Furniture - World Styles From Classical To Contemporary

["1945-1970Mid-century Modern","1945\u20131970450 MID-CENTURY MODERN optimism and wealth In the aftermath of World War II, the united states and much of europe experienced new prosperity and optimism, which fuelled the growth in consumerism and youth culture. Pierre Paulin Tulip footstool This used new materials: the seat cover is vinyl and the base moulded steel. 1965. W:73.5cm (29in). FRE THE PERIOD BETWEEN the end of World War late 1940s became a time of relative sobriety, as greater choice, a trend that was stimulated II and the early 1960s was, on the whole, trade partnerships were gradually re-established by the growth of the mass media. The 1950s characterized by optimism and prosperity. and industries rekindled. was the era that saw the explosion of youth Leading this boom was the United States, a culture, as a younger generation began to feel country that had remained relatively unscathed The United States recovered from the ravages increasingly alienated from their elders. By 1961, during the war and would soon emerge as the of war more quickly than most, and by the when the first man orbited Earth in a spaceship, world\u2019s dominant nation, not only economically beginning of the 1950s its factories were it was clear that a new age had begun. but also culturally. Quick to fall in step behind achieving record levels of productivity, while the United States were many European countries, technological innovations such as colour John F. Kennedy, the youngest man ever to for whom the 1950s and 1960s were also an era television were helping to foster a sense of be elected president of the United States, seemed of unprecedented progress. opportunity. It was in this atmosphere that artists to symbolize this shift in the balance of power such as Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollock, and towards a new, forward-looking generation. In the immediate aftermath of the war, Willem de Kooning established new forms of Music, fashion, and furniture design of the time, however, most nations were occupied with art, while Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen took not only in the United States but also across regeneration. A quiet desire to return to a the design world by storm. The United States, it Europe, expressed an urgent mood of vitality. normal way of life dominated, so that the seemed, was making its presence felt. By the end of the decade, however, cracks Between 1948 and 1951, with the introduction in this exciting culture were beginning to of the Marshall Plan, the United States used its appear. President Kennedy was assassinated considerable financial muscle to assist Europe in 1963, the United States\u2019 involvement in the in recovering from the war. This influx into war in Vietnam was escalating out of control, Europe of nearly $13 billion dollars (close to crime rates were rising, and the realization was $100 billion at present-day conversion rates) gradually dawning that many of the recreational was the catalyst that many European nations drugs being used were not as harmless as was needed to regain economic confidence. Italy, previously thought. in particular, went on to enjoy a period of sustained industrial growth throughout the The heady feeling of liberation that had so 1950s, while other nations, notably Germany characterized the 1950s and the early 1960s and France, also prospered. was fading, and an atmosphere of bitterness and resentment was slowly taking its place. As the era of wartime frugality receded, a new Tensions flared up in many cities across the consumer society bloomed in its place. Across world \u2013 most notably in Paris during the the globe, buyers were beginning to demand riots of 1968 \u2013 as the generation who had been raised during the prosperous years of the 1950s The Kaufmann Desert House, Palm Springs, California Constructed of realized that much of their unfettered idealism a series of horizontal planes that appear to float over glass walls, this had been misplaced. is regarded as one of the finest examples of a Mid-century Modern house in the United States. By Richard Neutra. 1946. TIMELINE 1945\u20131970 Charles and Ray Eames design Design exhibition. Hochschule f\u00fcr 1953 Osvaldo Borsani founds Tecno in a moulded-plastic armchair; it Gestaltung opens in Ulm, Germany; it 1945 Arts & follows their innovations with becomes the centre for design education Milan, producing luxurious furniture with plywood and precedes those in Europe. an industrial aesthetic. Boeing 707, Architecture launch with aluminium. The Museum a military aircraft, is re-designed Case Study House. of Modern Art (MoMA) organize 1951 Italian manufacturer Kartell for civilian use. Air travel Designs by architects International Competition for becomes more common. such as Richard Low-Cost Furniture. introduces mass-produced plastic Neutra and Pierre homewares. Black and white TV is 1954 Compasso Koenig become icons. 1949 R. Buckminster Fuller widely available. The Festival of Britain is held between May and D\u2019Oro launched 1948 Gio Ponti creates his strong, lightweight, September; the focus of this by La Rinascente low-cost Geodesic dome. nationwide event is London. edits Domus, the stores. forum for debate on 1950 First MoMA Good Buckminster Fuller\u2019s Geodesic dome Modernist design. Cover of Domus magazine","Interior of the Kaufman Desert House, Palm Springs The Low Armchair Rod (LAR) chair This chair, by Charles The interiors of the Kaufman House in California reflected and Ray Eames for The Herman Miller Furniture Company, the trends of the time in their use of wood, in-built has a fibreglass-reinforced, moulded-plastic seat raised furniture, and abstract patterns on the furnishing. A on a bent-wire frame. The American couple produced desert colour palette is used throughout the interior, as many iconic pieces in new materials. 1950. H:61cm well as the exterior. Designed by Richard Neutra. 1946. (24in); W:63cm (243\u20444in); D:64cm (251\u20444in). WKA 1955 Arne Jacobsen Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. introduced. It is the first small-scale car to become a resounding success. designs the hugely 1958 Isamu Kenmochi\u2019s successful Series 1962 Andr\u00e9 Courr\u00e8ges designs the 7 chair. Rattan chair becomes the first Modern Japanese miniskirt. 1950s Bakelite television 1956 Alison and item of furniture to become 1959 Austin Mini popular in the West. 1964 The Herman Miller Furniture Peter Smithson\u2019s 1966 Archizoom and Superstudio founded 1959 The Company launch the Action Office furniture House of the Future designed for the system by George Nelson and Robert Propst. in Florence, ushering in an intellectual, Mini, by Alec Terence Conran opens Habitat, which carries art-orientated approach to Italian design. \u201cIdeal Homes\u201d show in Britain. Issigonis, is European designs, in London. 1968 Verner Panton presents colour- 1957 Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni Arne Jacobsen\u2019s 1965 Cassina begin the I Maestri range, the Series 7 chair saturated roomsets at Visiona in Cologne. design the Sella stool, which uses a bicycle first collection of Modernist reproductions. seat. The design pre-dates the Pop designs 1969 First man on the Moon. of the next decade. The USSR launch","452 MID-CENTURY MODERN MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE 1945\u20131970 WORLD WAR II HALTED the development of furniture that a looser, sculptural style \u2013 design. While some designers were in active service, influenced by sculptors such Walnut sideboard This piece has a free-edge top above two sliding, others were in hiding, and many more were occupied as Constantin Brancusi \u2013 was spindle-front doors with pandanus cloth backing. Inside the sideboard with the war effort at home. For this reason, coupled emerging. The Eameses developed a are two interior shelves and four drawers. The case stands on a cross- with the prevailing sobriety of the post-war years, it technique for moulding plywood in plank base. Designed by George Nakashima, USA. H:197cm was the pre-1945 Rational style that once again two directions \u2013 a method used in leg (77 1\u20444in). SDR assumed centre stage after the war. splints for injured servicemen during the war \u2013 and this lent their furniture Disposable furniture became a major craze, as did There were, however, significant changes to what an unprecedented three-dimensionality. furniture in bright, attention-grabbing colours and drove the post-war furniture industry, most of which shapes \u2013 often inspired by advertising. Early forms of stemmed from newly available manufacturing Of unparalleled popularity in the plastic also allowed designers to experiment with new techniques. Pioneered for military purposes, most often early 1950s \u2013 although Charles and and daring shapes. At the forefront of this change was by aircraft designers, processes such as aluminium- Ray Eames\u2019 work was also well received \u2013 was Italy, a nation giddy with its own economic success casting and innovative ways of bonding wood were Scandinavian furniture. In the 1930s, designers such and willing to entertain radical ideas concerning embraced by designers and manufacturers. as Alvar Aalto and Bruno Matthson had developed Soft furniture design and manufacturing. RATIONALISM ON THE WANE Modernism, an aesthetic that was maintained in the The increased scope that new techniques afforded post-war years. This gentle, ergonomically informed Beneath all these new, seemingly spontaneous, designers soon led to a relaxation of the principles of take on the severe look of Modernism struck a chord explorations in material and form remained a strong Rationalism. The early work of American designers with both designers and consumers looking for underlying desire to make furniture that was both Charles and Ray Eames, for instance, clearly shows comfort after the experiences of the war. functional and articulate. Designers, in other words, still considered the comfort and desires of their users. Egg chair This armchair is a good example of the trend for a more By the mid 1950s, many countries were experiencing This was to change as the 1960s wore on. sculptural look and feel that characterizes many pieces from this a return to economic prosperity, which resulted in a period. The chair has a padded-leather seat and back over a fibreglass welcome wave of optimism. It was in this atmosphere Anti-design was a phrase first used in Italy to frame and is supported on an aluminium, star-shaped base. Designed that the more extreme elements of the Rational style describe the furniture being made by the likes of by Arne Jacobsen for Fritz Hansen, Denmark. 1958. Bk were phased out, as designers rebelled against the Superstudio and Archizoom. Disillusioned with what sober approach of previous generations. they perceived as a pervading culture of excess, many designers of the late 1960s made furniture that was This trend was most marked in Italy, where deliberately awkward to use and look at. Shunning the designers such as Gio Ponti and Carlo di Carli added Functionalism that had been in vogue since the 1920s, a sensuous element to furniture design not seen since they made furniture that mocked the high-mindedness the heyday of Art Nouveau. In Britain, Alison and of Modernism. This antagonistic attitude, which grew Peter Smithson presented their House of the Future as the economic and political outlook of Europe and (1956), a structure filled with (mostly fitted) furniture the United States worsened, eventually developed into that was inspired as much by fantasy as by reality. what we now call Postmodernism. PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE By the 1960s, a new spirit had overtaken the furniture industry. Many designers scrapped the ideal of making timeless designs and began creating work made for the moment. The concept of in-built obsolescence, which had emerged in the United States in the 1930s, resurfaced, as furniture with a limited lifespan was seen as making good economic sense. PORTABLE TUBE CHAIR Tube chair The four tubes that make up the chair are of arcipiuma Duffel carrier bag Each tube plastic covered in foam and upholstered in vinyl. They fit within each component of this chair fits within Joe Colombo\u2019s innovative Tube chair consists of four other and come packaged in a duffel bag. Using a number of steel-and- the next one up in size, the whole polyurethane-foam-covered cylinders and six steel- rubber points, the user can make a range of different chairs to suit his or being neatly packaged in a drawstring and-rubber joints. Sold in a drawstring bag, the chair\u2019s her needs. 1969. H:61cm (24in); W:61cm (24in); D:120cm (44in). WKA bag. WKA components could be assembled any way the user chose. Made in 1969, the chair is a striking example of the rebellion against existing typologies of furniture design that occurred in the 1960s. Although he found an admirably logical solution to the problem of transporting furniture, Colombo appears to have been more concerned with creating a visually iconoclastic design than with providing comfortable seating.","MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE 453 ALL-IN-ONE DESK NEW USE OF MATERIALS Nelson\u2019s endeavours to incorporate a drawer, 1945\u20131970 Unlike the work of earlier Modernist designers, a shelving unit, a retractable wastepaper bin, a Produced in 1948 by The Herman Miller Furniture however, Nelson\u2019s desk differs in that it displays typewriter cabinet, and a desktop into a single Company in Zeeland, Michigan, George Nelson\u2019s an eclectic use of both materials and form. Stylistic piece of visually exciting furniture is emblematic Home Office desk is a typical piece of Mid-century details such as the walnut veneer, the imitation- of the progressive, can-do attitude that was a Modern design, and the type of furniture design leather sliding doors, the bevelled fa\u00e7ade of the characteristic of much of American furniture coming out of the United States at that time. upper storage unit, and the splayed legs of the design of the post-war years. desk show how the purist attitude prevalent in The lightweight look of Nelson\u2019s desk is achieved the interwar years had begun to soften. The use Home Office desk This writing desk has a hinged, walnut-veneer by raising much of the visual bulk of the object of colour, too, is further proof that designers such writing surface, below which is an aluminium wastepaper bin to one above the desk\u2019s thin, tubular-steel legs. The use of as Nelson were becoming more playful in their side and a typewriter cabinet to the other. Above the desktop are two tubular steel, and the complete absence of surface designs as they attempted to reflect the upbeat sliding doors, each of which opens on to additional storage space. decoration on the desk, illustrates the influence mood of the era. Designed by George Nelson for The Herman Miller Furniture on Nelson of a previous generation of Modernist Company, USA. 1948. H:103cm (41in); W:137cm (543\u20444in); designers such as Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies D:71cm (281\u20442in). QU van der Rohe. The doors slide open and shut Thin steel rods separate the The mustard-coloured imitation The fa\u00e7ade of the upper storage unit neatly, rather than swinging upper storage unit from the leather adds further levity to is bevelled to add to the dynamism open awkwardly. desktop, lending the former the look of the desk. of the unit\u2019s appearance. a look of weightlessness. The walnut-veneered drawer The use of tubular steel appears to be suspended maintains continuity with but is, in fact, supported designs of the interwar years. by the tubular- steel legs. The desk\u2019s tubular-steel legs are splayed to increase the Perforations in the detachable desk\u2019s sturdiness and give it aluminium container give it a a more informal appearance. lightweight look and distinguish it as a wastepaper basket.","454 MID-CENTURY MODERN ELEMENTS OF STYLE 1945\u20131970 After the austerity of the interwar years, a much more fleshed-out form of Modernism characterized furniture design in the late 1940s, the 1950s, and the 1960s. Reflecting the optimism of the era, as well as the greater variety of available materials and manufacturing techniques, furniture assumed a more playful appearance. The introduction of plastics and foam padding in the late 1950s took Modernism even further from its Rationalist roots, as new colours and forms dictated new designs. By the end of the 1960s, the idea of Functionalism that had previously dominated 20th- century design was dying a very visible death, as designers overlooked practicality in favour of more experimental ideas. Detail of wire table base Japanese-inspired door front Metal-rod construction Japanese influences The availability of increasingly narrow As international travel became easier and lighter gauges of steel brought and more commonplace during the about a refinement in the use of metal late 1940s and early 1950s, design in furniture design. Designers such as was opened up to new influences Harry Bertoia and Warren Platner that had previously had little impact produced lightweight wire furniture on Modernism. Of particular appeal that was in keeping with the principles to designers who adhered to the of Modernism: the exposed structure Modern aesthetic were the traditions of metal-rod furniture provided the of simplicity and clarity found in essence of its visual appeal. Japanese design. Valet chair Form and function Designers of the 1940s and 1950s embraced many of the ideals of the Modernists, not least the idea that form should follow function. The form of this Hans Wegner chair relates to its function, the outstretched arms of the chair back mirroring those of the human form. Detail of chair Close-up of light fitting Stretch fabrics Bold colours The development of new, elastic types As the purist tendencies that defined of fabric allowed furniture designers of early Modernism ebbed away, designers the 1960s to explore new forms. Most began to use colour to draw attention significantly, these fabrics allowed to their work. Although painted wood designers to stretch material over was still rejected (as too superficial), internal frameworks to create shapes designers in the 1950s did use that were no longer dictated by an brilliantly coloured upholstery. The object\u2019s structure. The clinging qualities introduction of plastics opened up new of these new fabrics also did away with opportunities for the use of colour, the need for upholstery. which many designers eagerly exploited.","ELEMENTS OF STYLE 455 1945\u20131970 Moulded plastic table Detail of splayed-leg table Close-up of curved chair seat Detail of abstract table base Plastics Splayed legs Seats for slouching Organic forms During the oil glut of the 1950s and In an attempt to distinguish their The explosion of youth culture in the New techniques for moulding plywood 1960s, petroleum-based plastics became designs from the rigid creations of the 1950s provoked an informal attitude in and the availability of thinner, more readily available and inexpensive Modernists, many furniture designers Western societies that was expressed in malleable rods of steel encouraged a materials for designers to use. It of the 1950s used splayed legs for the way people sat. Younger generations rash of shapely forms in post-war was only in the mid 1960s, however, their furniture. This stylistic detail, no longer wanted to sit bolt upright, as furniture design. Also influenced by that plastic furniture really took off, particularly prevalent among Italian their parents had encouraged them to the art of the Surrealists and the as designers made full use of new furniture designs, gave desks, tables, do, and so started to slouch in their Abstract Expressionists, as well as the forms that could now be achieved and chairs an almost languid seats. Designers responded by creating amoebic shapes associated with science, by moulding with these malleable appearance that reflected the more chairs that users could drape themselves designers made pieces that were new materials. relaxed mood of the post-war period. over comfortably. increasingly sculptural in form. Detail of chair seat and back Aluminium wastepaper basket Linear shelving Foam-rubber cushions Moulded plywood Aluminium Horizontal lines Padding Although bent plywood had become This versatile material was widely As lifestyles became ever more Rubber padding was pioneered in popular in furniture design in the used in the interiors of military informal during the post-war years, Italy in the 1950s as an offshoot of the interwar years, it was only in the transport vehicles, particularly in designers echoed this trend in their tyre industry, while foam padding was 1940s that a technique for flexing fighter planes, during World War II, furniture using long, horizontal developed at around the same time in the material in more than one direction aluminium was in abundant supply lines. The more relaxed look this Scandinavia. Produced by steaming was perfected. Charles Eames and Eero during the 1940s and 1950s. Favoured gave the furniture they created was polystyrene beads, which transformed Saarinen worked together to become by designers because it is both durable embraced by a young buying public into a foam under heat, the resulting early pioneers of moulded plywood and lightweight, aluminium was a keen to forget the stiff, unyielding substance could be applied to a furniture, developing a style that used commonly used material in post-war style of domestic design that they framework and moulded into whatever complex curves. furniture design. had grown up with. shape was required.","456 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 CHARLES AND RAY EAMES revolutionizing furniture design with their innovative use of materials, the eameses produced timeless classics. FEW NAMES LOOM larger in 20th-century furniture ESU-420N STORAGE UNIT design than Charles and Ray Eames. This American This storage unit is an early design by husband and wife team, one an architect and former Charles and Ray Eames. The panels at the draughtsman, the other an abstract expressionist front are in beige, grey, black, and white painter, produced work that perfectly and eloquently masonite and fibreglass. The whole is expressed Modernism\u2019s aim of marrying industry and supported on a steel frame in black. Made art. In the years between their meeting in 1940, at the by the Herman Miller Furniture Company. Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, and Charles\u2019s death in 1978, the couple revolutionized c.1951. H:148.5cm (581\u20442in); W:119.5cm furniture design with pieces that are, with few exceptions, still top sellers. (47in); D:40.75cm (16in). R20 NOVEL USE OF MATERIALS LAR (LOW ARMCHAIR ROD) CHAIR The materials used in Charles and The chair\u2019s seat is made from moulded, fibreglass-reinforced polyester and is Ray Eames\u2019 furniture reveal their raised on a painted, steel-rod base. Manufactured by the Herman Miller mission of \u201cgetting the most of the best to the Furniture Company. 1950. H:61cm (24in); W:63cm (247\u20448in); D:64cm (251\u20444in). WKA greatest number of people for the least amount of money\u201d, which is why they turned to ROSEWOOD TABLE moulded plywood, plastic, fibreglass, and In keeping with Charles and Ray Eames\u2019 desire to make aluminium. These materials were distinguished multipurpose furniture, this table was sold as both a conference by their flexibility, affordability, and freshness. table and a dining table. It has a rosewood top and is raised on two chrome-plated steel columns terminating in splayed legs. Although Eames furniture is now considered The columns are joined by a flat stretcher. Manufactured by The timeless, the couple were ruthless innovators. Herman Miller Furniture Company. c.1955. W:98cm (38in). SDR It was a new technique for moulding plywood (developed by Charles and Eero Saarinen) that set them on the path to dominating mid- century American design. Many designers had used moulded plywood before, but none had been able to bend it in more than one direction. A year after meeting, Charles and Ray moved to California to start the now-legendary Eames Office. Their first successful design was an unusual one \u2013 a leg splint, made from moulded plywood and developed for the US Navy in 1942. Their careers took off when they embarked, in 1947, on a lifelong collaboration with The Herman Miller Furniture Company. In the 1950s, Charles was at the helm of the Eames Office. He met with clients, developed concepts, and kept a hawk-like eye on the studio. Ray spent her time sourcing pictures, fabric swatches, and materials to inspire designs. If Charles was the technical obsessive, Ray\u2019s input was broader. THE EAMES STYLE Although they kept up with furniture developments, Charles and Ray Eames looked beyond their discipline for ideas. Their approach was non-dogmatic; design was \u201ca plan for arranging elements in such a way as to best accomplish a particular purpose\u201d. The roots of their democratic ideas can be traced to the Arts and Crafts Movement (see pp.330-31; pp.336-37), although","cranbrook academy of art CHARLES AND RAY EAMES 457 1945\u20131970 A PROGRESSIVE ACADEMY THAT ENCOURAGED EXPERIMENTATION, Charles Eames (centre) in the studio of the Cranbrook Academy of Art Having CRANBROOK DEEPLY INFLUENCED MODERN AMERICAN DESIGN. trained and worked as an architect, Charles came to Cranbrook to study and then went on to become a design instructor from 1939 to 1940. Ray studied Established in 1932, the Cranbrook Academy of Art turned out impressive weaving, ceramics, and metalwork at the academy. This photograph of Charles graduates, including Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, was taken in 1940. David Rowland, Florence Knoll, and many others who were to make major contributions to Modern American furniture design. the couple also admired Japanese architecture and Scandinavian The academy was founded by George and Ellen Booth. Both believed in the union of spiritual and artistic pursuits and spent considerable design. Architects Mies van der time and money developing an academic community in Bloomfield Rohe and Le Corbusier also played Hills, Michigan, that survives to this day. a part in forming the Eames style. Charles and Ray, who witnessed Cranbrook was first led by the Finnish architect Eliel the Depression, were economical Saarinen. Visiting lecturers included Le Corbusier and with materials, but never ignored Frank Lloyd Wright. Saarinen also invited Charles Eames comfort. Their Lounge Chair (1956) to study there, and Eames soon became a tutor. is perhaps the most convincing expression of comfort achieved by any Experimentation was encouraged, especially between seating design of the 20th century. disciplines. In 1940 Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen AN OPEN APPROACH TO DESIGN submitted moulded plywood designs to the Organic Apart from furniture, Charles and Ray Design in Home Furnishing competition hosted by MoMA Eames also designed exhibitions and in New York and, to their great surprise, won. The victory film sets. \u201cWhat are the boundaries marked their arrival into the world of American design. of design?\u201d Charles was once asked, to which he replied, \u201cWhat are the The winning chair design Submitted by Charles Eames and Eero boundaries of problems?\u201d. This open approach Saarinen for the Organic Design in Home Furnishing competition to design was epitomized by their home near sponsored by MoMA, the chair has a moulded-plywood frame Santa Monica, California. Designed by Charles, covered in foam rubber and upholstered in red fabric. The splayed Ray, and Eero Saarinen, the modular structure legs are in wood. It was designed in 1940. was intended to almost disappear; the aim was to accentuate the nature outside and the space within. VERSATILE DESIGNS Showcased in international magazines, it became the The designs of Charles and Ray symbol of a new, unencumbered way of life. Eames displayed an unprecedented It is easy to see why Charles and Ray Eames versatility. The same chair base achieved iconic status. Their work was undertaken at design could be modified to become a time before cynicism took hold, and optimism and a rocking chair or a stacking chair, invention pervade their designs. Ultimately, though, it and could have seats made from was their ability to balance pragmatism and poetry a number of materials, including that won them such an army of fans. moulded plywood and fibreglass- reinforced plastic. LOUNGE CHAIR 670 The Eameses\u2019 interpretation of the English club chair is made up of three laminated-wood shells, which are attached to the metal frame. Each shell has a detachable, soft leather-upholstered cushion. The chair was (and still is) available with a matching ottoman. This original example is rosewood. Although no longer made in rosewood, the chair is still available in cherry and walnut. Made by the Herman Miller Furniture Company. c.1956. W:88cm (35in). DOR","458 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 the united states DURING THE FIRST half of the 20th EMBRACING MODERNITY was an era in which Hollywood\u2019s film buying of first homes created a century, the United States could rarely The United States\u2019 transformation from industry blossomed and the abstract new group of buyers who refused be described as being at the forefront of laggard to leading light in furniture paintings and sculptures of American to fill their homes with the sort furniture design. By 1951, however, the design can be attributed to a fortuitous artists revolutionized the art world. of reproduction furniture they British critic H.M. Dunnett was writing combination of factors, the most associated with their parents. that there was \u201cmore evidence of a obvious of which was the country\u2019s When it came to furniture design, Modern Movement in America than unrivalled wealth. Suffering nothing it had taken the American consumer Much was done to promote the there has been for 20 years\u201d. Dunnett like the devastation seen in Europe quite some time to warm to the Modern style, too, by institutions went on to note that \u201ccontemporary during the two world wars, America\u2019s Modern style (as H.M. Dunnett such as the Museum of Modern Art designs in all sorts of materials and industrial infrastructure remained acknowledged). The catalyst for (MoMA) in New York City. MoMA had combinations have appeared. Solid robust throughout the 1930s and 1940s. this acceptance was, firstly, the supported the designs of avant-garde wood, plywood, laminated wood and This background of economic success introduction of the softer, more European designers during the 1930s, fabric, tube and solid steel, aluminium fuelled a sense of self-belief, giving approachable Scandinavian style of and in the 1940s they pushed the idea alloys, glass, Perspex, and other confidence to consumers and helping Modernism to the United States and, of Good Design. Described in 1950 by plastics have all been used in a variety Americans to forge a new cultural secondly, the arrival, in the late 1940s, Edgar Kaufmann, MoMA\u2019s director, as of ways [by American designers] to identity that became the envy of their of a new generation of homeowners. a \u201cthorough merging of form and produce new forms\u201d. European counterparts. This function...revealing a practical, A government scheme uncomplicated, sensible beauty\u201d, that subsidized the The deep bowl seat Wire mesh was an unusual resembles a nest. material for the time. SLIPPER CHAIR CYCLONE TABLE This chair is upholstered in a striped-silk fabric This dining table has a white-laminate top in yellow, orange, and green; the legs are raised on a chrome-plated steel-wire column bleached mahogany. Designed by Edward and cast-iron base. Designed by Isamu Noguchi Wormley for Dunbar. H:76cm (30in). SDR for Knoll International. H:122cm (48in). SDR The chair\u2019s base is made from bent and welded steel rod. BIRD CHAIR AND OTTOMAN ottoman has a rectangular pad on a wire frame The upholstery is unusual for GRASSHOPPER ARMCHAIR of the same construction. Developed from the a Bertoia wire-mesh design, The Bird chair, so called because it resembles iconic Diamond chair, this chair and ottoman which often used cushions. With a laminated-birch frame and an upholstered a bird with spread wings, has a high back and illustrate the sculptural quality of Bertoia\u2019s seat and back, this armchair was designed by a diamond-shaped seat above a plastic-coated, work. 1952. Chair: H:99cm (39in); W:99cm Eero Saarinen for Knoll International in 1946. steel-wire frame. It is fully upholstered with a (39in); D:86.5cm (34in). Ottoman: H:43cm This 1960s model has floral upholstery. H:89cm removable, black, padded slip cover. The (17in); W:61cm (24in); D:43cm (17in). Bk (35in); W:74cm (291\u20444in); D:89cm (35in). QU","THE UNITED STATES 459 Good Design was the focus of many Saarinen, a friend from the progressive founded in New York in 1938. Hans furniture industry and helped to 1945\u20131970 competitions run by the museum. Cranbrook Academy of Art in Knoll, the son of the German furniture establish a distinctive, American style Michigan, he breathed new life into manufacturer Walter Knoll, came to the of Modern design. Florence also Although open to designers across the the American furniture industry. United States intent on introducing the designed a number of significant globe, it was an American who made sort of pared-down furniture he had pieces for Knoll. the most impact on these competitions. Among the first to realize the seen so much of in his homeland and, Charles Eames\u2019s first award in a MoMA potential of his and Ray\u2019s designs was at first, employed European designers Across the country, designers began competition was in 1940, for Organic George Nelson, who, in 1946, had just exclusively. In 1945, however, Knoll to take a more functional approach to Design in Home Furnishing, although been appointed design director of The met, and later married, Florence Schust, furniture design. Although not quite as he went on to win many more and, in Herman Miller Furniture Company. a graduate of the Cranbrook Academy innovative as the work of the Eameses 1946, secured a solo show at MoMA Nelson was an accomplished designer of Art, who introduced him to the work or Eero Saarinen, the furniture of under the title New Furniture by in the Modern style himself, and by the of American designers such as Harry designers such as Edward Wormley Charles Eames. 1950s Herman Miller had established Bertoia and Isamu Noguchi. In deciding (whose work was produced in Indiana), itself, through the designs of Nelson and to produce their work, which used Baldwin Kingrey (from Chicago), DISTINCT AMERICAN STYLE Charles and Ray Eames, at the forefront daring, sculptural forms and unusual and George Nakashima (based in Charles Eames\u2019s work was way ahead of the American furniture industry. materials such as metal rod, Knoll Pennsylvania) was, nonetheless, of anything being produced in Europe. became a prominent force in the beautifully produced and distinctively Along with Ray, his wife, and Eero Another important manufacturer American in its use of fluid forms. of this period was Knoll International, herman miller furniture co. A CUTTING-EDGE FURNITURE-MAKER IN THE UNITED STATES, THE HERMAN MILLER FURNITURE COMPANY HELPED TO CREATE A DISTINCT AMERICAN STYLE. COFFEE TABLE in both position and form. The wider end of The years between 1945 and 1960 were Modern Art for its timeless, universal the coffee table is supported on a free-form the glory days of 20th-century American appeal. Designer Gilbert Rohde was given The top of this table is fashioned from one slab of walnut, and the narrower end is furniture design, and no manufacturer the task of re-invigorating the company, piece of solid walnut and has a split-knot, free- held up on a square-section, tapered leg. was more prominent at the time than the which he did with great success. edge top. The table is supported on two legs, Designed by George Nakashima. 1965. Michigan-based Herman Miller Furniture also made of solid walnut, and is asymmetrical W:127cm (50in). SDR Company. Founded as the Star Furniture By 1946, the new design director, Company in 1905, the company\u2019s name George Nelson, was pushing for cutting- was changed in 1923 (after the chairman, edge style. Designers such as Charles D.J. De Pree, received a generous donation Eames and Isamu Noguchi were employed from his father-in-law, Mr Herman Miller). to meet De Pree\u2019s demands for \u201cdurability, unity, integrity, and inevitability\u201d. The company made furniture that imitated whatever historical style was in It is a testament to the standards of vogue. It was a precarious existence, and De Pree, who saw that innovation was one that required De Pree to second-guess worth little without quality, that many consumer tastes. Herman Miller designs of the 1940s and 1950s still remain in production today. De Pree needed to change direction, and did so in 1930 when he staked the Action Office Developed by Robert Propst and company\u2019s future on the Modern style, an George Nelson in the 1960s, this was the world\u2019s aesthetic promoted by the Museum of first open-plan office system. Elements could be combined and recombined as needs changed. CONFERENCE TABLE on round steel legs, which are joined at each end by a metal stretcher and reinforced The top of this conference table is made in the centre by trestle-type supports. The of rosewood. Rectangular in shape, the conference table was designed by George table top has slight bows to the long edges, Nelson for The Herman Miller Furniture making it somewhat wider at the centre Company. W:236cm (1031\u20442in); D:110cm than at the edges. The table is supported (43 1\u20444in). FRE","460 MID-CENTURY MODERN 19405\u20131970 australia LIKE MUCH OF Europe and the United A NEW GENERATION furniture into uncharted territory. His designer from Britain focusing on the States, Australia enjoyed economic One of the first Australian designers plywood Contour chair of 1951 was so use of plastics. Their chair for the growth in the 1950s and 1960s. to look to the future for inspiration advanced that no local manufacturer Australian pavilion at the 1967 Montreal Industrial expansion was the driving was Douglas Snelling. His Saran could put it into production, forcing Expo was a polystyrene shell covered in force behind this era of affluence, and chairs, launched in 1947, incorporated Featherston to make it himself. polyurethane foam. The Expo Mark II more and more Australians enjoyed parachute webbing and ushered in a Featherston created different versions Sound chair was so named because it the luxury of a disposable income. new, experimental era in Australian of the chair, giving it arms, a rocking had speakers in the back, although furniture design. From 1947 to 1955, base, and leather upholstery. Clearly when it went on the market, this feature Keen to capture some of these Snelling worked with the Sydney-based influenced by the designs of Charles had gone. In the 1960s and early 1970s riches, canny entrepreneurs began company Functional Products to and Ray Eames, the Contour chair the Featherstons contributed as much to import the latest furniture designs produce furniture that was spare in became an icon of Australian design. to the field of plastic furniture design from Europe and the United States style and concise in craftsmanship. as any European or American designer. and sell them to this new breed of THE USE OF PLASTICS consumer. Realizing that there was More flamboyant in his approach In 1966, Featherston began to Also based in Melbourne was Kjell a thirst for cutting-edge products, a to design was the Melbourne designer collaborate with his wife, Mary, a Grant, a designer whose cantilevered number of Australian designers also Grant Featherston. Featherston\u2019s designs Montreal chair (designed for the began to work in the Modern style for a House of the Future in 1949 Montreal Expo) was, he claimed, that was such a success overseas. declared his intention to take Australian inspired by tractor seats, although many Buttons not only tighten the fabric but also perform a decorative function. The high back gives the chair a sense of grandeur. EXPO MARK II SOUND CHAIR RONDO CHAIR The Expo Mark II Sound chair is made of a Originally designed for an Olivetti showroom in polystyrene shell covered in polyurethane 1956 and still in production, this Rondo chair foam. It was designed by Grant and Mary has splayed legs. Versions with a tulip base or a Featherston and made by Aristoc Industries, six-star base are also made. The moulded shell Melbourne. 1967. base is covered in foam. By Gordon Andrews. The chair base is made The curved seat and back are COFFEE TABLE of solid wood. designed to make the user feel enclosed. This maple wood coffee table has a free-form table top with rounded, The tapered legs of the base organic curves; there are no right are typical of the period. angles on the piece. The four legs of the coffee table, also in maple, R152 CONTOUR CHAIR provided Featherston with the opportunity are splayed and tapered, which to experiment with bending wood without adds to the elegance of the piece Devoted to promoting a philosophy of good compromising on strength, and this chair by lifting the focus away from the design, Grant Featherston designed the R152 clearly demonstrates how seating furniture can ground. The piece was designed Contour chair. This striking chair offered a be moulded to accommodate the human form. by the architect and furniture comfortable but sleek alternative to the over- This example is covered in the original blue designer Douglas Snelling and stuffed, bulky lounge suites popular during the vinyl fixed with buttons. The chair was manufactured by Functional pre-war era. The flexibility of the plywood frame manufactured by Emerson Brothers. c.1952. Products of Sydney. 1955.","AUSTRALIA 461 saw its springy form as reminiscent of delights of Modern design. In the late in Europe as a commercial artist in Gazelle chair (1957). Keen to pare 19405\u20131970 the kangaroo. Selected by the Museum 1950s and 1960s, Hall Best opened the 1930s. In the 1950s, he struck up furniture down to its most essential, of Modern Art in New York for its a showroom stocked with works by a relationship with the Italian firm Andrews complemented his Rationalist permanent collection, the Montreal Charles and Ray Eames, Joe Colombo, Olivetti to design its showrooms. It principles with a keen eye for chair was one of the first Australian Eero Aarnio, and Harry Bertoia, as well was while working on this project that proportion. Of all the Australian designs to attract worldwide attention. as by Sydney-born Gordon Andrews. he produced his most celebrated pieces designers of this period, Andrews \u2013 the Rondo chair (1956) and the was the most original. SPARKING INTEREST AT HOME Andrews was a furniture designer and In Sydney, the interior designer Marion a graphic designer (he designed Hall Best was introducing locals to the Australia\u2019s first decimal currency notes in 1966) who had worked SPIDER CHAIR GAZELLE CHAIR SIDE CABINET The Spider is a beautifully proportioned swivel Called the Gazelle because of its thin, tapering The largely plain front of this side cabinet has a simple, chair. The four-star base is in a brushed stainless gazelle-like legs, this chair is made of laminated square wooden door handle and four drawers with steel. The chair also came in a lower seat height, plywood and cast aluminium. It is upholstered slightly angled fronts. The wooden legs of the piece for use as a casual chair for the home or office. in a bright, woollen fabric. Designed by are splayed and taper towards the bottom. The cabinet Designed by Gordon Andrews. 1961. Gordon Andrews. 