets members of which was completed at 18 under his real name \u2013 Charles-Edouard Jeanneret \u2013 was a house in La Le Corbusier the Deutscher Werkbund. Chaux-de-Fonds. The Le Corbusier moniker came later, in the 1920s. Lecorbesier was the name of one 1917 Opens his own architecture office in Paris. of his forefathers, so it is thought that this is where he took the name from. Early 1920s Changes name to Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier\u2019s early years in Paris, where he settled 1922 Publishes the progressive tract \u201cContemporary after World War I, were spent writing such progressive tracts as the \u201cContemporary City for Three Million City for Three Million Inhabitants\u201d in L\u2019Esprit Nouveau. Inhabitants\u201d. Printed in 1922 in L\u2019Esprit Nouveau \u2013 a reivew magazine Le Corbusier created with the painter 1925 Builds Pavillon de L\u2019Espirit Nouveau for the Am\u00e9d\u00e9e Ozenfant in 1920 \u2013 this magnificent vision of the future showed just how ambitious he was. Exposition des Art D\u00e9coratifs et Industriels Modernes. MINIMALIST STYLE 1928 With Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, In 1925, having persuaded the organizers of the Paris Exposition des Art D\u00e9coratifs et Industriels Modernes develops forward-looking range of furniture that includes to grant him an exhibition site, Le Corbusier built the B306 chair and the Gran Confort chaise longue. his Pavillon de L\u2019Esprit Nouveau with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret. The bare walls and bold, geometric lines of 1930 Becomes a naturalized French citizen. the structure prompted outrage. \u201cWe find nothing but inadequate fittings, metal furniture, glass tables, cold 1950\u201355 Builds chapel in Ronchamp. lighting, and pale colours\u201d, wrote a shocked reviewer. 1965 Dies in Cap Martin. Inside the pavilion, the interior was sparsely furnished with Thonet\u2019s bentwood No. 9 and No. 14 chairs (see p.375), which Le Corbusier thought possessed \u201ca nobility of their own\u201d. Still, Le Corbusier","LE CORBUSIER 433 Jeanneret and Perriand 1925\u20131945 ALTHOUGH THEY WERE NOT AS FAMOUS AS LE CORBUSIER, PIERRE JEANNERET AND CHARLOTTE PERRIAND INFLUENCED SOME OF HIS MOST RENOWNED DESIGNS. When correctly credited, the less famous names of Perriand left Le Corbusier\u2019s office in the late Charlotte Perriand The designer Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand often 1930s and went on to forge a successful career as reclines on the B306 chaise appear alongside the furniture designs of Le an independent architect and designer. She spent longue, 1928. Corbusier. Although it must be assumed that much of the 1940s collaborating with companies Le Corbusier led the way in the design of these in Japan, although she briefly returned to work B306 chaise longue This day bed is made from chrome-plated items, they must, nonetheless, be considered a with Le Corbusier in the 1950s, helping him with tubular steel with rubber stretchers and leather upholstery. Often collaborative effort. the interiors of his Unit\u00e9 d\u2019Habitation (Living Unit) attributed to Le Corbusier alone, it was also the work of Perriand in Marseille. and Jeanneret. Designed in 1928, this is a Cassina re-issue from the Pierre Jeanneret was a cousin of Le Corbusier who 1960s. H:70.5cm (281\u20444in); L:160cm (64in); W:49.5cm (193\u20444in). QU had worked with the architect since 1922. Charlotte Perriand and Jeanneret were to work together Perriand was offered a position by Le Corbusier after again in 1940, when both teamed up with Jean he saw an exhibition of her anodized-aluminium and Prouv\u00e9 to produce a series of prefabricated chromed-steel furniture. aluminium structures that were intended as temporary housing. Jeanneret, who assisted It was Perriand\u2019s specialist knowledge that gave Le Corbusier throughout his career, also Le Corbusier the confidence to develop a range of briefly made a name for himself as furniture that, debuting in 1927, would include an independent furniture such renowned designs as the B306 chaise longue designer with the and the Gran Confort range. production of the birch Scissor chair that, in The trio\u2019s furniture designs were first seen by the 1947, became one of the public as part of a mock-up of a modern apartment first items to appear in exhibited at the Salon d\u2019Automne (Autumn Salon) the catalogue of Knoll, in 1929. Incorporating such features as concealed the celebrated American lighting, sliding doors, and modular storage units \u2013 manufacturer of furniture. things that were not to become commonplace for many years \u2013 it proved to be the high point of the trio\u2019s collaboration. GRAN CONFORT This two-seat sofa, model LC2 was produced as part recognized the irony of using 75-year-old designs in of the Gran Confort range designed by Le Corbusier, Perriand, and such a brazenly contemporary structure. By 1925, he Jeanneret. It has a chrome-plated tubular-metal frame and burgundy knew that his next project would be to create furniture leather cushions. Originally designed in 1928, this example is a for his radical architecture. Cassina re-issue from the 1980s. W:167.5cm (66in). FRE The arrival of Charlotte Perriand was just the catalyst he needed. In 1927, Perriand, Pierre Jeanneret, and Le Corbusier devised a range of designs that were industrial-looking, yet surprisingly comfortable. The resplendent B306 chaise longue looked more like a piece of equipment than a luxury item of furniture. The slight Basculant chair was an economical design that used the bare minimum of materials. The cube- shaped Gran Confort armchair was the trio\u2019s take on the club chair, although in this case the chair\u2019s structure appeared on the outside. Produced in 1928, these designs made full use of tubular steel, the material popularized by Marcel Breuer. Ironically, it was Thonet \u2013 the maker of Le Corbusier\u2019s beloved bentwood chairs \u2013 that produced these designs. Le Corbusier\u2019s crusade to turn the world into a symphony of mechanical existence continued unabated until the advent of World War II. After this, he struggled to stick to his hard-edged aesthetic views in the face of such destruction. After the war, Le Corbusier developed a softer, although no less impressive, style (his chapel in Ronchamp, built from 1950 to 1955, being a good example). In his later years, Le Corbusier\u2019s attention turned increasingly towards urban planning and his early interest in furniture, unfortunately, rarely resurfaced.","434 MODERNISM 1925\u20131945 TUBULAR STEEL Originally used only in industry, tubular steel was embraced by designers as the ideal material for modern furniture and a new kind of lifestyle. TUBULAR STEEL WAS a truly Modern material. Not The armrest appears BREUER\u2019S INSPIRATION Marcel Breuer had the brainwave of using tubular long after it emerged as a viable material for domestic substantial but is steel for furniture whilst riding his bicycle, which had bent, tubular-steel furniture construction in the mid 1920s, it became little more than a handlebars. Sheet steel was also a favoured material at the Bauhaus, and was a symbol of the new era of the interwar years. strip of fabric. used for jewellery and lamps as early as 1923. Industrially manufactured, easily cleaned, lightweight, and, of course, with a striking metallic gleam, it was Fabric strips prevent the ideal for a forward-looking lifestyle. sitter from coming into contact with steel, A method for manufacturing tubular steel was which can be cold. patented in 1885 by two Germans, Max