Classic Modern Furniture; A brief history
The modern movement began as a struggle against the oppressive effects of industrialization on art and design. Commercial furniture was becoming cheap, machine-made copies of earlier styles that were rich looking and ornamental. What began to emerge after WWI was a design for more functional furniture. Bauhause Weimar (Germany) is usually credited with introducing Europe to the style of furniture most commonly viewed as "modern". However, other styles of furniture being developed during this same period included Art Deco and Arts and Crafts.
The Itlaina Futurists were concentrating on engineering and technology. In Russia there were the Constructivists who focused on minimal geometric themes, and in the Netherlands the De Stijl group consisted of a band of artists and architects who believed in pure abstraction and the use of primary colors in addition to black, white and grey.
This period saw the birth of modular furniture. Everyone sitting on a chair with a tubular steel frame, using an adjustable reading lamp, or living in a house partly or entirely constructed from prefabricated elements is benefiting from a revolution in design largely brought about by this modern period.
Classic modern furniture is designed with pure lines and a geometric from that could be easily mass produced. Pieces were created without decoration, as the form would "say it all". At its best, the classic modern period produced some design that are still in production today. As its worst, it produced furniture that was bleak, sterile and cold.
Key Modern Furniture Designers
Designed by one of the most significant architects of the 20th century, Mies Van der Rohe, and his long time partner and companion, Lilly Reich, in 1928. The super elegant Barcelona chair was created as furnishing for the German Pavilion building at the Barcelona World Fair 1929. The chair was inspired by both the folding chairs of the Pharaohs and the X shaped footstools of the Romans. It went into commercial production almost immediately. However, it was expensive to make because it was hand built. In 1937, he moved to America to escape Nazi Germany, and in 1948 he modified the joints and had Knoll produce the frame in stainless steel.
The Dutch architect and designer Gerrit Thomas Rietveld began to design chairs in around 1900. In 1934, Rietveld’s search for a reductive simplicity had reached its peak in the Zig-Zag chair, an interpretation of the cantilever principle in wood using bolted triangular joints to maintain rigidity. He drew inspiration directly from materials rather than drawing up plans at a drawing board. His designs combine aesthetic considerations with a desire to fully exploit the advantages of particular materials for economical machine production.
Eileen Gray’s nonconformist and brilliant mind led her to a uniquely creative life at the turn of the century in Paris. The career of Eileen Gray represents a perfect illustration of the transition from the exotic, individual crafts-person-made objects of the early 1920’s to the purposefully functional architecture and furniture of the Modern Movement. Today, she is recognized as one of the finest designers and architects of her day and pieces like the Eileen Gray Table have become icons of modern design.
This Poltrona Frau Vanity Fair chair design is the same style of many current contemporary armchairs. Full shapes and harmonious volumes, characterized by a row of leather covered studs running along the back and arms. A model born in 1930 that retains to this day its unique, unmistakable style.
This Le Corbusier Chaise is a flexible chaise lounge that enables the user to recline at any angle and is made of polished chrome or matte black enamel steel frame. This is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Le Corbusier, a Swiss architect and designer, was on of the most influential 20th century architects designers. For this piece her collaborated with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret and French furniture designer Charlotte Perriand.
Although Josef Hoffman was born in Pirnitz, Moravia, he studied architecture in Vienna at the Academy of Fine Arts. After establishing his own office in 1898, he taught in Vienna from 1899 until 1936. He founded a group of revolutionary artists and architects, known as the Vienna Secession. Hoffman’s later works mark him as a precursor of the Modern Movement. These projects introduced an expression of grids and squares, and exhibited clarity and simplicity.
The Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer. Marcel Breuer was an apprentice at the Bauhaus in 1925 when he conceived the first tubular steel chair, the Wassily chair, based on the tubed frame of a bicycle. Knoll is the only authorized and licensed manufacturer of the Wassily chair. Marcel Breuer's signature is stamped into the base of the frame and every chair has an individual identification number to verify authenticity.
Mart Stam worked in an architectural practice as a draftsman after he studied at the Royal School for Advanced Studies in Amsterdam, through 1922. In 1926, Stam moved to Berlin, where he designed the prototypical steel tubing Cantilevered Chair, which began an entire genre of chair design. The function of the chair becomes the sole determinate of its design.
Alvar Aalto considered furniture to be the extension of a building. This Paimio Chair was designed specifically for the Paimio Tuberculosis Sanatorium, and he rejected tubular steel in order to provide a softer material for the patients. Alvar spent many years exploring ways to mold and produce laminated wood furniture.
Marcel Breuer was eager to try new technology and materials because it released him from historical precedents. His functional approach produced a light, comfortable and visually distinctive chaise. This Chaise Lounge was introduced in 1935.
This tubular-steel desk was designed by Wells Coates, a British architect and designer, in 1933, and surprising has a contemporary design even by today's standards. This desk owes much to Marcel Breuer, who designed a similar piece in 1929. It's different than many desks at the time because it has an open space that separate the top from the drawers. This desk is extremely functional.
This dresser is simple and refined. Designed by Gilbert Rohde in 1933, its decorative content is derived from the rectangular shape and the use of the materials. Traditionally one large sheet of veneer would be used for a more uniform look. In this case, it was split and two types of wood were used, giving it more depth and interest.