1957. was designed by Douglas Snelling. c.1954. LOUNGE CHAIR AND STOOL without an upholstered or solid surface for the TOWNHOUSE SUITE Furniture Design Competition\u201d. seat and backrest, showing that ergonomics The pieces were designed by Grant Made from wood, metal, and synthetic Saran were considered. Designed by Douglas Snelling Comprising a two-seater sofa and two single, Featherston and manufactured by webbing, the chair is lightweight, because of the for Functional Products. c.1957. matching armchairs with splayed legs, the Emerson Brothers. c.1956. materials, and versatile, because of its simple Townhouse Suite is upholstered throughout colour scheme and timeless fashioning. The in the original red, geometrically patterned Saran webbing distributes weight and tension fabric. This suite won an award in \u201cThe evenly over the surface area and creates support Australian Home Beautiful Second National","462 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 scandinavia IN THE YEARS AFTER World War II the nothing new in our work\u201d, reflected TEAK-STYLE FURNITURE place in Thailand and the Philippines profile of Scandinavian design soared. one of Denmark\u2019s foremost designers Scandinavians had long held a deep during this period. The wood was It is little surprise that such a brutal of the period, Hans Wegner, in 1983. reverence for wood, as it not only hardy, easy to work with, and could war had left people weary of the hard \u201cThe philosophy behind it was not to provided for them financially, through be given an attractive satin finish. edges of early Modernism and more make the process more complicated exports (Scandinavians often referred This propensity for working with teak comfortable with the gentler forms than necessary, but to show what we to their forests at this time as \u201cgreen wood is the reason why Scandinavian of the Scandinavian style. were able to do with our hands; to gold\u201d), but was also the material design of the post-war period was give the work a sense of spirit and from which the iconic items of their often referred to as the Teak style. TRADITIONAL CRAFTSMANSHIP make it look natural.\u201d culture \u2013 such as ships and skis \u2013 It was something of a paradox that had been hewn. Finn Juhl, in particular, produced designers from the leading nations The aim for Scandinavian designers masterful examples of teak furniture of furniture design in the immediate of the period was to distil design to Ironically, though, it was not an in the late 1940s and early 1950s, post-war period \u2013 Finland, Sweden, its purest form. This is evidenced indigenous wood, but one from often in a sculptural style that can be and, in particular, Denmark \u2013 worked by the fact that the outstanding the Far East, that came to define recognized as uniquely his. Inspired primarily with traditional, rather feature of Scandinavian furniture Scandinavian design of the 1950s. by the work of abstract painters and than cutting-edge, manufacturing design in the late 1940s and early Teak was inexpensive and readily sculptors, his furniture designs have techniques. \u201cTechnically there was 1950s is the unsurpassed quality available as a by-product of the a freedom of form that distinguishes of its craftsmanship. military clearing exercises taking his output from the rather more Right angles are kept to a The muscular forms of the chair minimum, as curves dominate were inspired by primitive art. the chair\u2019s appearance. Generous, convex armrests offer the user an image of comfort. TEAK CABINET The top section of this cabinet has twin sliding doors enclosing open, shelved compartments. The deeper case beneath contains six long drawers, two of which are lined for silverware. The whole is supported on turned teak legs. Designed by Hans Wegner for Ry Mobler, Denmark. H:180.5cm (71in). FRE A slight swelling of The chair\u2019s seat and back The front and back the struts of the are detached, giving the legs are turned. chair adds to the illusion that the back is sculptural effect. suspended in mid-air. CHIEFTAIN CHAIR legs and the elbow rests are also of sculpted leather. The TAMBOUR SIDEBOARD upholstered components of the chair are separated from This chair is contructed from a teak frame and has a its exposed frame \u2013 an idea that stemmed directly from This teak and teak-veneered sideboard has two long tambour doors at shaped-leather seat and back. The overall shape is largely the Modernist concepts of furniture design seen in the the front that open on to a fitted interior containing an arrangement curvaceous, with very few right angles. The back rail joins works of Gerrit Rietveld and Marcel Breuer. Designed by of compartments and eight drawers. The sideboard is supported by a two dowel uprights, which also form the back legs. The Finn Juhl for Niels Vodder, Denmark. 1949. H:96.5cm frame that has tapering legs attached to the outside of the case. Designed armrests span the distance between the front and back (38in); W:86cm (34in); D:99cm (39in). SDR by Finn Juhl for Arne Vodder, Denmark. 1950s. W:208cm (817\u20448in). DOR","SCANDINAVIA 463 rigorous furniture designs produced Wegner are two famous examples of design, with 18th-century English Miracle), while in the United States an 1945\u20131970 by his contemporaries. Scandinavian furniture that clearly and Egyptian furniture being of ambitious exhibition entitled Design in illustrate how the designers borrowed particular interest to him. Scandinavia proved so popular when DEBT TO THE PAST forms from bygone cultures. it was first mounted in 1954 that it With the exception of Finn Juhl, the INTERNATIONAL APPEAL continued to tour the country (and predominant Scandinavian approach No designer, though, was more The international acclaim bestowed Canada) for the next three years. to design in the post-war period diligent in his studies of past upon Scandinavian furniture designers The reason for the initial, and lasting, was one of updating older forms of furniture types than Ole Wanscher. was due in large part to the timeless popularity of Scandinavian designs can furniture. This was a trend initiated A student of Kaare Klint who quality of their designs and the skill be summed up by four words: integrity, by Kaare Klint at the Royal Danish eventually took over Klint\u2019s job at with which these designs were reliability, beauty, and craftsmanship. Academy of Fine Arts in the interwar the Royal Danish Academy of Fine executed. In 1951, Finland took home Clearly, Scandinavian design years and continued with zeal by his Arts, Wanscher compiled numerous the majority of medals at the Milan represented to the public much that students and followers. The Shaker books on the subject, including Triennale (an event that would later be the world had been thirsting for after chair (1944) by Borge Mogensen and Furniture Types and History of the referred to by the Finns as the Milan such a traumatic period in its history. the Chinese chair (1947) by Hans Art of Furniture. His designs were, unsurprisingly, heavily inspired by and indebted to past eras of furniture FLAG-HALYARD LOUNGE CHAIR OAK DAY BED The tubular-steel frame is strung with This day bed has a simple, rectangular oak frame raised on flag halyard, and the chair has a sheepskin bracket legs. The single seat cushion and two back cushions throw. By Hans Wegner. 1950. H:81cm are upholstered with buttoned fabric. Designed by Borge (31 3\u20444in); W:104cm (41in); D:112cm (44in). Mogensen for StoleFabrik, Denmark. 1950s. H:76cm (30in); BonBay W:195.5cm (77in); D:84cm (33in). R20 WALNUT ARMCHAIR the chair by hans wegner This ladder-back armchair has outswept arms on ALTHOUGH IT INSPIRED COUNTLESS IMITATIONS, HANS WEGNER\u2019S MODEL turned supports. The dished seat has a squab NO. JH 501 CHAIR REMAINS THE EPITOME OF FORM MEETING FUNCTION. cushion covered in ribbed fabric; the seat is raised on turned legs joined by stretchers. By Despite its unassuming appearance, Hans Wegner\u2019s Hans Wegner Ole Wanscher for Fritz Hansen. 1946. BonBay Model No. JH 501 chair (1949) enjoys a legendary reputation. It is often simply referred to as The Chair, The chair The teak chair\u2019s back and many commentators on Modern design have rail elegantly joins the armrests, described it as the ultimate blend of function and as though all pieces are one. form, and the era\u2019s most accomplished achievement. 1950\u201360. H:76cm (30in); W:58.5cm (23in); D:53.5cm (21in). Bk First declared the most beautiful chair in the world in the late 1950s by the influential American magazine House Beautiful, The Chair was chosen by CBS to provide seating for the televized presidential debate in 1960 between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. The Chair\u2019s reputation was further enhanced by an exhibition in the 1970s that displayed it alongside 30 of the many imitations it had spawned. The copies were some way off matching the subtle refinement of the original, thus confirming once and for all the chair\u2019s superiority over all competitors.","464 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 ARNE JACOBSEN biography creating an aesthetic that combined soft lines with 1902 Born 11 February strict attention to detail, Arne Jacobsen designed some of the highest-selling pieces of the 20th century. in Copenhagen. 1925 Awarded a silver medal for his chair design ARNE JACOBSEN RECEIVED his first at the Exposition des Arts D\u00e9coratifs et Industriels international award for furniture design Modernes in Paris. at 23, picking up a silver at the 1925 Arne Jacobsen 1927 Travels to Stuttgart, Exposition des Arts D\u00e9coratifs et Industriels to visit Die Wohnung exhibition. Modernes in Paris. On his trip to France he 1932\u201335 Designs the Bella Vista apartment also saw the Pavilion de l\u2019Esprit Nouveau by EGG TABLE complex and Bellevue recreation centre on the the architect Le Corbusier. The minimalism The egg-shaped top of this table outskirts of Copenhagen. of the building, and the way in which it is supported on three steel-rod 1952 Designs the Ant chair. eschewed craft in favour of technology, legs with trestle supports and 1955\u201361 Designs the Series 7 range of chairs. was to inform Jacobsen\u2019s designs for life. black rubber-capped feet. Trained as a stonemason in Denmark, Manufactured by Fritz Hansen. 1956\u201365 Designs the building and interior Jacobsen found the rigorous approach of W:114cm ( 4 5 i n ). BonE furnishings for the SAS Royal Hotel, Copenhagen. Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 1959 Designs the AJ lamp for Louis Poulsen. (whose work he saw at Die Wohnung in Stuttgart 1960\u201363 Designs the building and interior in 1927) a revelation. \u201cClear, sane, readily furnishings for St Catherine\u2019s College, Oxford. comprehensible\u201d, was how he described their approach. DROP CHAIR By the 1930s, Jacobsen had established himself as The sculptural, polyurethane 1961\u201378 Designs the Danish National Bank an architect in Denmark \u2013 his greatest achievement of shell of this chair is covered (completed after his death). this period being the Bella Vista estate in Copenhagen in leather-upholstered foam 1971 Dies 24 March in Copenhagen. (1932\u201335) \u2013 but it was only after World War II that he and stands on copper-coated, asserted himself as a furniture designer. While most of tubular-steel legs. Manufactured his early designs were derived from Mies, Le Corbusier, by Fritz Hansen. 1958. and the Swedish Functionalist Gunnar Asplund, H:84.5cm (331\u20444in); W:46cm Jacobsen finally found his own style in the 1950s. (18 1\u20448in); D:55.5cm (21 7\u20448in). QU EXACTING DESIGN SWAN SOFA The now-familiar Jacobsen aesthetic that This aluminium-framed sofa is upholstered in orange woollen emerged in the Ant chair (1952) was a fabric and has trestle bases with plastic-capped feet. Designed by combination of fluidity and precision. Arne Jacobsen for Fritz Hansen. 1957. W:148cm (591\u20444in). L&T The defining feature of the Ant was its construction; it was made from two clearly defined parts: a base of three tubular-steel legs and a plywood seat shaped by steam. This logical approach made the chair easy to mass produce. Designed for a factory canteen, the Ant\u2019s basic form would be referred to again and again by Jacobsen. The influence of Eero Saarinen and Charles and Ray Eames is clear in the construction of the Ant\u2019s seat. Although not a pioneer of plywood designs, Jacobsen was as much a master of the material as the Eameses. After completing the Ant, Jacobsen began work on his Series 7 chairs. Although similar in construction to the Ant, they had four legs, not three, and came in many styles. All with a curvilinear plywood seat, the Series 7 chairs were \u2013 and are \u2013 available with arms (3207), a swivelling base (3117), or both (3217), among other variants. The most successful chair is the most basic, the 3107, which by the end of the 20th century had sold over six million, making it, by some estimates, the most popular chair ever designed.","the copenhagen sas royal hotel ARNE JACOBSEN 465 1945\u20131970 COPENHAGEN\u2019S FIRST SKYSCRAPER, THE JACOBSEN-DESIGNED SAS ROYAL HOTEL IS PRACTICAL APPROACH KNOWN AS MUCH FOR ITS INTERIOR DESIGN AS FOR ITS ARCHITECTURE. Although Jacobsen\u2019s designs were considered to epitomize the spirit of the new age, the designer Many of Arne Jacobsen\u2019s most celebrated designs, from himself was a remarkably conservative character. the Egg chair to the AJ pendant lamp, were designed for A lover of antiques, fine wine, and good cigars, he led the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. Commissioned by SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System) and completed in a quiet life. His House of the Future, designed in 1960, the hotel was the Danish capital\u2019s first major 1929 with architect Flemming Lassen, might have skyscraper. The building consists of a two-storey been intended to cause a stir (it had a helicopter horizontal plinth attached to a 19-storey tower. Such landing pad on the roof), but, generally, Jacobsen is the subtlety of Jacobsen\u2019s design that the tower appears considered himself a practical, rather than to hover above the base. progressive, designer. Although admired for its architecture, the hotel is Almost all of Jacobsen\u2019s furniture designs today rightly remembered for its interior design. With were conceived for a specific space. The Ant, as a legendary eye for detail, Jacobsen insisted that every mentioned, was designed for a canteen, while the element meet his strict standards \u2013 this is presumably Egg, Swan, and Drop chairs were made for the why he designed so many of the fittings himself. SAS Royal Hotel (see box feature). The latter three employed a new production technique, pioneered As well as the famous Egg, Swan, and Drop chairs, he in Norway and licensed to Fritz Hansen, the also designed the curtains, cutlery, and light fittings. So manufacturer of Jacobsen\u2019s furniture designs. The fastidious was he that he even designed the door handles. technique involved steam-moulding polystyrene beads \u2013 which transformed into foam under heat \u2013 Today, many of Jacobsen\u2019s designs for the SAS Royal onto a fibreglass base. The new process allowed Hotel are available to buy. Sadly, the hotel has been Jacobsen to take his organic style to greater lengths, stripped of many of its original fittings, although one as the foam was as pliable as clay (or the wet plaster room, 606, is still kept exactly as Jacobsen designed it. that he often used to make full-scale prototypes). The exterior of the SAS Royal Hotel Designed by Arne Jacobsen Jacobsen\u2019s last project to inspire a rash of in 1960, the hotel highlights the fact that Jacobsen was not furniture designs was his work on St Catherine\u2019s only an inspired interior designer, but also one of the great College, Oxford (1960\u201363). Only available architects of the 20th century. commercially since the 1980s, his designs displayed the same instinct for proportion, integrity of Room 606 in the SAS Royal Hotel Room 606 is on the sixth floor of materials, and practicality of his previous work. the hotel and is the one remaining room in the building that has been left as Jacobsen intended. It gives an insight into the colours For the last decade of his life, Jacobsen and shapes that were integral to Jacobsen\u2019s 1960s masterpiece. concentrated on architecture and hardware design, although he did not abandon furniture design altogether. Never afraid to work with new materials and technology, he was, at the time of his death in 1971, designing an all-plastic office chair. SERIES 7 CHAIR The seat and back of this chair are made from a single sheet of shaped and moulded plywood in black. The seat is supported on a tubular-steel base with rubber-capped feet. Designed for Fritz Hansen. H:76cm (30in). SDR","466 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 scandinavia: second generation BY THE MID 1950S, the so-called Second elsewhere in the world, and this Henningsen, were also invigorated The use of metal in furniture design Generation of Scandinavian designers impacted greatly on their work. by what they saw happening overseas, had also been revolutionized by the had begun to make their mark. prompting a change in tack for Americans. Whereas the early Modern Whereas the First Generation \u2013 INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCES Scandinavian design. designers of Europe had flaunted their designers such as Hans Wegner, Borge The experiments undertaken at use of steel, the American designers Mogensen, and Ole Wanscher \u2013 had the Cranbrook Academy of Art in What these designers saw in the of the 1940s and 1950s used it sparingly developed their distinctive style Michigan, by Charles Eames and Eero work of their American counterparts and only where strictly necessary. largely in isolation during World War Saarinen (who moved to the United was a more playful approach to form The development of thinner steel rods II, the Second Generation enjoyed far States from Finland at the age of 13) that inspired a new sculptural strain also made it easier for designers to be greater exposure to developments were of critical interest to a young in Scandinavian design. Also of more subtle in their use of metal, as group of Scandinavian designers that interest to the Scandinavians was the designers such as Poul Kjaerholm included Arne Jacobsen and Poul development of innovative techniques proved. Earlier Kjaerholm from Denmark, and Ilmari for moulding plywood, which opened Scandinavian up possibilities for more sophisticated, designers had Tapiovaara and Antti Nurmesniemi sleeker shapes than were allowed by rejected metal from Finland. Some older older, cruder techniques. Solid-wood as too cold and designers, too, such as the furniture, it seemed, was losing its clinical, but lighting specialist Poul standing in Scandinavia. The armrests curve subtly to create a soft, rounded outline. The bright fabric shows that the chair was designed for a public space. Stretched fabric over The crossbeam adds LAMINO ARMCHAIR the chair\u2019s internal extra support to the skeleton creates a chair\u2019s structure. This ergonomically designed armchair has a bent, laminated frame made of oak and teak; the chair is upholstered in brown leather. An soft silhouette. ottoman was available in the same design. Designed by Yngve Ekstr\u00f6m for Swedese, Sweden. 1956. H:101cm (39 3\u20444in); W:69cm (27 1\u20444in); The slightly angled back legs D:75cm (291\u20442in). SDR of the chair give it greater steadiness. HAMMOCK CHAISE LONGUE The legs are made of Called the Hammock for its obvious laminated birch, which is similarities, this elegant chaise longue abundant in Scandinavia. has a woven-cane seat and back supported by a polished-steel frame. The headrest is in black leather. Designed by Poul Kjaerholm for Fritz Hansen. 1965. BonE LULU CHAIR designed for the restaurant of the Marski Hotel in Helsinki around 1960, but it was The shell of this chair is made of case plastic. never mass produced, as the manufacturing It is upholstered in a stretch fabric in bright process was too labour-intensive and, thus, orange-red; the slightly angled legs are made the chair too expensive for the wider made of birch and a crossbeam adds extra market. Designed by Ilmari Tapiovaara for reinforcement and stability. The chair was Asko, Finland. R20","SCANDINAVIA: SECOND GENERATION 467 the Second Generation of designers This shift was a reflection of a much of the work by Arne Jacobsen advanced notions held, particularly 1945\u20131970 saw that, shorn of its totemic value, change in Scandinavian society as and, later in his career, Poul Kjaerholm. in Denmark and Sweden, of sexual steel used in moderation was a whole. Industrialization had come equality. In the United States and immensely practical. late to the region, and it was only When appraising the work of the Europe, women furniture designers during the 1950s that Scandinavians leading Scandinavian designers of the rarely rose to prominence during the The work of the Second Generation acclimatized to life as an industrial, 1950s and 1960s, it is interesting to post-war period, and if they did, they is distinguished by svelte forms and rather than a rural, society. note that only Ilmari Tapiovaara can be were often perceived to be riding on the experimentation with new materials. considered to have truly applied himself coat-tails of their male partners (Ray One can also point to the diminishing LARGE MANUFACTURERS to the cause of low-cost, standardized Eames being an obvious example). In importance of hand-crafting, as new While small craft workshops had long furniture, a mission that many designers Scandinavia, however, female designers manufacturing techniques came to formed the bedrock of the Scandinavian elsewhere in Europe and in the United such as Nanna Ditzel and Grete Jalk the fore. Where designers like Hans furniture industry, the late 1950s saw States were pursuing. This fact is best (both Danish) acquired respectable Wegner and Ole Wanscher were larger manufacturers play an ever-more explained by the relative affluence of reputations during the 1950s. In the renowned as craftsmen (and were important role. Fritz Hansen, based in Scandinavian countries during the mid 1950s, Ditzel became renowned often referred to generically as Copenhagen, was the most notable of second half of the 20th century. for her designs for children\u2019s furniture, cabinet-makers), Second Generation this more ambitious and advanced breed for which there was a particular need designers were categorized as of companies and it was to produce Another factor of Scandinavian thanks to the post-war baby boom. industrial designers. society that gave a further facet to their furniture design was the COFFEE TABLE highlights the beauty of the wood\u2019s natural LOUNGE CHAIR ARTICHOKE LAMP grain. The table\u2019s top is raised on tapered This two-tiered occasional, or coffee, dowel legs that are joined by a stretcher shelf Made of \u201cfolded\u201d rather than bent plywood, This lamp takes its name from the several table is made of teak. It has a underneath. The nine horizontal cross slats this pine-laminate chair is constructed from two layers of overlapping, brushed-copper, leaf-like rectangular top with slightly raised sides form the open storage shelf. The table was parts, which are secured together by two pairs elements that make up its form. Designed by which create a dished effect. It is otherwise designed by the Danish furniture designer of steel bolts. The piece was designed by Grete Poul Henningsen for Firma Poulsen. 