and Reinhard Mannesmann. The technique involved passing a short, The overlapping planes Early versions of the Generous width is Bends in the steel give heated stick of steel through a piercing machine, thus were inspired by the early chair were nickel-plated, reminiscent of English the impression of a producing a tube. By 1921, a more advanced technique work of Gerrit Rietveld. although most versions club chairs and lends the single, continuous form. had been developed that produced more pliable tubes were chrome-plated. chair a sense of comfort. with thinner walls. WASILLY CHAIR GERMANY LEADS THE WAY Marcel Breuer\u2019s masterpiece is made from nine pieces of tubular steel, It was some years before furniture designers thought which are bent, giving the frame the appearance of a continuous form. of using this slimline tubular steel. At the time, tubular Screwed together, rather than welded, the chair is easy to dismantle. steel was largely used in the central heating systems of industrial plants. It was only when the automobile 1925. H:76cm (30in); W:77.5cm (301\u20442in); D:68.5cm (27in). industry and bicycle manufacturers began to use the material that tubular steel became visible in everyday BAUHAUS METAL WORKSHOP life. The first experiments with domestic tubular-steel From its inception, the Bauhaus metal workshop furniture \u2013 by Marcel Breuer in Germany and Mart was primarily concerned with the different Stam in the Netherlands \u2013 were in 1925. qualities of various metals \u2013 brass, silver, gold, copper \u2013 and with how they could be applied to Breuer\u2019s first tubular-steel design was the Wassily Bauhaus design ideals. Under Marcel Breuer \u2013 chair, created in 1925 for the flat of artist Wassily head of the furniture workshop in Dessau from Kandinsky, a Bauhaus tutor. The stout outline of the 1925 \u2013 it followed that the technical properties Wassily chair is clearly modelled on the English club of tubular steel would be examined and chair, although Breuer appears to have dissolved the exploited in much the same way. 1928\u201329. entire bulk of the club chair, leaving just the skeleton. In 1925\u201326, Breuer developed tubular-steel chairs and tables for the Bauhaus canteen, although it was only in 1927 at the Die Wohnung exhibition in Stuttgart that tubular-steel furniture gained wider exposure. Not long afterwards, the furniture manufacturer Thonet began to produce tubular-steel designs across Europe. It was fitting that Thonet took on these designs, as it was the German company\u2019s innovations in functional, inexpensive bentwood furniture in the mid 19th century that pushed many Modernist designers towards the use of tubular steel. DEVELOPMENTS FARTHER AFIELD Although Germany was the launching pad for tubular- steel furniture, it soon appeared in other countries. Mart Stam introduced the material to the Netherlands, and by 1930 many Dutch designers were using tubular steel. Gerrit Rietveld was briefly smitten by it, even making a tubular-steel version of his Red-and-Blue chair. Willem Gispen, a designer who had worked in a florid style, became a champion of tubular steel. \u201cSeeing the social changes in the world around me\u201d,","TUBULAR STEEL 435 The cantilever wrote Gispen in 1977, \u201cI simplified my designs and 1925\u20131945 joined the train of thought of the Rationalists.\u201d THE CANTILEVERED CHAIR WAS A FAVOURITE OF MODERNIST DESIGNERS, ALTHOUGH IT IS Gispen\u2019s factory in Rotterdam, which exists today, UNCLEAR WHO FIRST HAD THE IDEA TO USE THE CANTILEVER PRINCIPLE IN CHAIR DESIGN. specialized in tubular-steel lamps. The cantilever principle, whereby a structure\u2019s load is The first cantilevered steel chairs were shown at a While the Dutch and Germans saw tubular steel as borne by a single mounting point, was used by many Die Wohnung exhibition in Stuttgart in 1927: two by a resolutely utilitarian material, it was used in a more Modernist furniture designers, but there has been much Mart Stam, a Dutchman, and two by Ludwig Mies stylized manner in France. Ren\u00e9 Herbst, Eileen Gray, debate \u2013 and litigation \u2013 to try to ascertain who employed van der Rohe, a German designer. It is most likely that and Le Corbusier all produced tubular-steel furniture the principle first. The attraction of the cantilever for Stam had the idea first, discussing it with Mies van der in the 1920s and 30s that betrayed aesthetic, as well Modernist designers is obvious. as Rational, concerns. It reduces a chair\u2019s form to the Rohe the previous year, before both went on to minimum; it displays a one- develop their own versions. Marcel Breuer, however, EMBRACED BY THE ELITE upmanship on the age-old once claimed he was working on a design for a Although clearly a material with its roots in industry, principle of the four-legged cantilevered steel chair as early as 1925, although it tubular steel initially proved more costly than wood, chair; plus, it has the visually was not until 1927 (after the Die Wohnung show) that an irony that is often overlooked. Until the price of arresting effect of making his version was exhibited. tubular-steel furniture fell in the late 1930s, it was sitters appear to float on air. To complicate matters further, when Mies van der Rohe sold almost exclusively to an affluent elite. applied for a patent it was discovered that an American, Cantilever chair This chair is a Thonet Harry Nolan, had registered a convoluted drawing of a This trend was particularly apparent in Britain. By re-issue of Mart Stam\u2019s S33 cantilever metal cantilevered chair 1928 the lower-middle classes were being encouraged chair. The chair has a chrome-plated, in 1922. Mies van to buy tubular-steel furniture for its space-saving tubular-steel frame and a leather seat der Rohe proved properties. Many people had been forced to downsize and back. Designed in 1926. H:84cm that Nolan\u2019s design after World War I and were living in small homes (33in); W:50cm (19 2\u20443in); D:57cm (26 1\u20443in). would collapse ill-suited to older styles of furniture. This audience, the moment however, proved resistant to tubular steel, and it was anyone sat on it the moneyed classes that were drawn to it. and was awarded the patent. Two British firms, PEL (Public Equipment Limited) and Cox and Co. began making tubular-steel furniture Swinging tubular steel chair MR-10 By The B33 chair This tubular-steel- in the early 1930s, clearly basing their designs on Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, this chair\u2019s framed chair has a canvas seat works in the Thonet catalogue. PEL\u2019s customers frame is nickel-plated and the seat and and back. Designed by Marcel included Noel Coward, the Prince of Wales, and Lord back are cane. Made by Josef M\u00fcller of Breuer c.1929. This example is Mountbatten, and by 1932, when the BBC employed Berlin. Late 1920s. H:80cm (32in); a Thonet re-issue from 2004. Cox and Co. and PEL to refurnish their buildings, W:48cm (191\u20444in); D:65cm (26in). QU H:84cm (33in); W:49.5cm (191\u20442in); tubular steel was in vogue, D:86cm (34in). albeit among a tiny minority. Widespread use of tubular VANITY UNIT steel was to come later, with This tubular-steel dressing table has a tall mirror the Cabinet Maker magazine above a small case with two drawers. It has been reporting in 1935 that steel painted light blue and bears the label \u201cVICHR A furniture \u201cis being taken up by SPOL, PRAHA\u201d. Prague. c.1930. H:180cm (707\u20448in). DOR all sections of the community\u201d. Although the late 1930s was SIDE TABLE a period of growth in sales of Marcel Breuer\u2019s model B12 side table has two tubular-steel furniture, it was black-painted wooden shelves \u2013 one flush with also a period of artistic decline. the top, the other a third of the way down. The With Marcel Breuer and Mart table appears to be made of a continuous loop Stam realizing the essential of steel. c.1928. W:76cm (30in). DOR forms of tubular-steel furniture so early on, there was little scope for progress. By 1935, Stam was lamenting the endless bastardization of his, and Breuer\u2019s, ideas, expressing his wish for \u201call those macaroni-like steel monsters to disappear\u201d. His wish came true with the advent of World War II, which put a stop to the proliferation of tubular-steel designs. After 1945, tubular steel was used only sparingly, by designers who realized its moment had passed.","436 MODERNISM 1925\u20131945 scandinavia SCANDINAVIA \u2013 USUALLY CONSIDERED furniture pioneered in Germany held to Scandinavia the sort of hard, A GENTLER APPROACH no appeal for the Scandinavians. industrial aesthetic that had taken root By the mid 1930s, Scandinavian to include Sweden, Denmark, Norway, on the rest of the European continent. designers had struck a balance between Finland, and Iceland \u2013 experienced a A PREFERENCE FOR WOOD In 1930, the architect Gunnar Asplund the bare, unadorned style of European very different history in the interwar Tubular steel was labelled put on an exhibition in Stockholm Modernism and the organic, craft- years to that of many European \u201cunsatisfactory from a human point under the banner of Swedish based forms to which they were nations and, as a result, produced of view\u201d by Alvar Aalto, the foremost Functionalism that showcased an accustomed. What developed was a very different style of furniture. Scandinavian designer of the era (who angular style and synthetic materials, an approach that came to be termed also noted that metal furniture was which, understandably, shocked the Soft Modernism, as epitomized by The first thing to note is that the particularly uncomfortable in the Scandinavian public. Asplund and his designers like Bruno Mathsson. political situation in Scandinavia was cold). It was wood, a material readily fellow exhibitors, many of whom had Although Mathsson used natural relatively settled compared with much available from the forests that covered returned from studying of what was happening in the rest of the region, which proved the most and working abroad, Europe. Industrialization, too, was popular material for Scandinavian were swiftly labelled slow to catch on in Scandinavia, and if designers of the time. \u201canti-Swedish\u201d, and the you add this to a harsh climate and a idea of Functionalism deep, inherent reverence for the crafts, There was an attempt at the began to fade. it becomes clear why the severe, beginning of the 1930s to introduce iconoclastic forms of tubular-metal SAFARI CHAIR easy to take apart. A market success from the time it was introduced, the Safari chair The maple frame of this lightweight chair has was handmade by the small furniture-making no joints as such, but is held together simply firm of Rudolf Rasmussen, which manufactured by the leather seat and straps, which form many of the Danish designer Kaare Klint\u2019s the arms of the chair, and the slots that join works. Wooden and canvas versions of the the side struts together. Inspired by the chair were also sold. By Kaare Klint. 1933. traditional pieces originally made for the H:77.5cm (301\u20442in); W:55.75cm (22in); British military, the chair is collapsable and D:63.5cm (25in). The chair\u2019s back and seat are MODULAR SHELVING The whole storage system is supported by soft, allowing it to fold away three base plinths, which are also of wood. when the chair is dismantled. This multi-unit shelving system is referred The fifth unit is fronted with cupboard doors to as a composite storage system. The and is slightly deeper than the others. The chair\u2019s back is attached modular piece is made up of five individual Designed by Mogens Koch. 1933. H:76cm to the frame in the centre, units, four of which are open and fitted with (30in); W:76cm (30in); D:27.5cm\/37cm allowing it to pivot. identical and symmetrical shelved interiors. (10 7\u20448in\/141\u20442in). The loose leather armrests, which attach lightly to the legs, articulate the temporary nature of this chair. The side struts slot into The buckled leather strap is ANNIKA TABLE the chair legs. No glue used to bundle the separate or screws are used. pieces of the chair together This round magazine table, or occasional table, has a plain elm table top, when it is taken apart. free of surface decoration. It is mounted on three bent-laminated beech legs. The legs taper slightly as they near the floor. Designed by Bruno Mathsson for the company Karl Mathsson. 1938. H:38cm (151\u20444in); D:65cm (26in). Bk","SCANDINAVIA 437 materials and undulating lines, his Copenhagen in the 1920s. Klint and his Modernism through the well-travelled 1925\u20131945 furniture was undeniably Modern in its students at the Royal Danish Academy Alvar Aalto, and it was to have an brazen display of its own construction of Fine Arts spent a great deal of time increasingly apparent impact. Indeed, and its lack of ornament. studying anthropomorphism; Klint used by the end of World War II, the information he gained to design the tubular-steel designs Another thing to note about ergonomic versions of archetypal forms pioneered in Germany, Mathsson is that the forms of his of furniture. France, and Italy were furniture were often inspired by shunned by a new ergonomics \u2013 the relationship between The soft, sculptural style that we generation of people and the equipment they use. associate with Modern Scandinavian designers that This was a particularly Scandinavian furniture, then, was partly inspired by favoured the trait, pioneered by Kaare Klint in the natural shapes that surrounded more humanistic designers in their un-industrialized approach of the EVA CHAIR environment. It was also informed by Scandinavians. the study of human behaviour and an This armless easy chair has a solid-birch seat insistence on using wood rather than Fruit lantern This piece frame; the underframe is bent-laminated beech; metal. Most European and American was designed by Kaare the seat and back are a single piece of plaited designers came to learn of Soft Klint. 1944. webbing. Bruno Mathsson. 1941. H:82cm (321\u20444in); W:49cm (191\u20444in); D:71cm (28in). Bk Alvar Aalto THE FINNISH DESIGNER ALVAR AALTO IS CREDITED WITH INTRODUCING THE USE OF PLYWOOD AND LAMINATED WOOD IN FURNITURE DESIGN, AN IDEA HE IS SAID TO HAVE GOT FROM HIS LAMINATED CROSS-COUNTRY SKIS. While across Europe and America artists, architects, and designers both formally and technically. The cantilevered 31 chair was proclaimed their visions for the future in manifestos, essays, and another audacious display of his confidence with a form of speeches, Alvar Aalto let his designs do the talking. Assisted by furniture that was startlingly new. his wife, Aino, Aalto worked primarily with laminated wood and plywood. Unheard of in Scandinavian furniture design before the Birch, which is abundant in Finland, was Aalto\u2019s wood of choice, Finn adopted them, these materials soon became inextricably and it\u2019s clear that the process of forming ply and laminated wood \u2013 linked with his name. which incorporates steaming the wood then gently bending it \u2013 largely dictated the forms of Aalto\u2019s designs. Such was the couple\u2019s By 1931, two years after he started to experiment with plywood, proficiency with plywood and laminated wood that in 1935 they Aalto produced the 41 chair. With the seat and back made from launched their own company \u2013 Artek \u2013 to manufacture their one piece of ply, it demonstrates Aalto\u2019s mastery of the material designs, which are still produced in Finland today. Aalto interior Riihitie House, Helsinki Slits in the seat back allow This was Alvar Aalto\u2019s residence for over air to reach the back of the 60 years \u2013 designed and furnished by sitter\u2019s head, thus making him and his wife. 1935\u201336. it more hygienic. SMALL CHEST OF DRAWERS The rolling form of the chair\u2019s The loops at the head and seat expresses the flexibility base of the seat give it a Designed by Alvar Aalto, this chest of drawers comfortable springiness. has a birch frame and stands on wooden of laminated birch. casters. Indentations in the drawers serve as handles. 