1958. free of ornament or design; its simplicity Grete Jalk. c.1960. W:161cm (631\u20442in). FRE Jalk and produced by Poul Jeppeson. 1963. H:78cm (303\u20444in); W:80cm (311\u20442in). WKA PIRKKA DINING TABLE PK-41 FOLDING STOOL The rectangular top of this dining table is made reinforcement. Designed by Ilmari Tapiovaara This folding stool has a stretched-canvas stainless steel. Designed by Poul Kjaerholm from two pieces of solid, varnished pine and is for Asko Ltd & Laukaan Puu Ltd, Finland. seat pulled taut between two criss-crossed for E. Kold Christensen, Denmark. 1960s. raised on solid-beech, black-lacquered dowel c.1955. H:67.5cm (26 1\u20442in); W:150cm (59in); legs that are turned slightly to resemble H:42.5cm (163\u20444in); W:58.5cm (23in); D:44.5cm legs. The legs taper slightly and are joined D:70cm (27 1\u20442in). DOR propellers. The legs are formed from two (17 1\u20442in). Bk by stretchers; trestle supports provide extra rectangular pieces and are made from","468 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 italy OVER THREE MILLION HOUSES were materials available in the post-war entrepreneurs, Italy was enjoying features on Henry Moore, Alexander destroyed in Italy during World War II. period, and how best to take advantage something of a boom. The Socialist Calder, and other artists who employed The impact on the country\u2019s factories, of recent developments in serial government was dismantled and an organic, abstract aesthetic. however, was not quite so devastating, production. Architects and designers replaced by the capitalist Christian and in the aftermath of the war, Italian such as Franco Albini, Ernesto Rogers, Democrats, and a new confidence Also much discussed in the pages industry, and its growing band of and Studio BBPR all took their roles buoyed both the country\u2019s producers of Domus magazine was the work of industrial designers, wasted little time of providing for the impoverished and its consumers. American designers such as George in rebuilding a broken nation. working classes seriously; The Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames. Problems of the Least Privileged Designers responded to this new It was their experimentation with With the fall of Fascism, a new was the theme of the 1947 mood by bringing a more elegant, materials and forms that, as much as Socialist coalition government rose Milan Triennale. expressive edge to the Rationalist style anything, prompted Italian designers to power, and its ideologies were that had dominated Italian design to move on from the reductivist reflected by the Italian design A NEW CONFIDENCE since the 1930s. Where architecture industry. A 1946 exhibition by The 1950s, however, ushered in a had been the most inspirational art style of their RIMA (Riunione Italiane Mostre per new era for Italy. Thanks to generous form for designers before the war, predecessors. l\u2019Arredamento) addressed concerns aid from the United States and the it was now sculpture that about how to furnish small living commitment of a number of industrial dominated. Domus magazine, spaces, how to work with the limited edited by Gio Ponti, ran large This desk is modular, which makes The sheet steel of the desktop it possible for the user to attach has been enamelled to provide the lower table section to either visual coherence. side of the upper one, depending on preference. Structural steel struts form the LADY CHAIR bulk of the desk, emphasizing the industrial nature of the design. This upholstered armchair has a wooden frame and is covered in a red velour fabric. The foam- Drawer units are suspended, using padded seat and back are raised on brass legs. the cantilever principle, to give a Designed by Marco Zanuso for Arflex, Milan. visually arresting effect. 1951. H:78cm (303\u20444in). DOR Rubber fittings attached The gentle concave form of The chair\u2019s design is to the desk\u2019s legs give the seat is intended to make unusual in that the arms the chair more comfortable. are attached to the seat, greater adhesion rather than the back. to the floor. The legs are made of steel rods, which were commonly used in furniture design of the 1950s and 1960s, largely replacing tubular steel. ARCO DESK AND CHAIR leg supports of the desk. The angular frame of the table is made from SIDE CHAIR black-enamelled sheet- and structural-steel, and supports the desk on This writing desk and matching chair are part of a modular office three pairs of splayed legs. The padded back, seat, and armrests of the The frame is made of stained and lacquered system designed for Olivetti. The desk has wood-effect plastic table chair are covered in a grey fabric; the whole is raised on an enamelled, wood. With shaped uprights and a velour-covered, tops with moulded edges. The smaller table top is designed to hold a steel-rod frame. Designed by Studio BBPR for Olivetti and marked padded seat and back, the chair is raised on typewriter. Grey-enamelled, sheet-steel cabinets with filing drawers are OLIVETTI ARREDAMENTI METALLICI. 1963. Desk: H:78cm (311\u20444in); splayed, tapered legs. Designed by Carlo di Carli suspended below the table tops; the cabinets are attached to the outer W:180cm (72in); D:78cm (311\u20444in). QU for Cassina. 1950. H:84cm (331\u20448in). DOR","ITALY 469 Such was the beneficial economic FROM TYRES TO FURNITURE Marco Zanuso was the most Technically advanced \u2013 rubber struts 1945\u20131970 situation and upbeat mood in Italy Of all the unusual materials that were important designer to work for made it possible for the user to adjust during the 1950s that a number of employed by the Italians during this Arflex, and his Lady chair (1951) \u2013 the chair into over 450 positions \u2013 but furniture manufacturers emerged period, it was perhaps rubber that whose forms were clearly inspired by also generously cushioned, the P40 who were willing to take risks with best came to represent the country\u2019s abstract artists such as Calder and chair was typical of the design of the their designs. Firms such as Cassina, new-found optimism and sense of Jean Arp \u2013 gave elegant expression era, being industrial and at the same Zanotta, and Gavina gave designers daring. Used in vast quantities in to an overtly industrial product. time luxurious. like Ponti, Carlo di Carli, and the the automobile industry, which was Castiglionis licence to develop reaching its zenith in Italy at this time, Osvaldo Borsani was another their own signature styles. These it was a logical step that designers designer who collaborations resulted in a fresh, would begin using rubber in their exploited the flexible adventurous language of design that furniture designs. qualities of rubber in was distinctly Italian. his furniture designs. In 1950, Pirelli, the tyre He founded his own manufacturer, started an offshoot company, Tecno, in company called Arflex, which was 1953 and a year later dedicated to making furniture that he produced his used foam rubber in its construction. famous P40 chair. Adjustable shelf P40 RECLINER the user to increase or decrease the angle SHELVING SYSTEM adjustable shelves. There is a drop-front between the seat and the backrest to suit his cabinet, which becomes a writing table This P40 recliner chair has a metal sectional or her preference. The recliner can be set in an Made of walnut and rosewood, the sections when opened, and ten adjustable shelves in frame with a polyurethane-foam seat and back; incredible 486 different positions. Designed by of this shelving system, model LB7, are held total (seven are shown here). The system the padded seat and back are upholstered in a Osvaldo Borsani for Tecno. 1954. H:149cm together by brass fittings. Four uprights support was designed by Franco Albini for Poggi. yellow fabric. Within the frame of the chair is a (59in); D:89.5cm (351\u20443in). the three sections, two of which have one door 1957. H:284.5cm (112in); W:340cm (134in); patented mechanism that makes it possible for cabinet each. The cabinets open onto internal, D:35.5cm (14in). carlo mollino A HIGHLY ENERGETIC AND CHARISMATIC MAN, CARLO MOLLINO CREATED UNIQUE PLYWOOD FURNITURE DESIGNS IN THE TURINESE BAROQUE STYLE. The success of Carlo Mollino\u2019s work in Italy furniture designs, which were often made from during the 1950s can be attributed to two bent plywood. All made by artisans in Turin, factors. Firstly, one can point to the rise of a his biomorphic furniture conformed to a new generation of wealthy furniture buyers sumptuous style that later became known as who were willing to purchase his bold, Turinese Baroque. daring designs, and secondly \u2013 perhaps more importantly \u2013 the sheer force of Minola apartment interior Mollino\u2019s personality. The sensual, organic furniture designs are an Such was Mollino\u2019s drive to succeed that excellent example of not only did he become one of Italy\u2019s foremost Mollino\u2019s idiosyncratic furniture-makers during the 1950s, but he and dramatic style. also went on to become a champion racing car driver, a stunt pilot, a pioneer of modern 1944 \u2013 46. skiing techniques, and a celebrated photographer of erotic nudes. Carlo Mollino Day bed This piece is upholstered in velvet Mollino\u2019s interest in the female form and has shaped and is clearly demonstrated in his curvaceous carved ebonized legs. 1944. H:67cm (261\u20442in); W:168cm (66in); D:82cm (32in).","470 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 GIO PONTI In a long and varied career, Gio ponti managed to create works in many styles and across a range of disciplines. THE CAREER OF GIOVANNI \u201cGio\u201d Ponti spanned 60 DINING TABLE years and encompassed many design styles. Evading This walnut dining table has a rectangular top that is raised attempts to pin him down to a particular movement, on turned, tapering legs, which terminate in brass caps. The Ponti turned his considerable energy not only to legs are joined by an H-stretcher. Designed by Gio Ponti for design, but also to architecture, painting, journalism, Singer and Sons. 1954. W:162.5cm (64in). LOS and teaching. Although Ponti exerted significant influence during every period in which he worked, it GABRIELA SIDE CHAIR was in the 1950s that his powers were at their peak. This side chair has an exaggerated form, with its tall, A NEW OUTLOOK curved, and reclining back and In the aftermath of World War II, Italian architects its shortened seat. The black and designers focused on revitalizing their exhausted seat and back are supported on nation. While many argued for the dogmatic, a simple metal frame; the legs Rationalist approach of the 1930s, Ponti believed that a of the frame are slightly bowed new outlook was needed. \u201cI want works without labels and arched. Designed by Gio or adjectives\u201d, he wrote. \u201cI want real, true, natural, Ponti and manufactured by simple, and spontaneous things.\u201d Walter Ponti. 1970. BonBay. In 1952, Ponti answered his own call with perhaps his most famous design, the Superleggera (or Super- biography 1891 Born in Milan. 1923 Becomes artistic director of Richard Ginori ceramics. 1928 Co-founds Domus magazine. 1933 Made artistic director of the company Gio Ponti Fontana Arte. 1936 Begins teaching at the Politecnico di Milano. 1936 Completes the Montecatini building in Milan. 1940 Meets Piero Fornasetti. 1945 Founds Stile magazine. 1948 Designs his celebrated espresso coffee machine for La Pavoni. 1950 Begins his association with Cassina, the manufacturer of the Superleggera chair (1952). 1953 Designs sets for La Scala opera house. 1954 Presents a desk design for Altamira in New York that he proclaims his masterpiece. 1955 Completes the Villa Planchart in Caracas. FLOOR LAMP SIDEBOARD An early design, this floor lamp is made of a This exotic wood veneer sideboard has 1956 Collaborates with Pier Luigi Nervi on the tall, rectangular glass case and ten light bulbs asymmetrical open shelves surrounding a spaced in pairs and at intervals. It stands on a drop-front cabinet. The cabinet base has four Pirelli tower in Milan. round brass base. c.1935. H:168cm (661\u20448in). DOR doors and tapered legs. W:200cm (783\u20444in). SDR 1972 Designs Denver Art Museum, Colorado. 1979 Dies in Milan.","GIO PONTI 471 SUPERLEGGERA CHAIR Light) chair, which he described as \u201ca chair-chair, an 1945\u20131970 This is Gio Ponti\u2019s take on the ordinary, modest, unqualified chair\u201d. Adapted from a rustic chair. The frame has rustic design he spotted in an Italian fishing village, horizontal back slats between the Superleggera is at once unpretentious and entirely two uprights that continue to civilized. In many ways the chair provides a parallel form the back legs. The dowel with Ponti\u2019s most celebrated architectural work of legs are joined by stretchers. the 1950s, the Pirelli tower in Milan, a building he designed with the acclaimed engineer Pier Luigi Nervi. 1952. H:81cm (32in); W:43cm Nervi later wrote that he and Ponti, \u201chunted out all (17in); D:40.5cm (16in). SDR superfluous weight\u201d, to achieve the final, sleek design. No doubt the same approach was taken with the THE COVER OF DOMUS MAGAZINE. Superleggera chair, as, at just 1.7kg (31\u20442lb), it was the Along with Gianni Mazzocchi, Gio Ponti founded lightest chair in the world at the time. this popular and influential architecture and design journal, which he edited from 1938 to 1941, and Ponti produced the Superleggera for Cassina, a from 1948 until his death in 1979. The magazine company with whom he collaborated for many years. featured the works of leading designers of the time. Owner Cesare Cassina and Ponti shared a similar outlook on design, which Ponti described as \u201cbased on PONTI AND the most modern mechanical equipment blend with FORNASETTI the human system, which ensures that people retain their predominance over machinery\u201d. It is a confusing MANY OF PIERO FORNASETTI\u2019S DESIGNS WERE aspect of Ponti\u2019s career that he embraced with equal USED IN GIO PONTI\u2019S FURNITURE AND INTERIORS. measure the craft-based techniques of Italy and the industrial techniques of Germany and the United Piero Fornasetti (1913\u201388) was a child prodigy who States. Indeed, he was as much at home designing displayed a remarkable talent for painting and drawing. At 17 he went to the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in car bodies for mass production as he Milan, but was soon expelled for rebelling against the was making one-off pieces in ceramic. school\u2019s strict, academic approach. LINEA ITALIANA Fornasetti, however, continued to draw, and in Credited with creating the concept of 1940 his work caught the eye of Gio Ponti, who the Linea Italiana, a sophisticated idea asked Fornasetti to produce patterns for his furniture. of Italian design that was disseminated Modernism had, until this point, adhered to a policy around the world, Ponti was also of anti-decoration. When Ponti\u2019s works \u2013 richly responsible for introducing the work embellished by the restless hand of Fornasetti \u2013 were of international artists, architects, and presented, they caused a stir in the design community. designers to Italy. In Domus, the journal he founded with Gianni Mazzocchi in Fornasetti\u2019s designs drew from many sources, 1928, Ponti published features on the although he was clearly inspired by Classicism and the Surrealists furniture of Charles and Ray Eames and (Giorgio de Chirico, in particular). Illusionism was a favourite Arne Jacobsen, the art of Ben Nicholson theme, and many designs employed a trompe l\u2019oeil effect. and Jean Arp, and the architecture of Oscar Niemeyer and Luis Barragan. Ponti and Fornasetti also worked together on interiors, most notably Under Ponti, Domus, which spoke to the Casino San Remo in 1950. By the time Fornasetti died in 1988, he the enthusiast rather than the scholar, had produced over 11,000 designs, all of which were variously applied was a design journal whose influence to furniture (some by Ponti), ceramics, umbrellas, waistcoats, cars, was unprecedented. bicycles, glass, and more. In 1970, he opened a shop in Milan to sell his work, and his son, Barnaba, runs it to this day. In the late 1950s, Ponti\u2019s designs became even more ambitious. He had A wood and metal bureau-bookcase The piece is decorated with a printed believed that furniture should be architectural scene in black on a cream background and finished with integrated into architecture as much as possible, transparent lacquer. By Piero Fornasetti and Gio Ponti. c.1950. H:218cm but it was only later in his career that he explored (871\u20448in); W:80cm (32in); D:41cm (161\u20442in). QU this idea to the full. The concept of the \u201corganized wall\u201d was a particular favourite. This translated into either in-built or sprawling pieces of furniture that incorporated different types of shelving, lighting, and, often, drawers. His beds of this period, which have many in-built features, are some of his best-known designs, although other Ponti furniture from this era is equally impressive. In the 1960s and 1970s, Ponti continued to work with considerable zeal, shifting his style occasionally. It was only his death in 1979 that put an end to a long and fruitful career.","472 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 britain IN 1948, THE MODERN British furniture UTILITY FURNITURE In the years immediately after the Ernest Race went on to take a industry received a welcome boost During the war years, people in Britain war, the British government attempted starring role in the 1951 Festival of when Clive Latimer and Robin Day\u2019s were given a taste of the stark Modern to raise the nation\u2019s spirits by staging Britain, an ambitious event organized storage unit won the high-profile style through the government\u2019s scheme an upbeat exhibition offering a gleaming in part by the recently established International Competition for Low- for Utility furniture. Run by designer vision of Britain\u2019s future. Britain Can Council of Industrial Design (COID). Cost Furniture Design run by the Gordon Russell, the scheme promoted Make It, staged at the Victoria & Albert Race produced innovative designs for Museum of Modern Art in New York. basic furniture designs that could be Museum in London in 1946, drew huge the Festival, as did Robin Day and A.J. Unfortunately, the jury\u2019s enthusiasm made in any number of available crowds keen to see something fresh and Milne. The broad range of Modern for their design was hardly reflected in materials. Any company could put the new after years of enforced frugality. furniture designs created for the their home country, where the public designs into production and sell them occasion proved that British designers remained suspicious of the Modern at tax-free prices. Often made from One of the most talked about designs had caught up with their American and style. The 1950s proved marginally low-grade hardboard, the only material on show was the BA chair (1945) by European contemporaries in the bold better for Modern design in Britain, plentiful during the era of rationing, Ernest Race. Die-cast from surplus use of metal rod and moulded plywood. but it was not until the 1960s, with the they met with a mixed reaction from aluminium (a material used during emergence of an affluent youth market, the public. While some admired Utility the war to make bomb casings), over a Unfortunately, the popularity of the that newer forms of furniture became furniture for its practicality, others saw quarter of a million BA chairs were sold. Festival of Britain proved something of more fashionable. it as drab and dispiriting. festival of Britain, 1951 IN A COUNTRY STILL SUFFERING THE AFTEREFFECTS OF WAR, THE FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN PROVIDED A CHANCE TO LOOK FORWARD TO THE FUTURE. Between May and September 1951, Day, while the South Bank\u2019s outdoor KANGAROO ROCKING CHAIR BA CHAIR many British citizens found themselves spaces were dotted with Ernest Race\u2019s participating in the nationwide Festival steel-rod and plywood Antelope chairs. The seat and back of this rocking chair are made This chair has an elegant, cast-aluminium frame of Britain. The event was intended to raise of painted, bent-and-moulded steel rods; it has with tapered legs. Among the first pieces of the spirits of a nation still reeling from As Britain attempted to put the a steel-rod and steel-strip frame. Designed for furniture to utilize war-surplus materials, it is by the war. Across Britain, new buildings austerity of the war years behind it, outdoor use by Ernest Race. 1952. H:72.5cm Ernest Race. 1945. H:73cm (283\u20444in); W:44.5cm were erected and old ones spruced up as many stores put on special festival (281\u20442in); W:56cm (22in); D:60.5cm (233\u20444in). (171\u20442in); D:41.5cm (16 1\u20444in). RAC exhibitions were mounted to present ideas displays that eagerly embraced the on how to take Britain forward. event\u2019s forward-thinking spirit. Although originally intended to celebrate the The focus of the festival was the South centenary of the Great Exhibition of Bank of London\u2019s River Thames, where London, the Festival of Britain was an the Royal Festival Hall was built from event that prompted people to consider concrete to a design by Leslie Martin. The the opportunities of the future, rather Hall was furnished with designs by Robin than the achievements of the past. Chigwell armchair By Robin Day for the Festival of Britain, this chair is made of plywood and wood veneer. 1950. H:66cm (26in); W:89.5cm (351\u20444in). The Dome of Discovery Located on London\u2019s PLYMET PROTOTYPE CABINET South Bank, the Dome is lit up for the Festival of Britain, which took place in 1951. This sideboard has two cupboard doors on each side of a bank of drawers; the frame is birch veneer. The case is Emblem of the raised on splayed, aluminium legs. The use of cast- and Festival of Britain sheet-aluminium gives a futuristic look. 1945\u201346. This emblem was H:86cm (33 3\u20444in); W:135cm (54in); D:40cm (15 3\u20444in). chosen from several that were submitted in a competition.","BRITAIN 473 a false start for Modern furniture in became wildly popular, especially of the COID, which was still trying to solution), expendable (easily forgotten), 1945\u20131970 Britain, with the public seeing the style with young buyers. An undeniably enforce a Modern style). The young low-cost, mass-produced, young (aimed more as a novelty than as anything contemporary (but approachable) RCA graduate Peter Murdoch developed at youth), witty, sexy, gimmicky, significant. Some manufacturing firms, design, it seemed to stimulate a a range of disposable paperboard glamorous, big business\u201d. such as Hille and Morris, did make a suppressed desire among consumers furniture, while Bernard Holloway respectable profit selling Modern for new, eye-catching objects that were manufactured his Tom-o-Tom range in This ebullience, however, was not to designs, but it seemed that the British far removed from the functional items chipboard to make it \u201ccheap enough to last long as, in the 1970s, much of the public associated the style too closely of the past. By the mid 1960s, Carnaby be expendable\u201d. Aligning itself with the energy and excitement drained from with the Utility furniture imposed on Street, the King\u2019s Road, and Kensington brash aesthetic of the Pop movement, the furniture industry in the face of them during the war. Indeed, as soon in London had been colonized by furniture design became colourful and increased economic as an alternative to the Modern style colourful fashion boutiques such as cartoon-like. British artist Richard difficulties. arose, it was met with keen enthusiasm. Biba and Mary Quant, while a new Hamilton gleefully described the homewares store, Habitat, offered a characteristics of the Pop style as CHEAP AND CHEERFUL glimpse into the Continental lifestyle. \u201cpopular (designed In 1959, Morris Motors launched the for a mass audience), distinctive, Alec Issigonis-designed Furniture designers, too, responded transient Mini, an impish-looking car that in force to this new demand for cheap, (short-term cheerful goods (much to the irritation LOUNGER ARMCHAIR The solid beech links the The slim, rectangular shape of design to many Scandinavian the drawers echoes the overall The angular seat and back of this armchair sideboards of this period. shape of the sideboard. are upholstered in green tweed and supported on a painted, steel-rod frame. It has a small cushion headrest and two mahogany elbow rests. Designed by Robin Day for S. Hille & Co. 1952. H:90cm (351\u20442in); W:90cm (351\u20442in); D:86.5cm (34in). MOU Black glass adds an element of sophistication to a warm and unpretentious design. TRUNDLING TURK This armchair has a lacquered wooden frame with chromed tubular- steel supports. The back, seat, and arms are upholstered and covered in fabrics of primary colours reminiscent of Modernist designs. The whole is raised on casters. Designed by Alison and Peter Smithson. 1953. H:59cm (231\u20444in); W:87cm (341\u20444in); D:83cm (322\u20443in). TEC DINING TABLE The use of mahogany The colour of the SIDEBOARD for the sideboard\u2019s brass fittings blends The rectangular top of this dining table is made from Formica, frame is a distinctly This solid, veneered, and inlaid beech and mahogany sideboard is which has been decorated to give it the appearance of grained with the golden part of a dining suite. An upper section contains three compartments wood. The table is supported by four grey-painted legs, which British detail. tones of the wood. behind sliding doors. Below is a glass shelf with two sliding drawers to form a T-section and taper slightly. Designed by Ernest Race. one side of four short drawers. Designed by Robin Day for S.Hille & W:114cm (45in). DN The frame has the same Co. 1949. H:126cm (492\u20443in); W:185cm (723\u20444in); D:47.5cm (182\u20443in). specifications as Latimer and Day\u2019s winning design.","474 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 japan BETWEEN 1945 AND 1970, Japan taken by what he saw in the West, The shape of the The stool\u2019s simple underwent a radical transformation, Kenmochi was also keen to maintain stool\u2019s seat resembles construction makes it easy changing from a predominantly rural Japanese craft-based traditions. a butterfly in flight. to dismantle and transport. nation into a formidable industrial Creating furniture designs that owed superpower. The products most readily an obvious debt to contemporary The calligraphic shape of together by a single stretcher. The shape of associated with industrial Japan are cars American and Scandinavian design, the stool also resembles a the stool is said to have been inspired by a and electronic consumer goods, but the but which still utilized Japanese Japanese pictograph. Japanese pictograph. Designed by Sori Yanagi sweeping changes also affected the construction techniques, Kenmochi\u2019s in 1954, this example is a 2004 re-issue from country\u2019s furniture industry. work met with considerable success. BUTTERFLY STOOL Tendo Mokko. H:38.75cm (151\u20444in); W:42cm (162\u20443in); D:31cm (121\u20444in). TDO A traditional Japanese home had In 1957, Kenmochi became one of The simple design of this butterfly stool contained relatively little furniture, with the first recipients of the G-Mark prize, is made from two sheets of laminated and ZAISU most people sitting on tatami mats and an award system created by the Japanese moulded beechwood, which are finished in using minimal storage space. This Promotions Council of the Ministry of a rosewood veneer. The two pieces are joined This light, stackable, legless seat is made lifestyle was typical until the 1950s, Trade that was heavily reminiscent both from beech with a zelkova veneer. A single when Western ways, primarily learnt of the Good Design scheme run by the PINE BENCH piece of moulded plywood forms an organic from the American troops that occupied Museum of Modern Art in New York curve. The hole in the seat serves two Japan between 1945 and 1952, began and the Compasso D\u2019Oro awards of Italy. This low bench in a light pine has a simple purposes: firstly, to stop a cushion from to exert an ever-increasing influence on The G-Mark system made it clear that rectangular seat, which is moulded and sliding and secondly, to prevent the wood Japanese society. \u201cDuring the first few the Japanese authorities favoured slightly curved in the middle to make it both from warping. Designed by Kenji Fujimori in years of the occupation\u201d, historian a type of design that was based on the more elegant and more comfortable to sit 1963, this example is a 2004 re-issue from Nobutaka Ike noted, \u201cJapan was Rationalist principles of European Tendo Mokko. H:40cm (153\u20444in); W:33cm probably subjected to more Western Modernism. In order to promote this (13in); D:49cm (191\u20444in). TDO influence than during the several essentially Western style, a number of decades that preceded it\u201d. design schools based on the Bauhaus upon. The seat is supported at each end by model were set up across Japan. gently tapered leg supports that have a groove In the aftermath of World War II down the centre. Made of solid pine, the and the horrific devastation suffered by EAST MEETS WEST bench was designed by Riki Watanabe and Japan during the war, attempts were By the end of the 1950s, several produced by Tendo Mokko. W:175cm made to revitalize the country. In Japanese furniture designers had begun (70in). FRE particular, the government concentrated to exploit the \u201cEast meets West\u201d style on the export market, and companies with success. Sori Yanagi, who designed were encouraged to make their products one of the first tape recorders for more attractive to overseas markets. Sony, was one of the most prominent Before the war, Japan had made a name proponents of the style, and time has for producing competitively priced, but shown his Butterfly stool (1954) to be poorly made, imitations of Western the most successful Japanese design products. In the post-war years a of the period. Marrying advanced concerted effort was made to develop techniques for moulding plywood and a more respectable reputation for both a particularly Japanese feeling for poetic design and manufacturing, and to do form, the Butterfly stool still sells in its this, it was acknowledged that the thousands every year. country needed to learn from the West. The 1960s was a boom time for the BIRTH OF A JAPANESE STYLE Japanese electronics and automobile In the 1950s, the Japan Export and industries, but it was not a particularly Trade Organization (known as JETRO) distinguished time for furniture sent design students to Europe and design. A relative late-comer to the United States to study, on the Modern design in the Western understanding that they would return mould, Japan was hardly ready to to work for Japanese companies. JETRO embark on an exploration of new also flew in American and European materials and forms in the way that designers to hold workshops in Japan countries such as Italy had done as a distinctive, hybrid design style, during the 1960s. Instead, the which drew upon influences from both Japanese furniture industry Japan and the West, began to emerge. consolidated its knowledge of design and manufacturing by continuing in One of the earliest champions of this the vein that it had established in the new aesthetic was Isamu Kenmochi, a previous decade. It was not until the Japanese designer who spent the late 1980s that Japanese design would be 1940s and early 1950s travelling across invigorated in the way that it had Europe and the United States (and been in the post-war years. keeping extensive journals). Although","JAPAN 475 1945\u20131970 KASHIWADO CHAIR LOW TABLE This armchair, named after a famous sumo wrestler, is made from blocks A modern take on a traditional Japanese form, this low beech table with a of cedar trunk; the surface is finished with a sanding technique that reveals rosewood veneer has an indentation around the edge, called a mizukaeshi the wood\u2019s grains. Originally designed by Isamu Kenmochi in 1961, this (water embankment). Designed by Isamu Kenmochi in 1968, this 2004 2004 model is from Tendo Mokko. H:63cm (243\u20444in); W:85cm (331\u20442in). TDO model is by Tendo Mokko. H:33.5cm (131\u20444in); W:140cm (551\u20448in). TDO SPOKE CHAIR tendo mokko This oak chair has a rectangular rail above a tapering back. The spindles are THE FIRST FURNITURE COMPANY IN JAPAN TO PRODUCE PLYWOOD FURNITURE, TENDO supported on turned legs. The low seat is in line with traditional Japanese MOKKO INTRODUCED THE WORLD TO THE JAPANESE STYLE OF MODERNISM. furniture. Designed by Katsuhei Toyoguchi in 1963, this 2004 model is from Tendo Mokko. H:83cm (322\u20443in); W:81cm (317\u20448in); D:68cm (263\u20444in). TDO Most of the forward- wooden decoy planes during the war. After the fighting ended, the group turned the cutting-edge skills they thinking Japanese had developed towards manufacturing furniture. Since they were the only furniture company in Japan at the furniture designers of time willing to work with plywood, it is little surprise that their services were sought after by a generation of the 1950s worked with young designers keen to utilize the manufacturing processes favoured in Europe and America. the fledgling manufacturer By the mid 1950s, Tendo Mokko was a thriving Tendo Mokko. A specialist company with a strong export trade, especially to the United States. Indeed, it was Tendo\u2019s furniture in the use of plywood collections of this decade that alerted the West to the fact that the Japanese could do Modernist design. (mokko means A German article on Japanese design, 1960s Proof that woodwork), Tendo Japanese furniture designs were popular at the time in Western countries, this German design magazine featured Fujitaro Oyama, president produced Sori Yanagi\u2019s furniture by Tendo Mokko in an issue from 1966. Tendo Mokko 1944\u201368 Butterfly stool (1954), Isamu Kenmochi\u2019s Kashiwado chair (1961), and even a chair by Charlotte Perriand (1955), the French designer, who was a regular visitor to Japan. Tendo Mokko started as little more than a co- operative of carpenters and cabinet-makers who came together in 1940 to make ammunition boxes and MURAI STOOL This stool is made of laminated, moulded beech with a teak veneer. It has a minimal, geometric design. Designed by Reiko Tanabe in 1961, it received first place in the Tendo Concur Design awards. This is a 2004 model from Tendo Mokko. H:36cm (141\u20444in); W:45cm (173\u20444in); D:43.5cm (171\u20444in). TDO","476 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 france and germany DESPITE BEING NEIGHBOURING nations, interest in Rational design, in much associated with the bourgeoisie. French The concern of French designers France and Germany displayed stark the same way as Good Design was designers of the 1940s and 1950s for the aesthetic, rather than the differences in their attitudes towards promoted in Britain and the United adopted the minimalist Modern look ideological, is apparent in the decorative Modern design. It was in Germany States. The government sponsored, for not to provide inexpensive furniture effects that were incorporated into their that Modernism started after World instance, the annual Beaut\u00e9 de France for widespread use, as its pioneers designs. Displaying a prettiness rarely War I, while across the border new award, but such efforts inevitably failed. had originally intended, but to sell to associated with Modernism was the developments were met with deep- Jacque Tati\u2019s celebrated film Mon Oncle an affluent, educated elite. Designers work of Mathieu Mat\u00e9got and Janette seated suspicion. Although the (1958) sums up the attitude of most such as Jacques Adnet, Jean Royere, Laverri\u00e8re, designers who did not cater polarity of these attitudes was not as French people to Modernist architecture and Serge Mouille had their designs strictly for an elite clientele, but who pronounced in the post-World War II and design, with its uproarious mockery made, often by hand, at great cost to certainly ignored the needs of the poor. era (many of the key figures of the of the style as pretentious, awkward, clients who had reassuringly deep Mat\u00e9got used perforated sheet metal to Bauhaus had, after all, fled Germany), and uncomfortable. pockets. Adnet furnished luxurious enliven his designs, while the Swiss- telling disparities remained. ocean liners and presidential born Laverri\u00e8re frequently produced DESIGNS FOR THE ELITE apartments, while Royere opened work in enamelled iron. In France, the appeal of Modernism Perhaps the main reason that Tati so showrooms in the had had little impact by the start of mercilessly lampooned Modernism oil-rich nations of the 1950s. The country\u2019s Ministry of was because the style was so closely the Middle East. Commerce attempted to stimulate Hinged sections The circles have been made make it possible to by punching holes in the fold the screen up plywood screen panel. for storage. COFFEE TABLE This coffee table has a square table top in rosewood; the table\u2019s tapering legs are made of hammered wrought iron. The legs are united by a tier underneath that is formed from pierced wrought iron. Designed in the style of Mathieu Mat\u00e9got. H:45cm (17 3\u20444in); W:50cm (19 2\u20443in); D:50cm (19 2\u20443in). CSB The circular motif transforms a Small hinges were specifically chosen relatively ordinary object into as they cause minimal disturbance one of great visual appeal. to the overall appearance. FOUR-PANEL SCREEN storage. The plywood panels that make up the screen have SIDE TABLE been perforated with symmetrical, round holes at regular This folding screen is made up of four separate panels, intervals adding to the visual attractiveness of the piece. All This ash side table has a rectangular top above a single drawer with each of which is enclosed by a simple frame made of of the panels have a matt finish in white lacquer. The screen angle-cut sides. The table top is raised on square, tapering legs; the legs stained wood. The panels are of varying widths and are was designed by Egon Eiermann for the Chamber of are joined by stretchers and united below by an undertier with a V-shaped linked together with the use of small, unobtrusive hinges, Deputies in the Bundestag in Bonn, Germany. 1968. magazine rack. Designed by Jean and Jacques Adnet. c.1950. H:61cm so the screen can be folded flat easily for transport and H:142cm (56in). DOR (24in); W:72.5cm (281\u20444in). CAL","FRANCE AND GERMANY 477 THE ULM SCHOOL The Ulm school was established American furniture design was also It was Eiermann who was the most 1945\u20131970 While designers in France were largely with finances provided by the a source of inspiration for German successful of these designers. Indeed, developing a luxuriant approach to United States as part of the Marshall designers who found themselves his smoothly shaped folding chair, the Modernism, many of their German Plan. The influence of American money indifferent to the strict, Rationalist SE18, launched in 1953, became one of counterparts wanted to reduce design to and American culture on Germany in principles being taught at Ulm. The the biggest-selling wooden chairs of the its bare bones. In 1950, the Hochschule the 1950s was to prove immensely more organic tendencies of Charles and decade. Also in demand as an architect, f\u00fcr Gestaltung (High School for Design) important. Hollywood movies and Ray Eames, George Nelson, and others Eiermann proved that there was more opened in Ulm, with Max Bill as its American car culture captivated German can be seen in the work of German to German design than austere director. Following the lead of the youth, not least because of the stark designers such as Georg Leowald and Functionalism, a fact confirmed by Bauhaus (where Bill had studied), the contrast they provided to the archaic Egon Eiermann and in-house designers the experimental designs produced in Ulm school taught its students a clear, ideals of the Third Reich. of the Walter Knoll company. Germany during the 1960s. simple, functional style of design that aided mass production. Representative of this approach was Bill\u2019s Ulm stool (1954), an object so elementary in its construction that it hardly seems to have been designed at all. ULM STOOL DESK CHAIR TULIP ARMCHAIR BARREL CHAIR Designed by Max Bill for the Ulm school, this This chair has a moulded plywood seat and back This chair\u2019s one-piece seat and back has armrests The back and seat of this chair are made of one rectilinear design with a simple stretcher could and is raised on a cast-metal pedestal that has a that bend outwards. It has a revolving metal base piece of alder bent plywood. It has a lacquered- be used at whim as a stool, a table, a shelf, or mechanism for adjusting the height. The inward- and detachable leather upholstery. Designed by beech frame with splayed legs. The added a portable tray. 1954. H:44cm (171\u20443in); curving metal legs have rubber-padded feet. Jorgen Kastholm and Preben Fabricius for Alfred cushion is red. Designed by Pierre Guariche for W:39.5cm (151\u20442in); D:29.5cm (111\u20442in). Designed by Egon Eiermann. c.1950. BonBay Kill. 1964. H:87cm (341\u20444in). HERR Steiner, Paris. c.1954. H:75cm (291\u20442in). DOR WRITING DESK CONSTANZE BENCH This writing desk has a bamboo frame and This is an early 1960s sofa bed with polished-steel, splayed-metal feet. rattan trellis panels; the writing surface is The foam-padded seat and back are upholstered in buttoned, sand- made of lacquered wood. The piece is designed coloured fabric. The piece has a patented mechanism that allows it to be by Jean Royere. c.1952. H:89cm (35in); changed from a sofa into a bed. Designed by Johannes Spalt for Franz W:104cm (41in); 52cm (201\u20442in). Wittman. H:70cm (272\u20446in); W:175cm (687\u20448in); D:70cm (272\u20443in). DOR","478 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 EXPERIMENTS IN SEATING by creating new, informal seating that gave the user flexibility and freedom, post-war designers redefined the chair. THE POST-WAR YEARS were a time of great COCONUT CHAIR HARP CHAIR experimentation. In 1946, the American Nelson\u2019s Coconut chair has a moulded-plastic, fibreglass- This chair has a solid ash frame with designer Eero Saarinen began work on his Womb reinforced shell that is raised on a four-legged, tubular-chrome three curved legs and is reminiscent chair (see p.500). Commissioned by Hans and base. The foam seat is upholstered in red fabric. Designed by of Viking ships. The seat and back Florence Knoll, the Womb chair was one of the first George Nelson for The Herman Miller Furniture Company. are made from taut flag line, which designs that did not dictate how to sit. The user could lends the chair a sculptural quality. sit on it, curl up in it, or slouch in it with his or her 1955. H:84cm (33in); W:44cm (171\u20442in); D:84cm (33in). SDR Designed by Jorgen Hovelshov for legs over the side. \u201cThe necessity of changing one\u2019s Christensen & Larsen. 