1930. H:26.5cm (66in); W:38cm Paimio No. 41 The armchair\u2019s gently curved seat is The lacquering of the seat (15in); D:68.5cm (271\u20442in). QU moulded plywood, suspended in a laminated birch helps articulate the separate frame. Designed for the Paimio Tuberculosis elements of seat and frame. Sanatorium in Finland. c.1931. H:64cm (251\u20444in); W:60cm (262\u20443in); D:80cm (311\u20442in). BonE","1925\u20131945438 MODERNISM of older, more ornate styles were abroad who were most open preferred by the public, but this didn\u2019t to the latest developments britain stop a few shops \u2013 such as Heal\u2019s on from overseas. Architects London\u2019s Tottenham Court Road \u2013 based in London, such as IN THE FIELD OF MODERN furniture from waving the flag for furniture of a Serge Chermayeff and design, Britain was considered more more Modern bent. Perhaps the most Berthold Lubetkin of a follower than a leader. In the late notable designer of this style was the (both Russian-born) 19th century it had been home to the Cotswolds-based Gordon Russell, who and the Hungarian-born radical Arts and Crafts movement \u2013 worked prolifically on pieces that were Erno Goldfinger, all which was itself of considerable pared down to their most basic form. experimented with influence on Modernist pioneers such plywood in the 1920s as Alvar Aalto and Le Corbusier \u2013 but INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCES after this period the development of The adoption by British designers of Anglepoise lamp This articulated lamp British furniture slowed down. such new materials as plywood and allows light to be directed at will. The tubular steel was a far from common head and base swivel, and the lamp LITTLE PUBLIC INTEREST occurrence. Tellingly, it tended to be bends and flexes to obtain different In the latter half of the 1920s simple, designers who arrived in Britain from positions. This is a Tecta re-issue of solid-wood furniture, of the sort George Cawardine\u2019s original 1932 advocated by the Arts and Crafts design. H:90cm (351\u20442in). TEC Movement, was still relatively hard to come by. Industrial reproductions The upper section comprises SWOOPING ARMCHAIR open and closed storage. The body of the desk This lacquered plywood armchair by Gerald Summers is made of limed oak. is today considered an icon of Modern design. Summers succeeded in creating a unified design using just a single sheet of plywood. Only 120 chairs were produced before manufacturing was ceased due to war-time rationing of materials. 1933\u201334. H:72.5cm (29in) W:60cm (24in); D:90cm (36in). The geometric shape reflects the fashions of the time. CORNER DESK of a deep writing surface above two pedestals which form OBJECT DESK other. Additional stability is a triangular arrangement with the back of the desk. Each provided by a metal stretcher at This corner desk is made of limed oak and formed part pedestal contains a deep drawer at the base. This compact This is a Modernist interpretation the back of the desk. The curved of the \u201cSigned Edition\u201d Series, designed by Sir Ambrose piece would have been ideal for the new urban homes where of the single pedestal desk. The wooden drawer fronts have off- Heal and manufactured by Heal\u2019s. The upper section of space was at a premium. This angular desk reflects the rectangular top is raised on four set chromed handles. The piece the desk consists of various storage areas, including three geometric fashions of the time. 1931. H:108cm (431\u20444in); bow-fronted drawers at one end was designed by Denham Maclaren. cupboards plus open storage. The lower section consists W:91.4cm (361\u20442in). and fixed to a glass support at the c.1929.","BRITAIN 439 and 1930s, although without by the elegance of French Modernism the Modern style began to relax, and the forward-thinking Serge Chermayeff 1925\u20131945 the panache of their continental to produce pieces using plate glass companies such as Morris of Glasgow and Wells Coates to design their European counterparts. and animal hides. and PEL (Practical Equipment building\u2019s interiors, but broadcast Limited) began to manufacture discussions on contemporary design. Perhaps the most important GRADUAL ACCEPTANCE furniture in tubular steel and bent Journals such as Architectural Review designer working in Britain in the After 1935, when the political climate plywood. The government promoted and Building News also reported interwar years was Gerald Summers, in Germany had become unbearable the style by publishing \u201cThe Production enthusiastically on the developments a modest man whose lack of publicity for many artists, architects, and and Exhibition of Articles of Good in form and materials in countries skills meant that much of his furniture designers, there was an influx of Design and Everyday Life\u201d. The British across Europe. It was to be some time, went unseen by the wider world. Bauhaus-trained designers into Britain. people knew that the Modern style however, before Britain could once His celebrated Swooping armchair The most prominent of these was pointed the way towards the future, again, after the innovations of the Arts (1933\u201334), made from one piece of undoubtedly Marcel Breuer, who but they were nevertheless reluctant and Crafts Movement, boast of being bent plywood, was a virtuoso effort contributed designs both to Heal\u2019s and to accept it. at the forefront of international that has rightly found a firm place the newly established Isokon company. furniture design. in the history of Modern design. Others, such as Egon Riss and Hein Further efforts to encourage the Also appearing to operate largely in Hockroth, also made their mark. British to embrace Modern design isolation was Denham McLaren, a were undertaken by the BBC, part-time designer who was inspired Slowly, the British attitude towards which not only commissioned The Isokon Flats THE LONDON-BASED ENTREPRENEUR JACK PRITCHARD AND HIS WIFE, MOLLY, GAVE THE CITY OF LONDON ITS FIRST LANDMARK MODERN BUILDING, THE ISOKON FLATS. Jack and Molly Pritchard were firm believers in Modern and installing what became known as the Isobar, so that MODEL Z SIDE TABLE design. In 1934 they commissioned the architect Wells people could have a drink whilst discussing the finer Coates to build the defiantly Modern Isokon Flats, on points of Modern design. Designed by Gerald Summers, this piece is fashioned from Lawn Road, London. The flats soon became a beacon for bent and laminated plywood to form a Z-shaped occasional those interested in the developments of the Modern style. Breuer\u2019s Isokon Long Chair (1935\u201336) is perhaps the table. The two table tops are circular, positioned one above most celebrated piece of furniture to emerge from the and to the left of the other. c.1936. H:44.5cm (171\u20442in); In 1935 the Pritchards persuaded Walter Gropius, Isokon factory, although Wells Coates and Egon Riss W:55cm (213\u20444in). the leader of the by-then-defunct Bauhaus, to move contributed successfully to the company too. Sadly, World to London. Gropius became head of a new furniture- War II forced Isokon into hibernation, but Jack Pritchard manufacturing company. Given the appropriately technical did revive the company in 1963, and it still survives, name Isokon (short for Isometric Unit Construction), the under the name of Isokon Plus, to this day. company would, it was hoped, teach the British public about the delights of Modern design. The Pritchards, however, were not entirely confident of their customers\u2019 tastes and refused to use tubular steel, seeing it as too avant-garde. Bent plywood became Isokon\u2019s signature material, and, when Gropius brought Marcel Breuer to Britain, the man who had pioneered the use of tubular steel was instructed to work only in wood. Breuer, who was fleeing Germany\u2019s Nazi regime, moved into the Isokon Flats in 1936 and soon set about designing The Isokon Long Chair Marcel Breuer\u2019s chaise longue has a bent- laminated birch and polished- shellac frame. 1935\u201336. H:74cm (29in); L:137cm (54in); W:61cm (24in). DOR Isokon Flats The building epitomized the Modernist desire for OCCASIONAL TABLE minimal living. The laundry facilities and restaurant made living spaces just that \u2013 doing away with cooking and washing areas. This two-tier circular-topped occasional table is made of oak and plywood, and the top is laminated with black bakelite. The legs of the two tiers form a continuous loop, creating the effect of one table inside another. The table was manufactured by Heal\u2019s. c.1932. H:66cm (261\u20442in); Diam:61cm (241\u20442in).","440 MODERNISM 1925\u20131945 united states DESPITE BEING A NATION largely defined Modernism and was greeted with great their goods appealing during the tough mounting exhibitions, such as \u201cMachine by industry, the United States was enthusiasm by the American public. times of the Great Depression. Art\u201d (1934), which promoted an surprisingly slow to adopt the Modern approach to design that was based style in furniture. Indeed, in 1925, Streamlined furniture was inspired by EUROPEAN INFLUENCES more on structural integrity than on when asked by the committee of the the trains, planes, cars, and ships that A new style emerging at this time was formal flourishes and a belief that the Paris Expositions des Arts D\u00e9coratifs et were causing such a stir in American the so-called International Style. The form of a piece should be true to the Industriels Modernes to submit Modern society at the time. These vehicles were term was coined by Henry-Russell nature of the materials from which it designs for display, the Americans designed with curvaceous forms so as Hitchcock and Philip Johnson in their was made. sheepishly admitted that they had to offer less wind resistance; yet it was book of the same name. It referred to nothing to show. not the practical principle that appealed the austere architecture and design Meanwhile, designers on the West to designers, but the futuristic look of practised by the likes of Le Corbusier Coast quietly took on board the ideals By the start of the 1930s a vogue had these forms of transport. and those associated with the Bauhaus. of their European counterparts, while developed for streamlining (see p.398). The Museum of Modern Art in New still maintaining their own sense of Needless to say, many York City was a particularly active American style. One such designer, This stylistic conceit was Americans, particularly the supporter of the International Style, based in Los Angeles, was Kem Weber, the United States\u2019 own intelligentsia, sneered at whose stated aim was to make take on \u201ccomfortable, hygienic, and beautiful streamlining. It was seen furniture inexpensively\u201d. Weber\u2019s Airline as a marketing ploy by companies keen to make CHROME ARMCHAIR SIDE CHAIR SINGLE-PEDESTAL DESK The armchair frame is made of tubular chrome. This side chair has an aluminium frame, which The frame of this Warren McArthur single- In profile, the arms and legs form a Z shape. The stands on an H-shaped base with hockey-puck pedestal desk is made from tubular steel. seat cushion and back pad are upholstered in feet. It is upholstered in burgundy oilcloth. The rectangular, black-laminate top has a rose-coloured brushed fabric. Designed by K.E.M. Designed by Warren McArthur. c.1930. H:87cm square shelf raised above it to the left-hand Weber for Lloyd. c.1930. H:79cm (311\u20442in). SDR (341\u20444in); W:42.5cm (163\u20444in); D:51cm (20in). SDR side. Below this are three drawers, also in black laminate, with circular pulls. c.1930. The circular seat and back The colour of the walnut wood and the H:77cm (301\u20444in); W:124.5cm (49in); D:61cm add to the formal abstract painted metal reflects the brick colour of (24in). SDR the building for which the desk was designed. appeal of the chair. The desk has a built-in lighting tube that illuminates the work surface. The ribbed structure of the The two work surface levels chair and desk is almost apply the cantilever principle. architectural. The wastebasket is JOHNSON WAX 1 AND 2: DESK AND CHAIR The drawers swing, rather removable for easy than slide, open to allow This desk has three wooden tops positioned at different heights for their curved shape. emptying. and a painted steel structure. There are two drawers, a wastebasket, and two racks in the same colour as the structure. The painted The chair stands on steel-tube chair has a tilted backrest, padded seat, and wooden three legs to save space. armrests. The three legs terminate in brass feet. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Johnson Wax building. 1936\u201339.","UNITED STATES 441 chair of 1935 displayed a modest, aircraft bombers \u2013 although he are a perfect example of his new 1925\u20131945 streamlined look and could be packed also had a winning way with form. approach. Like all of Lloyd Wright\u2019s flat for easy transport. furniture, they show an awareness of A NEW DIRECTION the function of furniture as a divider Warren McArthur was another Los Also operating outside New York of interior space, although there is Angeles\u2013based designer, one whose was the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. also a dynamic element that is clearly place in the history of American design Although Lloyd Wright remained influenced by the streamlined style. was only asserted by academics in the aloof from much of what was being 1980s. McArthur\u2019s tubular-steel and discussed in the design world at the By 1940, the United States\u2019 infatuation aluminium furniture grew from his time, he still cast a long shadow on with streamlining had waned. A new, interest in efficient manufacturing \u2013 American furniture. By the 1930s, organic style was beginning to arise indeed, so successful was his company Lloyd Wright had rejected the heavy that took more inspiration from Alvar that during World War II he was Arts and Crafts style that he had Aalto than from sleek express trains. enlisted to make aluminium seats for favoured earlier and moved on to a By the time Charles and Ray Eames lighter, sprightlier look. The desks began to assert their influence after Interior of the Johnson Wax Building Architect and and chairs Lloyd Wright designed for World War II, the United States had furniture designer Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Johnson