1968. position is an important factor often forgotten in chair design\u201d, Saarinen pointed out, and for the next 25 H:131cm (511\u20442in). SDR years designers would become increasingly concerned with informal approaches to seating. Forms, materials, LA CHAISE and processes were experimented with in a way that The seat and back of the chair are made from moulded completely altered the topography of seating design. fibreglass and are supported on five polished-steel rods that rise from an oak, cross-shaped base. Designed by Not long after the Womb chair went on the market Charles Eames. c.1948. H:150cm (411\u20443in). DOR in 1947, Charles Eames designed his own take on free- form seating. Eames was a collaborator of Saarinen\u2019s The lack of upholstery and there was surely some friendly one-upmanship emphasizes the when he presented his La Chaise. Eames\u2019s biomorphic sculptural shape. design was far more explicit in its suggestion of multiple seating positions than the Womb, and even The seat comprises two did away with upholstery. Named after the French- fibreglass shells separated American sculptor Gaston Lachaise, the design by a rubber disc. unashamedly celebrated the naked shape of its curvaceous fibreglass seat. Five iron rods attach the chair\u2019s FORM FOLLOWS FUN seat to its base. The malleability of fibreglass prompted many The chair\u2019s lightness designers to explore more is underscored by the adventurous forms for furniture, and the strictly hole in the back. Rationalist principles that had guided Modern furniture design began to wane. George Nelson\u2019s Coconut chair (1955) was an early example of form following fun, rather than function. Resembling a cracked coconut shell, it pre-dated the representational furniture that became popular a decade later, the most famous of which was the baseball-mitt-shaped Joe chair (named after baseball star Joe DiMaggio) by Gionatan De Pas, Donato D\u2019Urbino, and Paulo Lomazzi. This Italian trio also designed the inflatable Blow chair, another icon of the era. Portable, disposable, and inexpensive, the Blow \u2013 as well as the many cardboard chair designs of the period \u2013 was a rebellion against centuries of tradition that said furniture should be a carefully crafted and enduring feature of the home. In 1967, Cesare Leonardi and Franca Stagi presented their celebrated Dondolo design, a sinuous, fibreglass chaise longue that rocked. An object best approached with caution by all but the bravest, the Dondolo was an intentional affront to accepted ideas of seating.","EXPERIMENTS IN SEATING 479 up5 chair 1945\u20131970 WITH ITS FORM REPRESENTING THE SHAPE OF A WOMAN, THE UP5 CHAIR WAS RADICAL NOT ONLY IN APPEARANCE, BUT ALSO IN THE WAY IT WAS MADE AND PACKAGED. Italian designer Gaetano Pesce\u2019s UP5 chair (1969) was utilizing this extraordinary process. Often referred to as The Gaetano Pesce UP4 sofa This sofa is not only radical in its peculiar, bulbous appearance, but La Mamma or Donna, the chair\u2019s shape \u201cexpressed my idea comprised of a stretch-fabric cover over a was also ground-breaking in the way it was made. First of woman\u201d, said Pesce. The UP6, a single piece of polyurethane foam, which formed from high-density polyurethane foam and covered spherical footrest, represented a ball forms the base. It was designed for B&B in stretch nylon, the chair was then put into a vacuum shackled to the woman by a chain Italia in 1969, and this model was produced chamber and shrunk to 10 per cent of its original size. \u2013 or in this case, a piece of from 1970 to 1973. H:63.5cm (25in); The resulting form was then quickly heat-sealed elasticized cord (not shown). W:162.5cm (64in); D:86.5cm (34in). R20 between two airtight vinyl sheets and packed into an easily transportable box. La Mamma (or Donna) foam lounge chair and matching ottoman Each piece is fully Once the box was taken home upholstered in a yellow, stretch-nylon by the buyer, he or she would fabric, which covers the polyurethane-foam cut open the vinyl covering structure. Both pieces bear the B&B Italia and watch as air seeped label. 1969. H:110.5cm (40in); W:106.5cm back into the chair, (42in); D:173cm (68in). SDR restoring it to its original voluminous shape. The UP5 chair was one of a series of furniture items that Pesce designed for B&B Italia MALITTE SEATING SYSTEM LIFESTYLE SEATING This seating system is made up of five sculpted polyurethane- Designers of the 1960s often saw themselves as foam blocks that stack up to a square wall when not in use. pioneers of a new, progressive lifestyle \u2013 a key reason Four of the blocks are individual seats, while the fifth one for their experimentation with modes of seating. serves as an ottoman. Designed by Roberto Matta. 1966. Andrea Branzi, a radical Italian designer, explained that his colleagues\u2019 work \u201cundermines traditional H:160cm (63in); W:160cm (63in); D:65cm (243\u20444in). WKA relationships with the house and instead proposes objects with autonomous functions that should promote new types of behaviour\u201d. Roberto Matta\u2019s Malitte system (1966) was just the sort of autonomous object Branzi was referring to. Essentially a carved-up block of polyurethane foam, the Malitte separated into five ambiguous-looking elements, all of which could be sat on in various positions. Matta\u2019s Malitte was a long way from the conventional perception of the chair as an object with four legs, a seat, and a back. \u201cFollowed to its extreme, furniture design would be a series of versatile, interchangeable, multi-purpose cushions\u201d, mused British designer Max Clendinning at the beginning of the 1960s, and by the end of the decade his vision was close to becoming reality. The economic downturn of the 1970s, however, put an abrupt end to the idealistic experiments of avant- garde designers. While chair design would continue to prove an expansive playground for many, never again would there be such focus on sprawling, slouching, and slumping as there was in the 1950s and 60s. DONDOLO This rocking chair is made from a single strip of moulded, fibreglass-reinforced polyester. It is one of only about 50 that were designed by Cesare Leonardi and Franca Stagi. 1967. H:76cm (301\u20442in); W:170cm (68in); D:37.5cm (15in). QU","480 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 1960s scandinavia ON VISITING AN EXHIBITION of Throughout the 1960s, Panton The latticed steel-wire Upholstered foam cushions Scandinavian design in 1959, Danish pushed the boundaries of design, both structure of the chair has a prove that Panton was just designer Poul Henningsen declared in terms of form and materials. His striking decorative effect. as concerned with comfort that there were \u201cmany skills and much most outstanding achievement of the as with appearance. elegance\u201d on display, \u201cbut not one period was the Panton chair, a design Designed for a restaurant, The conical shape shows dangerous object\u201d. Henningsen might that took over ten years to realize. This the chair\u2019s metal structure a departure from the have been infamous for his outspoken S-shaped cantilever chair, which was \u201cform follows function\u201d criticism of fellow designers, but there launched in 1967, used the new is suited to heavy use. ideal of early Modernism. was some truth in his suggestion that technique of injection moulding much Scandinavian design of the late and was manufactured by Vitra in The heavy pedestal base have circular foam pads, which are covered 1950s was produced purely with the Switzerland, where Panton was to of the chair keeps it in pink upholstery. The chair has a swivel aim \u201cof being sold to America\u201d. move in the mid 1960s. action and stands on heavy cross-shaped feet from toppling over. made of chromed steel that form a sturdy By the late 1950s, Scandinavian Working along similar lines was base. Designed by Verner Panton for Plus- design had, in many ways, become a the Finnish designer Eero Aarnio. Like WIRE CONE CHAIR Linje, Denmark. c.1960. H:75.5cm (29 3\u20444in). victim of its own success. So well- Panton, Aarnio was equally attuned received was it worldwide that the to the brash demands of Pop culture The chromed, steel-wire frame of this chair DRINKS TROLLEY furniture industry was unwilling to and the more refined virtues of is of conical form, centred at the chair\u2019s base tamper with a winning formula. harmonious form and durable and fanning out as it rises to make the seat This lacquered wood, rolling bar has swivelling Luckily, a new generation of designers construction that traditionally and chair structure. The chair\u2019s seat and back compartments for accessories, glassware, and was emerging that was prepared to characterize Scandinavian design. bottles. Designed by Verner Panton. 1963. upset the status quo. Chief among Aarnio\u2019s series of shapely seating H:74cm (291\u20442in); D:39.5cm (151\u20442in). them was the Dane Verner Panton. designs, completed in the 1960s, have since become icons, appearing A NEW GENERATION in many films and photographs. His In the early 1950s, Panton worked for fibreglass Ball chair (1966) was even Arne Jacobsen, and by the end of the the subject of a feature in The New decade he had taken his employer\u2019s York Times, confirming the cultural tentative studies in sculptural form and commercial success of his designs. (chairs such as the Egg and the Swan) to new extremes. Panton\u2019s first solo Yrjo Kukkapuro was another Finn project, a daring interior for a restaurant who, like Aarnio, preferred plastics and on the Danish island of Funen, where fibreglass to wood. Kukkapuro\u2019s most he grew up, was completed in 1958. distinguished design, the Carousel Described by one newspaper as \u201cthe chair of 1964, was reputedly envisaged most untraditional restaurant in by the designer after he had fallen Denmark\u201d, it signalled the start of a asleep in a bank of snow, having had new era in Scandinavian design. one too many vodkas. On awakening, Kukkapuro realized how comfortable he had been and immediately took a mould of the impression his body had left in the snow, using the shape to make the Carousel chair. THE LOST YEARS SHELL FUN LAMP Panton, Aarnio, and Kukkapuro were all fortunately supported by manufacturers This lamp is of mother-of-pearl-type discs hung who believed in their bold designs. from a ceiling fixture by metal chains. Designed Manufacturers like these were few and by Verner Penton for J. L\u00fcber, Switzerland. far between in Scandinavia during the 1965. H:110cm (431\u20442in); D: 56cm (22in). DOR 1960s, with most firms sticking to tried- and-trusted forms of furniture. In Sweden, for instance, it seems that no one was willing to take a chance on the audacious work of young designers, which is why the 1960s are now often referred to as the \u201clost years\u201d of Swedish design. The dining room of Verner Panton\u2019s home, Switzerland Verner Panton was a prolific designer whose commissions included a number of interiors. This room from his own home in Binningen is testament to the Pop style that was prevalent in the 1960s.","1960S SCANDINAVIA 481 1945\u20131970 CONE TABLE This occasional table is made from formica, steel, and fabric. It is named for its cone-shaped support. Designed by Verner Paton and manufactured by Plus-Lijne, Denmark. c.1958. H:70cm (27 1\u20442in); Diam:81cm (31 3\u20444in). BUBBLE CHAIR seat and chair back fit snugly within the half-bubble frame. Because the chair is made from transparent Influenced by imagery of the Space Age, the frame of this plexiglass and is fixed to the ceiling at a single point, it chair is made from a hollow, transparent-plexiglass half- creates the impression that the user is floating in mid-air. bubble attached to a chrome hoop and suspended from Designed by Eero Aarnio for Asko Lahti, Finland. 1968. the ceiling by a metal chain. The grey leather-upholstered D:85cm (33 1\u20442in). DOR ROUND TABLE This green, circular table is made out of moulded polyester; it is raised on a moulded pedestal base made of the same material. Designed by Eero Aarnio for Asko Lahti, Finland. 1967\u201368. H:75cm (291\u20442in); Diam:130cm (511\u20444in). DOR PONY CHAIR CAROUSEL ARMCHAIR coloured leather. The chair\u2019s edges are all slightly rounded. The chromed-steel spring to the rear of the seat This is an adult-sized chair that has been moulded to resemble a pony. The white fibreglass shell of the Carousel armchair\u2019s connects the shell with the four-pronged base, and the The chair has a foam body, feet, and ears over a tube frame. The entire seat is raised on a swivel base, which is also made chair has a rocking as well as a swivelling motion. The piece is upholstered in black stretch fabric. Designed by Eero Aarnio. of white fibreglass. The chair has a moulded seat and piece was designed by Yrjo Kukkapuro and produced by H:87cm (341\u20444in); W:107.5cm (421\u20443in); D:59cm (231\u20443in). SDR back that is upholstered and covered in a brownish- Haimi of Finland. 1965. BonE","482 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 1960s france and germany WHILE THE 1960S saw a backlash against At the annual furniture fair in SEX AND FURNITURE DESIGN idea inspired by the tight swimming the functionalism of Modern design in Cologne, experimental environments Although most of Europe and the costumes favoured by women on both France and Germany, the reaction were constructed that offered fantastical United States was in the grip of a sexual the Cote d\u2019Azur. was particularly vociferous in Germany. visions, often inspired by spaceships, of revolution in the 1960s, Germans were the future. The most celebrated were the particularly enchanted by free love. The Paulin\u2019s Mushroom (1963) and Where 1960s French designers such Visiona installations by the Dane Verner German sex educationalist Oswalt Kolle Tongue (1967) chairs were both as Pierre Paulin and Olivier Mourgue Panton, but many German designers became a popular figure, and the without legs. The low-lying seats of applied a contemporary twist to well- presented similarly outlandish schemes. influence of his ideas extended even to these curvaceous chairs were supported worn Rationalist principles, their furniture design. Although it had a short by a frame of tubular steel and covered German counterparts \u2013 such as Luigi German furniture design of the 1960s lifespan as a genre of furniture, the love in foam and stretch fabric. Influenced Colani, Peter Raacke, and Helmut was not entirely based on fantasy. In seat \u2013 on which one was supposed to do by the organic shapes of American and Batzner \u2013 were more forceful in 1966, Helmut Batzner accomplished the more than sit \u2013 was for a time the focus Scandinavian designs of the 1950s, the breaking new ground. In 1968, Werner very real achievement of creating the of many German designers\u2019 attentions. chairs took the sculptural aesthetic to Nehls, a Munich architect, wrote of a first chair from a single piece of plastic. new heights. \u201cprotest against the past, with its Called the Bofinger after the company French designers were also letting mechanistic, rational, puritanically that produced it, the chair had sold in their libidos drive designs, with Pierre utilitarian, soulless, inhuman way it\u2019s hundreds of thousands by the end of Paulin creating a range of chairs of forming the environment\u201d. the decade. sheathed in elasticated jersey \u2013 an The height and width of the chair\u2019s back envelop the user, shutting out the surrounding environment. The glossy surface of the chair adds to the eye-catching nature of the chair\u2019s design. The sculptural form of the DJINN CHAIR chair shows that Rancillac was primarily an artist, rather The seat and back of this chair are of fabric than a furniture designer. stretched over a polyurethane-and-metal frame on metal runners. Designed by Olivier Mourgue for Airborne and originally produced in 1965, this example is a later issue. c.1970. BonBay The chair\u2019s base is necessarily heavy to counterbalance the weight of the user. Undulations in the surface The part of the chair intended provide support for the body to support the legs mimics and showcase new techniques the trunk of an elephant. for moulding plastics. ELEPHANT CHAIR chair\u2019s sturdy base is made of painted steel and is particularly heavy TULIP CHAIR in order to provide a good sense of balance when used. Designed in Titled the Elephant, because of its obvious resemblence to an 1966 by Bernard Rancillac and made in very limited quantities, this This armchair has a padded back, a seat with elephant\u2019s head and trunk, this lounge chair\u2019s body is formed from piece is a clear forerunner of the Pop-inspired pieces of the following upswept arms, and a swivelling, aluminium, a single piece of bright scarlet fibreglass. The armrests bear a witty decade. This version is one of a limited 1985 re-issue that was cross-shaped base. It is upholstered in teal resemblance to an elephant\u2019s ears and the leg supports of the piece manufactured by Michel Roudillon in France. H:150cm (59 1\u20448in); snakeskin vinyl. Designed by Pierre Paulin for clearly mimic the trunk. Sculpturally fanciful but still functional, the W:150cm (59 1\u20448in); D:200cm (78 3\u20444in). Artifort. H:76cm (30in). SDR","1960s FRANCE AND GERMANY 483 Living room of the Bubble Palace (Le Palais Bulles) produced his Bouloum chaise longue. 1945\u20131970 Decorated in blues, the palace, with futuristic, round Its anthropomorphic design, based on rooms and rotating floors, is on the French Riviera. the outline of a friend, was an early By Pierre Cardin and Antti Lovag. 1970. expression of wit in Modern design and brought the discipline closer to art. Similar to Paulin\u2019s pieces were the 1960s designs of Olivier Mourgue. It was in the 1960s that many artists Mourgue\u2019s 1965 Djinn series (seen in began to experiment with furniture the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey) design as a means of artistic expression. reflected his view that functionalism Pop artists Claes Oldenburg, Eduardo was not the only goal of design, since Paolozzi, and Bernard Rancillac all \u201cone must pursue visual poetry too\u201d. included furniture within their oeuvre, as the association of furniture with In 1968, inspired by the solidarity functionalism began to fade. of the student riots in Paris, Mourgue luigi colani A DESIGNER WHO WOULD ANTICIPATE THE CULT OF CELEBRITY, LUIGI COLANI EMBODIED THE ANTI-RATIONALISM OF THE 1960S. Gleefully pointing reflected Colani\u2019s twin fascinations with space travel and the female form. out to anyone who It was not until the mid 1960s, would listen that however, that Colani turned his restless talents to domestic designs. Always he always refused keen to operate at the very cutting edge, Colani used the latest forms to use a ruler, Luigi of plastic available at the time to produce his eccentrically shaped Colani epitomized furniture. In 1968, Colani created a ball- shaped kitchen capsule for Poggenpohl, the anti-Rationalist and in 1973 he designed his most famous piece of furniture, the Colani spirit that was seat, which can be sat upon in a variety WRITING DESK of different ways. Luigi Colani characteristic of This desk has a top made of fibreglass-enforced Colani\u2019s idiosyncratic design style, plastic. Made in one piece, the surface has been much German design in the 1960s. which he has applied to a wide range moulded to provide a flat surface for writing at of products from everyday objects such the front and compartments for equipment at the Born Lutz Colani in Berlin in 1928, as teapots and chairs to quirky jewellery back. The rectangular top is raised on a white- painted metal frame. Designed by Marc Berthier and small jet aeroplanes, allied to his for FDAN, France. c.1967. H:67cm (26 1\u20443in); Colani changed his name from Lutz carefully crafted public persona, W:109cm (43in); D:27.5cm (70in). DOR anticipated the cult of the celebrity to Luigi in an effort to make himself personality that would become commonplace within the design sound less German. It is not surprising, community in the decades to come. therefore, that Colani studied and lived abroad. He studied aerodynamics at the Sorbonne in Paris, and then worked for the Douglas Aircraft Company in California for a short time. In the late 1950s, Colani returned to his homeland, where he immediately caused a sensation with his futuristic automobile and motorbike designs. Widely published (but rarely built), these sleek, pod-like vehicle designs TV-Relax couch This couch by Luigi Colani has a buttoned seat and back that are of an organic form, stretching out to create a leg rest. The piece is upholstered in a saffron-coloured stretch fabric. 1969. W:170cm (67in). DOR SINGLE-PEDESTAL DESK pedestal. Simple, unobtrusive grooves in the tops of the drawers serve as drawer handles. This single-pedestal desk has a free-form The piece is designed by Pierre Paulin for top that is made of laminate and extends over Mobilor. H:74.5cm (29 1\u20444in); W:119.5cm a bank of drawers. The entire piece is raised (47in); D:61cm (24in). SDR on a tubular, black-painted metal frame, while the desktop is supported by a single","484 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 POP INTERIOR contrasting shapes, texture, and colour were vital components of interiors of this period and resulted in fresh, fun, functional, and stylish spaces. Pantella table lamp Designed by Verner Panton FROM THE LATE 1950S, European design was dominated by for Louis Poulsen in Denmark, this lamp has a a reaction against the dogma of the Modernists. Pop, and its white, half-spherical acrylic lampshade above successor Postmodernism, share an irreverent sense of irony a white-lacquered, trumpet-shaped base. H:70cm that infused the interior design of this period with humour. (271\u20442in); Diam:50cm (192\u20443in). OPEN-PLAN LIVING A preference for open-plan living developed in the 1960s as large loft and warehouse spaces in New York and London were reinvented as housing developments. Inhabitants of these large formless spaces used portable screens and panels to sub-divide space into manageable sections and furniture was positioned to create wall-less boundaries within the living spaces. Zones could also be demarcated by texture or bold colours, which were inspired by Pop Art, as well as clever lighting that made use of lamps and ceiling lights to illuminate specific areas. Rooms of this period also benefited from technologies developed for the war effort, which resulted in new materials such as fibreglass. As these materials became available to the consumer market, they gave designers more scope to experiment and create surprising interiors. COLOUR, SHAPE, AND TEXTURE This Normandy farmhouse was built in the 1970s and furnished with pieces from the 1960s and 1970s. The owner moved to the area from San Francisco, and brought the cutting-edge tastes of the United States to this quiet corner of rural France. The pieces in this room sum up the move away from the functional designs of the Modernist era in favour of bold, sculptural, fun shapes. Primarily monochrome, the room takes its colour from the bold yellow and red of the seating. The bright red Alfa sofas are by Zanotta. The ceiling provides a focal point as the chaotic contours interrupt light from the recessed lamps and conceal multicoloured lights. The white plastic dome of the side lamp is echoed in the table base, the wall lamp, and even the metal sculpture that stands in the far corner of the room, providing some sense of continuity. Womb chair and ottoman Designed by Eero Saarinen for Knoll International, these pieces have moulded fibreglass- reinforced polyester upholstered with red latex covered foam, supported on tubular steel frames. 