Wax building (1936\u201339) come a long way from the humiliating the interior and furnishings of the Johnson Wax no-show in Paris in 1925. administrative building, which is located in Racine, Wisconsin. The Butterfly Chair THROUGHOUT THE 20TH CENTURY, DESIGNERS RE-INVENTED ARCHETYPAL FORMS OF FURNITURE, NONE MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN THE BUTTERFLY CHAIR. Also known as the A chair, the Hardoy It is unlikely that any of the three chair, the Sling chair, and the Butterfly ever saw Fenby\u2019s chair, but they would chair, the B.K.E. chair is named for its have known either the Tripolina chair designers: Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan, (a French adaptation) or the US No. 4, and Jorge Ferrari-Hardoy, three architects which was sold as a camping chair. who met while working for Le Corbusier. Regardless of the model they saw, the In 1937, all three left for South three made vital changes to its design: America, where they set about updating tubular steel replaced wood, making it a British-army, collapsible, canvas-and- lighter, and leather replaced canvas. In wood chair patented in the 19th century 1940, the Butterfly went into mass by J.B. Fenby, an English engineer. production; by 1945 it had sold millions. The chair\u2019s tension comes only SECTIONAL DAVENPORT makes an X-shaped support beneath each from the gravitational pull section. The back, side, and sprung seat caused by the sitter. This three-piece sectional davenport has a narrow cushions are upholstered in skunk skin and centre section flanked on either side by two black leather. Inspiration must have come from The leather cover of slightly wider ones. Essentially rectangular in Le Corbusier\u2019s Gran Confort (see pp.432\u201333). the chair is slipped form, its tubular-steel frame is exposed. The The piece was designed by Wolfgang Hoffmann. onto the steel frame seats are raised from the floor, where the frame 1936. L:202cm (791\u20442in). SDR with no additional LOUNGE CHAIR attachments. This is a fine example of a Gilbert Rohde The soft leather of lounge chair. The angular, wooden frame the seat contrasts rises vertically from the floor to make with the hard steel the uprights and reaches back frame to articulate horizontally to form the arms the simplicity of the of the chair. The chair is chair\u2019s construction. upholstered in a dark brown woollen fabric. Two loops of bent H:80cm (311\u20442in). SDR steel are welded together to form the Butterfly chair Designed in 1938, this Knoll chair\u2019s frame. Associates chair has a tubular frame and leather The thin steel piping seat. c.1950s. H:90cm makes the chair appear (341\u20444in); W:80cm (31in); almost bodiless. D:85cm (27in). BonBay","442 MODERNISM 1925\u20131945 Italy MODERNISM IN ARCHITECTURE and advocacy of industrial progress, clean produced a range of tables and chairs exhibitions were moved to Milan under furniture design first emerged in Italy in living, and moral reform appeared to that owed much to Marcel Breuer\u2019s the title of International Triennial of 1926 under the banner of Razionalismo, fit well with the Fascists\u2019 own ideals. work at the Bauhaus, although the Decorative and Modern Industrial Art. or Rationalism. Most prominent among Indeed, such was the relationship furniture was more expressive in its The Triennials showcased the latest the Rationalists, all of whom espoused between the Rationalists and the lines than Breuer\u2019s deliberately developments in design from Italy and a functional, pared-down approach to Fascists that in 1934 Giuseppe anonymous-looking pieces. across Europe. The idea of using architecture and design, was Gruppo 7, Terragni completed both the building tubular steel, which Italian designers a collective that included Luigi Figini, and the fittings for the Fascist THE USE OF TUBULAR STEEL first saw in 1930, struck a chord, as Gino Pollini, and Giuseppe Terragni. headquarters in Como, near Milan. Italian designers would have seen Italy was, in the interwar years, Needless to say, the architecture was the tubular-steel designs developed suffering a severe wood shortage. Mussolini\u2019s government, whose rise unremittingly stark, with equally in Germany at the regular Triennial Mussolini\u2019s hard-line approach to rule to power coincided with the emergence uncompromising furniture. Employing exhibitions, held for the first time in had seen the country fall from favour of the Rationalists, initially embraced primarily tubular steel, Terragni Monza in 1923. Ten years later, the with more liberal governments across the nascent design style. Gruppo 7\u2019s Detail of lock ARMCHAIR COMACINA DESK The chair\u2019s frame is made from laminated beechwood. On each side, the arm and legs are one continuous loop of wood; joined This writing desk has a simple, tubular-steel frame. The beneath the seat by a cross-stretcher. The seat has a beech frame rectangular, white-laminate top offers a plain work surface; a with a woven cane seat and back. Designed by Giuseppe Pagano. storage unit with four drawers is below, to the right. Designed by 1938. H:71cm (27 7\u20448in); W:61cm (24in); D:68cm (263\u20444in). Piero Bottoni in 1930; this example was re-issued by Zanotta in 2004. H:75cm (291\u20442in); W:130cm (51in); D:65cm (251\u20442in). ZAN TELEPHONE STAND OCCASIONAL TABLE This occasional-table-cum-telephone-stand was designed by G. Levi Montalcini and The most striking feature of this side, Giuseppe Pagano. It has a chrome-plated, or occasional, table is its thick plate- tubular-steel frame. Two circular, black- glass top, which has a bevelled edge. laminate shelves sit at the top of the stand The circular glass table top collects and are cantilevered over the base. light like a lens, producing a brilliant 1932, re-issued by Zanotta in 2004. reflection below. The table top rests on H:80cm (311\u20442in); W:37.5cm (143\u20444in). ZAN a walnut support from which emerge four splayed legs, that taper sharply towards the bottom. The legs are made of lacquered walnut. Designed by Pietro Chiesa, the table was manufactured by Fontana Arte. c.1950. H:48.25cm (19in); D:66cm (26in).","ITALY 443 the world, and Italy was suffering international\u201d; Mussolini opted to 1925\u20131945 under sanctions. As a result, tubular- support the Neoclassical style of the steel designs by the likes of Terragni, Novecento group. But where Hitler Piero Bottoni, and Gabriele Mucchi hounded all Modernist architects and were developed during these years, designers from Germany, Mussolini although they rarely met with popular took a far more lenient view. Indeed, success. Designed as prototypes for the 1930s and 40s was a time in mass production, many designs of the which many of Italy\u2019s most celebrated era were only produced in significant manufacturers and designers got their numbers much later. start. The likes of Cassina and Fontana Arte were not to gain fame until the The Rationalists eventually fell out 1950s, but they put down roots in with the Fascists after Mussolini the interwar period. Although the deemed their approach \u201ctoo years 1925\u201345 were not the most distinguished in Italy\u2019s remarkable The lounge chair The Modernist era saw many design history, they certainly paved pieces made for sanitoriums. The lounge chair the way for much of what was to come. was a favourite, with versions made that could be easily moved from inside to outside or transformed from a seat to a day bed. Detail of leather straps Tubular-steel frame LOUNGE CHAIR FOLLIA CHAIR The cylindrical headrest is strapped to the chair Made from tubular steel and slung fabric, this innovative The black-painted, rectilinear wooden seat to minimize bulk. piece can be used as a chair or a chaise longue, depending and back of this Giuseppe Terragni chair are on which end it stands (see above). Designed by Battista and connected by chrome-plated spring supports. Gino Guidici. 1935. H:98cm (38in); L:113cm (45in); W:49cm 1934, re-issued by Zanotta in 2004. H:80cm (191\u20442in). WKA (311\u20442in); W:50cm (19 2\u20443in); D:60cm (232\u20443in). ZAN The armrest padding is kept to a bare minimum so as not to disturb the clean lines of the chair. Simple, black upholstery Tubular steel is used to covers the mattress on form the chair\u2019s frame. the footrest. Cushioning on the ottoman is The chair\u2019s seat appears strapped to the tubular-steel base, suspended, giving it a accentuating the contrast of sense of weightlessness. natural and synthetic materials. GENNI LOUNGE CHAIR This lounge chair\u2019s seat sits within a tubular-steel frame and is adjustable, having two positions. The upholstered mattress and headrest match the black elbow rests. The footstool echoes the chair\u2019s rectangular frame. It was re-issued by Tecta in 2004. H:82cm (321\u20444in) (max); W:41cm (16in); D:109cm (43in). Footstool: H:41cm (16in); W:45cm (173\u20444in); D:55cm (212\u20443in).","444 MODERNISM 19235\u201319405 Chairs to produce a chair made of a minimum number of components that fitted AS FURNITURE PRODUCTION steadily together easily and quickly. It\u2019s no CLUB CHAIR AALTO-INSPIRED CHAIR shifted emphasis from craft-based surprise, then, that the cantilever chair manufacturing to industrial methods, became so popular, as the continuous The rectilinear frame is made from stained This armchair was inspired by a model made so the look of the chair changed loop of legs and base eradicated the pearwood secured with brass fittings. The chair by Alvar Aalto. The chair\u2019s seat and back are dramatically. Ornament was doggedly need for numerous nuts and bolts. is upholstered in hand-woven woolen fabric. made from a single sheet of laminated wood erased from designs as structure Peter Keler, Bauhaus Weimar. 1925. H:69cm and sit within an oak open-arm frame. became more important to the While the structure of the chair (27in); W:62cm (241\u20442in); D:68cm (26 3\u20444in). WKA aesthetic look. Solid wood began to became increasingly celebrated in \u25cfH:76cm (30in) CA 1 fall from favour (too expensive and its design, as opposed to any stylistic inflexible) as moulded plywood and conceits, so the designer as an tubular steel stepped into the spotlight. individual receded into the background. Industry became more important than Just as the notion of open-plan space art, as designers sought to express was creeping into Western architecture, nothing more romantic than the so furniture was freed from fulfilling manufacturing process. just one function. Chairs became increasingly ambiguous, with some The reason the chair dominated the made for indoor and outdoor use, and focus of designers\u2019 efforts is because a others equally at home in an office or person\u2019s emotional attachment is far dining room. Chairs became lighter, greater to a chair than to, say, a shelving too, as they were frequently moved unit. If Modernist designers wanted to around the house. alter their audience\u2019s emotional and intellectual outlook, it was through With mass production in mind, the chair that they tried to do so. designers began to concentrate their efforts on fixtures. The aim became The slender armrests display a use of cushioning that is rare for a chair by Marcel Breuer. EASY CHAIR LANDI CHAIR This easy chair comprises a series of square- Lightweight and durable, this stacking chair is section planks of pine, joined by wooden made from pressed and bent aluminium. Each dowels. It has a slatted section on both seat armrest and pair of legs is from one piece of and chair back. Designed by Hein Stolle. aluminium. Hans Coray. 1938. H: 76cm (29in); \u25cfc.1930. BonBay 2 \u25cfW:51cm (19in); D:55cm (21in). BonBay 2 The steel struts beneath the seat have been bowed so they cannot be felt by the sitter. The chair is made from non- reinforced tubular steel, thereby making it less rigid. B34 CHAIR WITH ARMS being that most floors are slightly uneven and SIDE CHAIR ZIG-ZAG CHAIR the smallest change in level would make the The frame of this cantilever chair is made from chair wobble. This chair has arms with elbow The seat and back of this early cantilevered One of a pair, this chair has a tubular-steel one continuous loop of tubular steel. Although supports, and a blue canvas seat and back. chair are made of ebonized moulded plywood frame reminiscent of Rietveld\u2019s Zig-Zag chair. the base looks as though it is all in contact Designed by Marcel Breuer and produced by and sit on a chrome-plated tubular-steel frame. The wooden seat is supported on steel rods with the floor, the side pieces bend slightly so Thonet. 1928. H:85cm (331\u20442in); W:57.5cm The armrests are ebonized beech. Mart Stam and has a later vinyl cover. H: 82.5cm (321\u20442in); that only the corners touch the floor \u2013 the idea \u25cf(222\u20443in); D:63cm (243\u20444in). Qu 1 \u25cffor Thonet. c.1930. BonBay 2 \u25cfW:41.5cm (161\u20443in); D:63.5cm (25in). Qu 1","CHAIRS 445 1925\u20131945 LOUNGE CHAIR CANTILEVERED ARMCHAIR FREE SWINGER ARMCHAIR LAMINATED LOUNGE CHAIR One of a pair, this armchair has a tubular- Designed by Gilbert Rohde, this cantilevered The base of this chromed-steel cantilevered This chair has been made from one sheet of cut chrome frame and seat with cushions armchair has a bright chrome base and black armchair from Austria is the only part of the and moulded laminated birch and resembles the upholstered in a dark brown, brushed fabric laminated armrests. The cushions are structure that is exposed. The chair seat and Gerald Summers classic (see p.438). The arms with red trim. The armrests are black- upholstered in ivory leather with a black trim. back are filled with down and upholstered in are fixed to the back with metal brackets. Hans \u25cfenamelled. H:86.5cm (34in). SDR 1 \u25cfH:94cm (37in). SDR 1 \u25cfsand-coloured velour. H:84cm (331\u20442in). DOR 3 \u25cfPieck. 1944. H:76cm (30in). BonBay 4 The stacking chair STILL FOUND IN CAF\u00c9S WORLDWIDE, THIS ICONIC DESIGN IS PERHAPS THE FIRST STACKING CHAIR, AND CERTAINLY THE FIRST WIDESPREAD DESIGN, OF ITS KIND. The origins of this chair, despite the What is perhaps most impressive about BAUHAUS ARMCHAIR DINING CHAIR efforts of numerous historians, have the chair, apart from its stackability, is proved murky at best. The design is most its economy of materials. The steel used This chair was designed by Erich Dieckmann This is one of a pair of stacking birch plywood likely to have been developed in France is incredibly thin and, to give the legs for the Weimer Bauhaus, in collaboration with dining chairs that were produced by Artek. The some time around 1925, specifically for rigidity, the steel has been subtly curved. Ernst Mayo. Made from solid beech, it has chair has a circular wooden seat and a pierced the country\u2019s booming caf\u00e9 culture. The To save further on metal, holes have a bowed back and slatted seat. c.1930. plywood back, supported on L-shaped plywood chair bears a strong, albeit rather crude, been cut from the seat back. While the H:81.5cm (321\u20442in); W:52.5cm (21in). WKA uprights. c.1930s. resemblance to chairs designed by perfect low-cost, space-saving chair was Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, although it\u2019s to become something of a