1948\u20131950. H:89cm (35in); W:100cm (39in) (chair). WKA","","486 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 1960s italy BY THE BEGINNING of the 1960s, Italian identity to using their individual ORGANIC LAMP nature, is made from a stiff fibreglass design had become synonymous names showed their distaste for the shell that is suspended on a wire frame. worldwide with sophisticated style. egotism and money-grabbing that they This large, sculptural hanging lamp is The cream-coloured pendant lamp was The terms Bel Designo and Linea Italiana perceived to be gripping the industry. organic in form, which explains where it designed by the renowned lighting designers had emerged to define the practical but received its name. The body of the lamp, Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni. elegant designs of figures such as Gio Not quite as extreme as these which looks as if it could take its shape from c.1968. DOR Ponti and Marco Zanuso. The 1964 groups, but still intent on injecting a Milan Triennale\u2019s theme of Leisure (in more democratic, inclusive element DAY BED 1947 the theme was \u201cThe Problems of into Italian design, was Joe Colombo. the Least Privileged\u201d) summed up the Although his designs were still rooted This day bed, or chaise longue, is comfortable, assured attitude of the in the Rationalist principles of constructed from a metal frame and has a Italian furniture industry at the time. Functionalism, they also showed a cane seat and back. It was designed by Tito desire by Colombo to communicate Agnelli for Pierantonio Bonacina. 1962. ANTI-DESIGN EMERGES with, as opposed to dictating to, his L:160cm (56in). DOR The industry was hit by a rude shock users. Other designers such as Anna in 1965. Trade unions demanded Castelli Ferrieri and Vico Magistretti significant wage rises for workers and also took this tack during the 1960s, export trade began to suffer. At the often employing plastic, a material that same time, a small group of designers, inspired new and playful forms. who saw the prevailing notions of taste and luxury as elitist and out of touch MOVING FORWARD with everyday life, began to question By the end of the 1960s, with the the self-satisfied nature of the industry. Italian economy near collapse, much of the unity and confidence of the From the mid 1960s, a rebellion country\u2019s design industry had dissolved revolutionized the Italian design into disharmony. Advocates of Bel industry, as designers turned towards Designo were being challenged by more populist aesthetics. The work those involved with Anti-Design, of the American Pop artists began to resulting in something of a crisis of exert a major influence, and the use identity. A period of great creativity, of plastic \u2013 a new, inexpensive material however, arose from this chaos that \u2013 was embraced wholeheartedly. enabled Italy to maintain its status as the most important European nation Chief among the exponents of Anti- in the field of design. Design, or Radical Design as it came to be known, were Archizoom and Apartment of Joe Colombo, Milan The interior has Superstudio, two groups of architects two co-ordinated living machines, Rotoliving and and designers who formed in Florence Cabriolet bed, which synthesized day-time and in 1966. That they preferred a group night-time environments. They were the result of Colombo\u2019s research into living habitats. 1969\u201370. SELENE CHAIRS legs have indents to give them greater strength. These three chairs were originally Each of these stacking chairs has been part of a set of four. Designed by Vico formed from a single piece of injection- Magistretti for Studio Artemide, Milan. moulded plastic; a camouflage-type colour 1967\u201368. H:75cm (29 1\u20442in); W:47cm (18 1\u20442in); scheme has been used. The square-section D:50cm (191\u20442in). DOR","The six bays of this 1960s ITALY 487 1945\u20131970 seating design encourage the sitters to be sociable. The fibreglass base of the seating \u201clivingscape\u201d has been painted white to give it a more immediate visual impact. SAFARI LIVINGSCAPE upholstery. Each individual seat is a petal of The fake leopard skin is a conscious The sheer size of the seating a flower-shaped form and is covered in fake use of kitsch and was intended as design makes it almost This modular, so-called \u201clivingscape\u201d has a leopard skin, as is the floor of the structure. an affront to \u201cgood taste\u201d. architectural in appearance. fibreglass frame in four sections, which fit Designed by Archizoom Associates for together to make a large, square-shaped Poltronova. 1967\u201368. H:75cm (291\u20442in); COMPONIBILI STORAGE UNITS seating area lined with textile-covered latex W:214cm (841\u20443in); D:254cm (100in). DOR This sectional system works in any home or office the elda chair environment. The units have a base, door, and top. Designed by Anna Castelli Ferrieri for Kartell. IN THE BRIEF TIME THAT HE WORKED AS A FURNITURE DESIGNER, JOE COLOMBO CREATED MANY TREND-SETTING AND 1969. H:58.5cm (23in); Diam:32cm (121\u20442in). TECHNICALLY ADVANCED PIECES, THE MOST NOTABLE OF WHICH IS THE LEATHER-AND-FIBREGLASS ELDA CHAIR. Although Joe Colombo died tragically of heart failure in 1971, predecessors. Made from fibreglass, it was also the most ambitious at the age of just 41, he produced an astonishing number of use of this material that the furniture industry had seen. ground-breaking designs during his short career. The Elda armchair, designed for his wife of the same name, is one of The chair\u2019s thick, twisting cushions, which add to its womb- Colombo\u2019s most recognizable pieces of furniture design and is like appeal, are designed to hook on to the fibreglass base, so that typical in being both technologically and aesthetically advanced. they can be removed easily for cleaning. A further feature of the chair is the rotating base that enables the user to have a 360- Cocooning the user in his or her own private world, the chair\u2019s degree view of his or her surroundings. sheer presence was a radical leap from the polite designs of his The futuristic styling of the chair has brought it to the attention of numerous film-set dressers, and, perhaps most notably, the Elda chair crops up more than once in villains\u2019 lairs in James Bond films. Although Colombo never lived to see his designs on the big screen, he would no doubt have approved as, when younger, he changed his given name of Cesare to Joe because he thought it made him sound more like a Hollywood film star. The Elda chair The chair One of Joe Columbo\u2019s sketches of the Elda chair This POKER CARD TABLE has a moulded, fibreglass- drawing illustrates how the rotating mechanism allowed reinforced plastic shell with the user to make a full 360-degree turn. WKA The table top of this card table is white plastic, a black leather-upholstered covered in green baize with a leather trim. The seat. 1963\u201365. H:100cm legs are stainless steel. Designed by Joe Colombo (39 2\u20443in); W:100cm (39 2\u20443in); in 1968; this example is a 2004 Zanotta re- issue. H:70cm (271\u20442in); W:98cm (382\u20443in). ZAN D:93cm (36 2\u20443in). WKA","488 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 CASTIGLIONI BROTHERS the castiglioni brothers created a style that combined a reverence for everyday objects, provocative wit, and a rationalist approach to function. BORN THE SONS of a sculptor in Milan, the Castiglioni ALLUNAGGIO STOOL SERVO RANGE brothers \u2013 Livio, Pier Giacomo, and Achille \u2013 grew This stool was designed for outdoor These pieces are from the A. and P.G. Castiglioni up to dominate post-World War II Italian design. use and has a grass-green-painted, Servo range: the Servopluvio umbrella stand is on Designing everything from vacuum cleaners to table aluminium-alloy seat supported at the the left and the Servofumo ashtray on the right. lamps and restaurants, the prolific brothers provided centre of three wide-spanning steel legs Other items include a coat stand, a towel stand, a a bridge between the hard-edged Rationalists who terminating in natural polyethylene feet. book stand, and a service table. 1961\u20131986. ZAN came before them and the playful Postmodernists Designed by A. and P.G. Castiglioni in who were to follow. 1965. This example was re-issued by Zanotta in 2004. H:74cm (291\u20448in); It was the youngest brother, Achille, who would eventually gain the greatest prominence, but it was W:152cm (593\u20444in); D:42.5cm (163\u20444in). ZAN the eldest, Livio, who first brought the family to the public\u2019s attention, when he created, along with Luigi JOY SHELVING Caccia Dominioni and Pier Giacomo, the first Italian This shelf unit comprises a number of radio made using Bakelite. honeycomb core uprights and shelves, with steel reinforcements inside. Each By 1945, Achille, like his brothers, had graduated \u201climb\u201d can be rotated individually, from the Politecnico in Milan and all three were giving the piece a sculptural as well working in the same studio. A modest door handle as functional quality. The shelves are and a set of plywood hotel furniture were their first finished in stained oak with steel projects. Although trained in architecture, the brothers supports. Designed by A. Castiglioni. always favoured furniture and industrial design. 1989. H:190cm (747\u20448in) (max); W:96cm biography (377\u20448in) (max); D:30cm (117\u20448in). ZAN Achille, Pier Giacomo, and Livio Castiglioni 1939 Livio and Pier Giacomo collaborate with Luigi Caccia Dominioni to create the Bakelite Phonola radio. 1945 The three brothers begin working together. 1947 Achille exhibits at the Milan Triennale and is involved in the exhibition until his death in 2002. 1952 Livio stops working with his brothers. 1956 The three brothers become founding members of the Associazone per il Designo Industriale (ADI). 1957 Exhibit Colours and Forms of the Home Today. 1960 Splugenbrau restaurant in Milan designed. 1962 Arco and Toio floor lamps designed for the lighting manufacturer Flos. 1969 Livio designs the Serpentine Boalum lamp with Gianfranco Frettini. 1970 Achille begins teaching at Turin Politecnico.","CASTIGLIONI BROTHERS 489 compasso d\u2019oro awards CASTIGLIONI STYLE 1945\u20131970 The first time a distinctive Castiglioni style emerged CREATED BY GIO PONTI AND ALDO BORLETTI, THE COMPASSO D\u2019ORO AWARDS BECAME THE MOST was in 1950, with the design of the Leonardo and COVETED AND PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS IN 20TH-CENTURY FURNITURE DESIGN. Bramante trestle tables. Fashioned after craftsmen\u2019s tables, they were an early example of Achille\u2019s magpie Between 1955 and 1994, the Castiglionis accumulated Luminator floor lamp This steel eye. Spotting the practical qualities of the trestle table, nine first prizes and 13 special mentions at the annual lamp is based on a photographer\u2019s the Castiglionis tinkered with the archetypal design to Compasso d\u2019Oro (Golden Compass) awards. They indirect lights. The tube is just wide make it their own. Naming the functional tables after collected awards for \u2013 among other things \u2013 a chair, a enough to fit the bulb socket. two great figures of the Renaissance was a typical hospital bed, headphones, and an espresso machine. Designed by A. and P.G. Castiglioni touch of wit \u2013 reminding us that even great in 1955, this is a 1994 re-issue by accomplishments begin as sketches made on the The Compasso d\u2019Oro awards were first distributed Flos. H:130cm (511\u20444in); W:15cm humble trestle table. in 1954 and were soon to become the foremost (6in); D:15cm (6in). accolades in Italian design, generating In 1952, Livio parted company with his brothers. international attention for the products Arco floor lamp Inspired by a Around this time, too, Achille and Pier Giacomo\u2019s selected. The idea of designer Gio Ponti street lamp, this ceiling lamp talent for lighting design began to gain full expression. and Aldo Borletti, owner of La Rinascente does not require holes in the In 1955, their Luminator standard lamp won a department stores in Milan, the Compasso d\u2019Oro ceiling, as light is projected away Compasso D\u2019Oro award, while the Bulbo hanging lamp awards were intended \u201cto encourage industrialists from the marble base. Designed by of 1957 showed a poetic use of industrial processes. and craftsmen to raise their production standards A. and P.G. Castiglioni for Flos. both from a technological and aesthetic standpoint\u201d. 1962. H:241cm (95in); W:200cm Perhaps the highpoint of their career in lighting (785\u20448in); D:29cm (111\u20442in). design was 1962, when two of their most celebrated Although initially only products sold or distributed by lights were produced by Flos. The Arco floorlamp, La Rinascente qualified, it was not long before the remit of inspired by streetlights, has become an icon of 20th- the awards was widened. By 1967, the awards were no century design, while the Toio lamp is a great example longer associated with La Rinascente at all, administered of the brothers\u2019 invention and resourcefulness. Though instead by the Associazone per il Designo Industriale (ADI). workman-like in appearance, the lamp\u2019s ingenious Although their credibility was somewhat damaged in the application of car headlights and fishing-rod rings is 1980s amid accusations of cronyism, no award in 20th- a homage to the beauty of everyday designs. century design was more prestigious. OBJETS TROUV\u00c9S MEZZADRO STOOL Pier Giacomo and Achille\u2019s reverence for anonymous This stool has a shaped and objects was such that their studio was littered with perforated aluminium-alloy seat on such items, and Achille even had a wooden eel-fishing a single, chromium-plated steel stem, with a steam-treated beech footrest. boat in his apartment. \u201cI put it there as an objet Designed by A. and P.G. Castiglioni trouv\u00e9,\u201d he explained, referring to the in 1957, this example was re-issued tradition initiated by Marcel Duchamp by Zanotta in 2004. H:51cm (20in); when he combined a stool and a bicycle wheel in an artwork in 1913. W:49cm (191\u20443in); D:51cm (20in). ZAN The Castiglionis\u2019 most celebrated works in PRIMATE STOOL this tradition were shown to a shocked public in 1957. The user sits on the top section of this stool In an exhibit entitled Colours and Forms of the Home with his or her knees resting on the lower Today, they filled a room with \u201cold\u201d designs (such as section. The pieces are joined by a stainless- Thonet bentwood chairs) and the latest Castiglioni steel arm. The base of the stool is made creations. The latter included the Mezzadro stool, from painted polystyrene. Designed by which incorporated a tractor seat, and the Sella stool, Achille Castiglioni in 1970, this example which had a leather bicycle seat. Although humorous, was re-issued by Zanotta in 2004. H:47cm provocative designs, they were accomplished with such finesse, and with such a sober, Rationalist approach to (181\u20442in); W:50cm (193\u20444in); D:80cm (311\u20442in). ZAN function, that the joke is entirely convincing. Pier Giacomo\u2019s death in 1968 left Achille to work on his own. His designs always inspired outrage and admiration in equal measure, and no design polarized opinions more than the Primate stool (1970). Demanding an Eastern seating position of folding the calves under the thighs, the Primate was praised by some for its daring, ergonomic approach and damned by others for its odd, toilet-like appearance. \u201cA design stems from the urge to create a rapport with the unknown person who will use the object\u201d, wrote Achille in 1992, and, love them or loathe them, Castiglioni designs always touch a nerve.","490 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 1960s united states WHILE THE FORGING of a strong, was Warren Platner. His collection of THE PLATNER RANGE with removable, velvet-covered cushions. coherent identity characterized steel-rod furniture for Knoll, called Designed by Warren Platner for Knoll, these American furniture design of the 1950s, simply the Platner range, was launched The round table has a plate-glass table top pieces make up part of a range of furniture the next decade was far foggier. The in 1966 to great acclaim. \u201cI felt there raised on a spindle-shaped base, which is that is referred to simply as the Platner Rational, yet sculptural, style developed was room for the kind of decorative, made out of nickel-plated steel rods. The four range. 1966. Table: H:71cm (28in); by Charles and Ray Eames, Eero gentle kind of design that appeared in a chairs have walnut tops and padded seats D:105cm (411\u20443in). QU Saarinen, and others in the 1950s period style like Louis XV\u2026 but with a would continue to meet with success Rational base\u201d, Platner wrote, summing The Castle chair\u2019s turret The chair\u2019s seat is nothing during the 1960s, although there were up his own take on furniture design. is a good place on which more than a depression also dissenters who tried to break the to rest a drink. in the plastic. hegemony of the aesthetic referred American designers wanting to to today as Mid-century Modern. employ a daring and idiosyncratic style The non-slip layer at the were, as a rule, ignored by the large base of the chair improves Critically and commercially, manufacturers in the 1960s. Dismissed adhesion to the floor. companies such as The Herman Miller as superficial, designers such as Wendell Furniture Company and Knoll were Castle, Vladimir Kagan, and Erwine CASTLE ARMCHAIR in black rubber all around the base. The riding high at the start of the 1960s. and Estelle Laverne had to produce limited-edition piece was distributed by From humble beginnings they had risen their designs themselves, or seek out The designer, Wendell Castle, achieved the Beylerian of New York. This particular chair to international prominence and, small companies with whom they organic, amorphous form of the Castle armchair bears the artist\u2019s initials on the inside. 1969. understandably, were unwilling to might collaborate. Castle\u2019s amorphous through the use of white, fibreglass-reinforced H:86cm (337\u20448in); W:118cm (461\u20442in); D:90cm jeopardize this. The relentless invention furniture designs, made from fibreglass polyester. The base of the armchair is trimmed (351\u20442in). QU of the early 1950s waned in the 1960s, and plastics, were eventually put into as many American furniture companies limited production by Beylerian of attempted to consolidate their success New York, while the Lavernes\u2019 work, by concentrating on the contract (or often distinguished by the use of clear business) market and exports. acrylic, was produced by their own company, Laverne Originals. In Los Figureheads of the 1950s turned Angeles, Charles Hollis Jones was their talents towards such areas as also experimenting with the decorative office furniture (George Nelson\u2019s Action possibilities of clear acrylic, producing Office range, 1964) and airport seating bespoke furniture and lighting (the Eames Tandem system, 1964). A for clients such as Frank number of young designers took the Sinatra, Tennessee Williams, corporate path, with David Rowland and Diana Ross. producing the triumphantly Rationalist 40\/4 chair in 1964 (a stack of 40 stood POSTMODERNISM 4 feet tall) and Charles Pollock (brother While the world of of Jackson) creating a range of stylish, if American furniture sober, executive seating. design seemed confused during the American design was becoming 1960s, there was stifled, it seemed, by the size of its a growing school furniture companies, which were unable of thought that to respond to the immediate demands insisted that this of the market. While many European should be nations, whose furniture industries celebrated. often consisted of networks of small Writing about companies, were turning out furniture the discipline of in garish colours and outlandish shapes, architecture, this was rarely true of the United States. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott FREE-FORM STYLE Brown published The urge to explore a decorative, \u201cComplexity and abstract style was not entirely absent in Contradiction in Architecture\u201d the United States, however. The work of in 1966, a text that argued the case designers such as Isamu Noguchi (IN50 for pluralism. The idea that a clear, coffee table), George Nelson (Coconut universal design style should be avoided chair), and Eero Saarinen (Pedestal at all costs, as Venturi and Scott Brown range) had, to a large extent, cleared the outlined, would provide the basis of way for the loose, free-form style that Postmodernism, a style that was to swept the furniture world in the 1960s. develop fully in the next decade. Perhaps the most eloquent exponent of the more whimsical style of the 1960s","1960s UNITED STATES 491 1945\u20131970 MAILBOX TABLE LAMP CLOUD SOFA The mailbox-shaped lampshade of This curvaceous, biomorphic sofa with a low back is this table lamp is made from a fully upholstered in a finely woven fabric that has an single, bowed piece of acrylic. The undulating pattern in red, pink, and grey. Three matching thin, tubular stand and the base scatter cushions complete the ensemble. The sofa is are made of steel. The lamp was raised on casters. W:294.5cm (116in). SDR designed by Charles Hollis Jones. 1963. H:58.5cm (23in); W:35cm (133\u20444in); D:23cm (9in). LILY CHAIR This is a lucite Lily chair, which was part of the Invisible Group series designed by Erwine and Estelle Laverne. The entire seat, including the moulded base, is transparent. A fuzzy, white seat- pad completes the chair. 