holy grail for doubtful whether the French high- 20th-century furniture designers, few society designer ever had a hand in ever bettered the chair design that first its conception. set the ball rolling. The so-called Bistro chairs These have a pressed- steel frame and are painted red; with plywood \u25cfseats. c.1926. H:82cm (321\u20444in). DOR 3 DIAGONAL CHAIR SLATTED CHAIR This chrome-plated, tubular-steel chair is named This Viennese chair has a tubular-steel frame after the supports between the seat back and and solid, stained-beech wooden slats for the legs. The arms, seat, and back are of laminated seat and back. The arms have wooden armrests. wood. W.H. Gispen. c.1927. H:82.5cm (321\u20442in); One of a set of four. 1925. H:84.5cm (331\u20444in). \u25cfW:54cm (211\u20444in); D:60cm (232\u20443in). QU 2 \u25cfDOR 3","1925\u20131945446 MODERNISM is placed at the side to allow the table top to come over an item of Tables furniture (which, in Gray\u2019s case, was GLASS DINING TABLE supports, where they come into contact with her own bed). Such versatility was to the table top, to cushion the glass and prevent AS WITH MOST FORMS of furniture become a key feature in table design Made of tubular steel, the frame of this table slippage. The glass top has been ground at the during the interwar period, tables of the Modern era. consists of a rectilinear base. At the top, corners to produce smooth curves. Attributed to were subjected to a radical process at each end of the table, is a semi-circular Emile Guillot and produced by Thonet, Paris. of reduction. All details deemed Since many designers in the interwar support for the glass table top that interlocks superfluous were stripped away to years were reacting to the excesses of with the base. There are rubber pads on the 1930. H:79cm (311\u20444in); W:120.5cm (47 1\u20442in); leave what designers considered the Art Nouveau style, most table tops to be a pure, practical form. were either a simple, unadorned circle \u25cfD:72.5cm (281\u20442in). WKA 4 or square. It wasn\u2019t until after World Marcel Breuer, the Hungarian-born War II, with the advent of a more student-turned-teacher at the organic style, that this strict design Bauhaus, was the designer who most principle was relaxed and irregular successfully achieved the desired, shapes came into use. pared-down look. Utilizing tubular steel, a material that he is said to Glass, plywood, and tubular steel have borrowed from the bicycle- were always considered the most making industry, he produced tables cutting-edge materials from which that expressed little beyond their to make tables (due to their close own function. association with industry), although some designers did use solid wood. Eileen Gray\u2019s tubular-steel and glass If this was used it was considered side tables, now known as the E1027 important to avoid all efforts to carve tables in reference to the house for or decorate it, thereby keeping its which she designed them, may not be surface as clean to the eye as possible. as rudimentary as Breuer\u2019s tables, but they display more invention. The tops The tables \u201cnest\u201d so of the tables can be adjusted to sit at as to save space in differing heights, and the table\u2019s stem small apartments. The black-painted tops hide the wood grain and give the tables an industrial look. BLACK-ENAMELLED TABLE lengths of steel. As the legs reach the floor, The chrome-plated tubular-steel frame of this they join in the centre to form one single dining table offers a support for the black- enamelled rectangular table top, before length of tubular steel below the table top. dropping to the floor in each corner to form the legs. Each leg is made from two parallel Designed by Wolfgang Hoffmann for Howell. \u25cfW:147.5cm (58in). SDR 1 Chrome plating gives the tubular steel an alluring gleam. NESTING TABLES frame and a black-painted wooden top. The top EXTENSION DINING TABLE sits flush with the table frame. Designed by This series of four nesting tables fits neatly, Marcel Breuer at Bauhaus Dessau in 1925\u201326, This extension dining table was made in America. width by 45cm (18in) on each side when one above the next, in a stack. They all have it is thought that they were initially designed The simple, straightforward design consists of the same depth, but increase in width and as stools. This example was re-issued by Tecta a plain, rectangular wooden top with two pull- extended. The top rests on a trestle base that height as they grow in size. Each table has a in 2004. Largest table: H:60cm (231\u20443in); out leaves. The leaves, which are concealed simple, rectilinear, chrome-plated tubular-steel underneath the table top, increase the table\u2019s ends in tubular-steel stretchers and bracket \u25cfW:66cm (26in); D:38cm (15in). TEC 2 feet. Designed by Gilbert Rohde. Closed: \u25cfW:152.5cm (60in). SDR 2","TABLES 447 1925\u20131945 SUNSHADE TABLE MODEL 91 TABLE PALADAO DINING TABLE This two-tiered end table is one of a pair. Each black laminate The rectangular top of this table is made from unlimed oak and This flip-top, wooden dining table has a simple rectangular top table top has a chrome trim. The smaller, top table sits flush has a black-linoleum surface. The corners have been slightly with rounded corners. It has two additional leaves for extending with the tubular-steel frame, and the larger, bottom table is rounded. The table top rests on four rigid, chrome-plated tubular- the table size and a fifth leg for extra support. The legs taper supported by the table base and legs. Designed by Gilbert steel legs. Designed by Marcel Breuer for Embru. c.1933. sharply as they reach the floor. Designed by Gilbert Rohde for \u25cfRohde for Troy. W:45.5cm (173\u20444in). SDR 1 \u25cfW:120cm (48in). DOR 4 \u25cfHerman Miller. H:91.5cm (36in). SDR 1 E1027 SIDE TABLES CAFE TABLE GAMES TABLE These side tables are made from chrome-plated tubular steel, The square top of this table has a black-linoleum surface with a The square, orange-laminate table top rests on a chrome- where the table\u2019s stand is placed to one side and can be adjusted riveted, plate-steel surround. It rests on four chrome-plated tubular- plated brass base. The base hinges in the centre, making to raise or lower the height of the circular glass table top to suit steel legs, which bend to meet each other in the centre above an X- the table collapsible. At each corner is a swivel plate for a range of purposes. Designed by Eileen Gray. c.1927. D:51cm shaped, tubular-steel base. The linoleum top is new. Produced by holding a glass. Designed by Boris Lacroix. c.1930. H:70cm \u25cf(20in). DOR 1 \u25cfThonet Mundus. c.1930. H:75cm (291\u20442in). DOR 3 \u25cf(271\u20442in). DOR 3 BEECH SIDE TABLE ROSEWOOD TROLLEY BAUHAUS SOFA TABLE Designed and manufactured in Sweden, this small side, or The circular, rosewood top of this trolley table has hinged The table\u2019s frame consists of a rectilinear, nickel-plated tubular- occasional table has a circular, white laminate top above sides and rests on a chromium tripod base. The front wheels steel base, with a rectangle of tubular steel suspended below the three bent-beech legs. The legs taper slightly as they reach are also made from rosewood. The caster at the rear of the circular, plate-glass table top. Designed by Marcel Breuer in 1929 the floor. Designed by Bruno Mathsson. 1936. D:44.5cm table is used to stabilize the trolley. H:56.5cm (221\u20444in); and produced by Thonet. This example is a Tecta re-issue from D:80cm (311\u20442in). L&T \u25cf(171\u20442in). SDR 3 \u25cf2004. H:60cm (232\u20443in); D:80cm (311\u20442in). TEC 2",""]