1957. H:94cm (37in); W:71cm (28in); D:68.5cm (27in). SDR GATELEG DINING TABLE supported by a seven-legged wooden base. The angular, splayed design of the legs is characteristic of Kagan\u2019s work, This wooden, drop-leaf, gateleg dining table is a 20th- and is a feature that Kagan applied to his seating furniture century interpretation of a late 16th-century form and is a as well as his table designs. Fully extended: H:75cm fine example of Vladimir Kagan\u2019s organic design style. The (29 1\u20442in); W:169cm (66 1\u20442in); D:106.5cm (42in). SDR table has an oblong table top with rounded corners and is TWO-DOOR CABINET OUTDOOR DINING CHAIR 40\/4 STACKING CHAIR This two-door, cherry-wood cabinet has contoured door fronts decorated The chair\u2019s die-cast frame is made of extruded aluminium One of the most famous and functional 20th-century chairs, with an ebony inlay. The doors open on to an interior fitted with a mirror, and finished in an outdoor epoxy-polyester coating. The this ultra-compact stacking chair was so named because the four shelves, and four small drawers, each of which has an ivory- polyester mesh seats are impregnated with polyvinyl chloride 40\/4 stacks 40 chairs in 4 feet (1.2m). The chair has a chrome enamelled pull. The case stands on black cylindrical feet. Designed (PVC) for outdoor use. Designed by Richard Schultz. 1966. frame and a metal seat and back. Designed by David Rowland. by Vladimir Kagan. H:86.5cm (34in). SDR H:74cm (29in); D:62cm (241\u20442in). 1964. H:76cm (30in); W:49cm (191\u20444in); D:54.5cm (211\u20442in).","492 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 coffee tables THE SUDDEN SURGE IN popularity of conventional homeowners MOLAR TABLE GLASS-TOPPED TABLE the coffee table in the post-war years often preferred a rectangular can be directly attributed to the rise table to one that had an This black fibreglass table is reminiscent of a This table has a thick, clear-glass, circular top of the television. The presence of a irregular shape, but it was molar tooth. From a range designed by Wendell above a patinated bronze, ribbon-like base. television set in a house tended to the novelty of the latter Castle, USA. c.1969. H:39.5cm (151\u20442in); Produced by Dunbar, USA. 1965. W:107cm pull families away from the dining that attracted young buyers. room at mealtimes and into the living \u25cfW:101.5cm (40in); D:86.5cm (34in). SDR 4 \u25cf(42in). SDR 2 room, where the coffee table proved Also prized for its unusual the ideal object on which people appearance was the glass-topped TABLE WITH DRAWERS could place their plates. coffee table. Making objects appear as if they were floating on air, the glass This coffee table has a birch top above three Such was the increased traffic in table top became a common feature narrow drawers; it is raised on brass legs joined the living room, thanks to the TV, of many coffee tables in the late by brass stretchers. Designed by Paul McCobb that the most popular style of coffee 1940s and early 1950s. table quickly became one on which \u25cffor Calvin, USA. W:167.5cm (66in). FRE 1 you couldn\u2019t hurt your shins \u2013 that As plastics began to be more widely is, one without sharp corners. The used in furniture design of the mid classic coffee table with a curvaceous 1960s, it was inevitable that plastic top \u2013 of which Isamu Noguchi\u2019s (usually fibreglass) coffee tables should IN50 table (1944) is an early, and appear on the market. By this time, particularly eloquent, example \u2013 soon however, the three-piece sitting-room ousted the traditional dining table as suite that usually surrounded the the most gathered-around item of coffee table was rapidly going out of furniture in the house. More fashion and, with it, went much of the appeal of the coffee table. The plate-glass table top The table has two levels of allows a good view of the glass in order to maximize table\u2019s sculptural base. the use of space. A simple system of screws DUNBAR COFFEE TABLE holds all the pieces of the table together. This American-designed coffee table has a rectangular, 1-cm- (1\u20442-in-) thick, smoky-glass top above a patinated bronze cruciform base. \u25cfc.1965. W:117cm (461\u20444in). SDR 2 Short legs raise the plywood The sinuous curves of the from the ground, giving the base are typical of Mollino\u2019s table a poised appearance. idiosyncratic style. The plywood frame is perforated to ensure that the table is both physically and visually light. ARABESCO TABLE top and lower glass shelf have an asymmetrical, ORGANIC SOFA TABLE sinuous form. The frame is fixed to the glass top This table has a perforated plywood frame, which by stainless-steel screws. Designed by Carlo This cherry-wood table, with its curved table top, has been veneered with varnished beech wood. Mollino in 1949, Italy. This example is a 2004 is raised on splayed legs. It is finished in black The frame is bent to provide a magazine rack re-issue by Zanotta. H:45cm (173\u20444in); W:129cm laminate. Germany. c.1950. H:50cm (19 2\u20443in); below the plate-glass table top. Both the table (50 3\u20444in); D:53cm (20 7\u20448in). ZAN \u25cfW:131cm (511\u20442in); D:47cm (181\u20442in). DOR 2","COFFEE TABLES 493 1945\u20131970 AMOEBIC TABLE black dowel-legs. The table is signed by the SLAB TABLE material. The coffee table is supported by This table has a free-form top in thick American designer Lawrence Kelley. 1973. The top of this coffee table is formed from a two, asymmetrically formed legs, which are laminated wood. The table was so named single slab of solid walnut. The table\u2019s most because of its amorphous and amoeba-like \u25cfW:163.5cm (641\u20442in). FRE 1 striking characteristic is its free-form, organic positioned at different angles. The legs are shape. The table top is raised on four screw-in, shape, which is in keeping with the choice of also made of solid walnut. Designed by George Nakashima, USA. 1956. W:132cm \u25cf(56in). FRE 2 COFFEE TABLE WOOD AND BRASS TABLE The thin, rectangular top of this coffee table rests of the front edge. Stretchers add stability. This American-made coffee table has a mirrors the dimensions of the table top, runs on square-section legs with brass caps. The legs rectangular, wooden table top raised on four are not situated one in each corner, but arranged Designed by Edward Wormley for Dunbar, USA. black-laminated, square-section legs, which inside the four legs. Designed by Harvey Probber. at the corners of the rear edge and in the centre terminate in brass caps. A brass frame, which \u25cfc.1955. W:152.5cm (60in). LOS 3 \u25cfc.1960. W:179cm (701\u20442in). LOS 3 KNOLL COFFEE TABLE The table top is supported on an angular DANISH ROSEWOOD TABLE The table is raised on turned and tapering Stark and simple in design, this black and metal base and metal legs. The base and legs The rectangular top of this otherwise legs. Designed and manufactured by Georg white coffee table, which was manufactured unadorned rosewood coffee table has a tile by Knoll International of New York, is made are finished in a black enamelling. W:114cm inset on one side. The tile is patterned in an Jensen, Denmark. H:51cm (20in); W150cm with a rectangular, white-laminate table top. abstract design in olive green and teal blue. \u25cf(45in). SDR 1 \u25cf(59in); D:79cm (31in). SDR 1 NOGUCHI IN50 stable support. Designed by Isamu Noguchi TEAK COFFEE TABLE slightly at the edges. It supports a free-form, This coffee table is made up of just three for The Herman Miller Furniture Company, This Danish-made, teak-and-glass coffee asymmetrically shaped glass table top. pieces: a 2-cm- (3\u20444-in-) thick, three-sided, table is made from just three pieces. The plate-glass top and two solid, curved, legs in USA. 1944. H:58.5cm (23in); W:113cm base is formed from two conjoined, cruciform \u25cfc.1960. H:39cm (15 1\u20442in). FRE 1 ebonized wood. The legs interlock to form a teak frames that are rounded and upturned \u25cf(441\u20442in); D:101cm (393\u20444in). QU 3","494 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 sideboards SUCH WAS THE DESTRUCTION caused by also adding to the overall visual TEAK SIDEBOARD interior, and two drawers. The case is raised machines during World War II that effect. Popular woods of the time many designers instinctively turned included teak, rosewood, oak, This teak sideboard from the Netherlands has on square-section, enamelled-metal uprights. their backs on industrial processes and and palisander, with brass often a rectangular top above two sets of double embraced the more traditional values of employed for handles. Short, doors, each of which encloses a shelved Designed by Cees Braakman and produced by craftsmanship instead. The sideboard sometimes tapered, legs were a was a piece of furniture particularly common feature at the base of Patsoe as part of the U + N range of furniture. well suited to displaying what a sideboards, as they lent them a talented craftsman could do, and so, lightweight look (and reflected the \u25cfc.1959. W:229cm (90 1\u20444in). BonBay 2 during the late 1940s, the wooden widespread use of similar supports sideboard emerged as a prominent in architecture of the time). NAKASHIMA SIDEBOARD form of furniture. It was sideboards by the This black walnut and grass cloth sideboard was Sideboards and credenzas, rather Scandinavian designers that were made in the United States. The rectangular case than upright cabinets, were favoured initially much in demand after the has two sliding doors flanked by another during this period, as they fitted well war, although it wasn\u2019t long before with the current vogue for low-lying, American furniture designers \u2013 and, clutter-free interiors. Their horizontal to a lesser extent, Italian and British form, too, spoke of dynamism in a way designers \u2013 were also producing that the towering storage units of earlier sideboards of note. With the onset of eras never did. the 1960s, however, and specifically with the arrival of plastics, the With applied surface decoration still sideboard fell from favour, as a new frowned upon, designers of Modern generation of designers rejected sideboards made the most of the anything that they perceived of pleasing patterns of wood grains, with as being too old-fashioned. the composition of handles and doors The horizontal shape of the Discreet circular recesses cupboard door, a fitted interior, and three walnut unit is offset by the vertical make it easy to slide the grain of the wood. doors back and forth. feet. Designed by George Nakashima. c.1966. \u25cfW:213.5cm (84in). FRE 5 The fa\u00e7ade of the sideboard Cream-coloured panels The contrast between is entirely free from applied give the sideboard a the white and wood surface decoration. contemporary appearance. sections of the piece add visual effect. sideboard\u2019s only visual effect is the contrast THIN-EDGE SIDEBOARD between the wood and white sections and the The use of metal for the legs natural effect of the wood grain. The piece was gives the sideboard a This walnut-veneer sideboard has one walnut designed by George Nelson for The Herman cabinet that flanks two cream-coloured sliding Miller Furniture Company, USA. 1950s. somewhat industrial look. doors. The doors open to reveal three shelves. H:84.5cm (331\u20444in); W:71cm (671\u20444in); D:30.5cm The case is supported by tapered, aluminium legs. Without any surface decoration, the \u25cf(12in). SDR 3","SIDEBOARDS 495 1945\u20131970 TEAK SIDEBOARD supports. Designed by John and Sylvia Reid for NINE-DRAWER BUFFET ebonized-oak frame is raised on short, square- This teak, rectilinear sideboard has two doors and Stag Furniture, UK. 1959. H:170cm (271\u20442in); This buffet has three long drawers flanked section legs. Designed by Edward Wormley for four graduated drawers. The handles are small, on each side by three short drawers, all with polished-steel pulls and the case stands on steel \u25cfW:137cm (54in); D:45.75cm (15in). FRE 3 rosewood fronts and brass ring pulls. The \u25cfDunbar, USA. W:176cm (691\u20444in). SDR 2 FOUR-DOOR SIDEBOARD for a handle. Designed by Borge Mogensen, WALNUT CREDENZA rectangular pull. The interior of the cabinet has This rosewood-veneer sideboard has a rectangular \u25cfDenmark. c.1958. W:238cm (933\u20444in). DOR 3 The top of this Japanese walnut credenza has a four drawers on one side and three adjustable top above veneer doors: sliding outer doors and a free-form edge. Below is a rectangular case hinged inner pair. Each door has a small indent with two sliding doors, each with a recessed \u25cfshelves on the other. W:183cm (72in). SDR 2 TEAK SIDEBOARD Italy. 1950s. H:53cm (211\u20448in); W:178cm 541 CABINET stands on six metal legs. Designed by Florence This teak-veneered sideboard has four drawers in \u25cf(711\u20448in); D:42cm (167\u20448in). QU 1 This elm-veneer sideboard has a rectangular Knoll for Knoll International, USA. c.1952. a rectangular case and steel legs terminating in case and four sliding doors in matching veneer; wooden feet. Attributed to Gianfranco Frattini, the strap handles are in leather. The case \u25cfW:180cm (707\u20448in). DOR 3 LACQUERED BUFFET front and sides of the piece, while the top is WOVEN-FRONT SIDEBOARD are rectangular. Designed by Hans Wegner for This ivory-lacquered buffet cabinet has five free of ornamentation. Designed by Tommi Made of oak and Brazilian rosewood, this Danish Ry Mobler. 1966. H:78.5cm (307\u20448in); W:200cm doors that conceal a set of interior drawers sideboard has two sliding doors. The doors are and shelves. The large ring pulls are in brass, \u25cfParzinger, USA. W:208 (82in). SDR 4 fronted with woven panels within a narrow frame \u25cf(783\u20444in); D:49cm (191\u20444in). Bk 2 and decorative brass studs are applied to the and have recessed oval pulls. The leg supports","496 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 lighting Initially, the preferred look was one of elegance, symmetry, and restraint. By IN THE FIRST HALF of the 20th century, the 1960s, however, the Space Age and KD24 TABLE LAMP TABLE LAMP lighting design was a separate discipline science were influencing lighting design. to furniture design, with designers Spherical forms (imitating planets, The orange plastic cover of this lamp stands on a This adjustable table lamp has a painted, rarely straddling the boundary between fusing nuclei, or DNA) became popular, white plastic base. The cover and base curves anodized-aluminium and steel frame. Designed the two. The post-war generation of and plastics were favoured. Many mirror one another. Designed by Joe Colombo for by A.B. Reid and manufactured by Troughton designers, however, considered both designers were so taken with the and Young, UK. 1946. H:48.5cm (19in). to be branches of industrial design. decorative possibilities of lighting \u25cfKartell, Italy. 1968. H:14.5cm (53\u20444in). DOR 2 design that they made little attempt to The greatest draw of lighting design articulate the function of the objects was the scope for decorative expression they designed. Others followed the it allowed. As Achille Castiglioni, one \u201cform follows function\u201d mantra of of the most celebrated designers of the Modernism, but with tongues firmly in period, put it, \u201cthe interest [in lighting cheeks. An essentially functional area of design] was not so much centred on design in 1945, electric lighting lost its solving the problems of lighting...as on aura of naivety as designers realized it emphasizing the decorative qualities of fixtures when they are without light\u201d. could be exploited to Italy led the way in post-war lighting, great decorative with companies such as O- effect. Luce, Fontana Arte, and Stilnovo. The glass was ATOMIC CHANDELIER METAL CEILING LIGHT specially blown to the designer\u2019s This atom-shaped lamp has 12 opaque-glass This six-bulb light with opaque bulbs is mounted specifications. bulbs mounted on chromium-plated metal on a tube-metal, atom-shaped frame; it is brass- tubes. Designed by J.T. Kalmar, Austria. 1969. coated and patinated. Italy. 1950s. H:110cm The bulb is a bulb within a bulb. \u25cfDiam:64cm (251\u20444in). DOR 2 \u25cf(431\u20443in); Diam:60cm (232\u20443in). DOR 2 The lamp was available with either clear glass (as shown here) or frosted glass. The aluminium base has been polished for striking effect. BULB FLOOR LAMP stands on a screw base made of polished PIPISTRELLO TABLE LAMP ARTELUCE CEILING LIGHT This huge floor lamp in the shape of an aluminium. The wit expressed in the piece The four-section shade is methacrylate; the metal The grey-enamelled tin shade is suspended on a electric light bulb is one of several designs on stand has a height-adjustable, telescopic steel nickel-plated rod. The shades can be rotated to this popular theme \u2013 this particular example was typical of lighting designs of the 1960s. rod. Designed by Gae Aulenti for Martinelli Luce, change the light\u2019s direction. Italy. c.1950. has a large, clear bulb of blown glass that The lamp was designed by Ingo Maurer, \u25cfItaly. 1965\u201366. Diam:54cm (211\u20444in). DOR 2 \u25cfH:77cm (301\u20443in); Diam:58cm (223\u20444in). DOR 1 Germany. 1966. H:54cm (211\u20444in); D:34cm \u25cf(151\u20442in). DOR 2","LIGHTING 497 1945\u20131970 TABLE LAMPS RING LIGHT TALL FLOOR LAMPS Each of these lamps has a brightly coloured, half-spherical This plastic wall light has a series of brightly coloured, raised-and- These tall floor-standing lamps have silk (left) and parchment plastic lampshade that sits atop a chrome-plated, spring-like wire base. Designed by Verner Panton for J.Lube, Switzerland. 1972. moulded concentric circles set within a square plastic tile. Designed (right) lampshades supported on three-legged, black-lacquered \u25cfSmall lamp: H:55cm (212\u20443in); Diam:40cm (153\u20444in). DOR 2 by Verner Panton for Louis Poulsen, Denmark. 1969\u201370. metal bases. Produced by Knoll International, USA. 1950s. \u25cfH:42cm (161\u20442in); W:62cm (241\u20443in); D:24cm (91\u20442in). DOR 3 \u25cfH:125cm (491\u20444in). DOR 1 FLAMINGO FLOOR LAMP WOODEN FLOOR LAMP SAN REMO FLOOR LAMP GIUNONE FLOOR LAMP This lamp is made of flexible brass rods raised on This floor lamp has a white-lacquered wooden This lamp\u2019s ivory-coloured, enamelled metal This white-lacquered, aluminium-and-metal floor stand sprouts plexiglass palm leaves. Designed lamp has four swivelling reflectors. Designed by a cast-iron stand. The aluminium shade is brown shade over a metal frame. Designed by Paolo by Archizoom Associates, Italy. 1968. H:160cm Vico Magistretti for Artemide, Italy 1970. and aubergine. Designed by Karl Hagenauer, Portoghesi for Casa Papanice, Italy. 1969. \u25cf(85in); Diam:95cm (371\u20442in). DOR 4 \u25cfH:206cm (811\u20448in); Diam:70cm (421\u20448in). DOR 3 \u25cfAustria. 1950s. H:127.5cm (50in). DOR 3 \u25cfH:175cm (687\u20448in). DOR 4","498 MID-CENTURY MODERN 1945\u20131970 chairs and stools THE IMPORTANCE OF THE chair in development of protean forms of STOOLS AND SIDE TABLE The third part of the set is the matching relation to other forms of furniture plastic. Both of these developments reached an all-time high in the post- allowed designers to experiment Manufactured in the United States, each of table, which has a square, black-laminate war period. In 1953, George Nelson with more expressive forms, the the two stools of this three-piece set has a compiled his classic and economically result being that chairs became circular, polished-walnut seat that is fixed to table top that is supported on a frame similar titled Chairs and wrote in the book\u2019s increasingly sculptural in shape. a three-legged, black-enamelled metal frame. introduction that \u201cevery truly A heightened interest in ergonomics to the chair frames. Designed by Florence original idea \u2013 every innovation in also helped to usher in the era of design, every new application of organic seating design. Knoll for Knoll International. c.1950. materials, every technical invention for furniture \u2013 seems to find its most As furniture designers gained \u25cfH:38cm (15in). DOR 1 important expression in a chair\u201d. confidence in using new materials and techniques, they increasingly The key innovations to affect chair began to challenge established beliefs design at the time were, firstly, the about chair design. The idea of a breakthrough that made it possible four-legged chair, for instance, to bend plywood in more than one became outmoded, as designers opted direction and, secondly, the for either three legs, a pedestal base (innovated by Eero Saarinen), or, The combination of vinyl in the 1960s, legless chairs that and chrome-plated steel sat low to the ground. While some of these designs were legitimate is reminiscent of responses to changes in lifestyle \u2013 American car styling. formal social occasions, for example, were on the decline \u2013 others were produced purely to provoke. The seat rotates ROCKING STOOL LAMBDA CHAIR with automatic return, This rocking stool has a seat made of teak, This Italian chair has been made from a sheet maintaining visual which is supported by a chrome-plated wire of punched and moulded tin, which was then coherence within a bar. shaft on a circular base. Designed by Isamu finished in red lacquer. The tapering legs Noguchi for Knoll International, USA. terminate in rubber feet. 1963. H:76.5cm The bottom-heavy shape is like a birillo (the Italian \u25cf\u2758H:29.5cm (111\u20442in). SDR 1 \u25cf(39 1\u20448in). DOR 3 word for bowling pin), which A neat square of chrome- gives the stool its name. plated steel provides a footrest for the sitter. The X-shaped fibreglass The base is ringed in TULIP CHAIR PRETZEL CHAIR base conceals fully rubber to keep the stool rotating wheels. from slipping or This armchair has a moulded white-fibreglass The rail and arms are made from one piece of damaging the floor. shell on an enamelled white base; the seat\u2019s plywood bent into a pretzel shape. The seat has BIRILLO BAR STOOL slip cover is of a woven red fabric. Designed by vinyl upholstery. Designed by George Nelson for footrest hangs from the front of the seat. Eero Saarinen for Knoll International, USA. The Herman Miller Furniture Company, USA. This unusual-looking bar stool has a The stool is raised on a single column that chromium-plated, tubular-steel and steel- terminates in a black, cross-shaped base \u25cf1956. H:81cm (32in). FRE 1 \u25cf1957. H:77.5cm (301\u20442in). FRE 2 plate frame. The small, round backrest and made of fibreglass. The piece was designed the square seat are both upholstered and by Joe Colombo for Zanotta, Italy. 1969\u201370. covered in black vinyl. A chrome-plated H:105cm (411\u20443in); W:47cm (181\u20442in); D:50cm \u25cf(192\u20443in). DOR 2"]