#Cool modern end tables skin#

The Risom lounge chair was among the first pieces of furniture commissioned and produced by legendary manufacturer Knoll, a chief influencer in the rise of modern design in the United States, thanks to the work of Florence Knoll, the pioneering architect and designer who made the firm a leader in its field.

Materials were repurposed too: The Danish-born designer Jens Risom created a line of chairs using surplus parachute straps for webbed seats and backrests. Harry Bertoia and Isamu Noguchi devised chairs and tables built of wire mesh and wire struts.

#Cool modern end tables skin#

Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen, who had experimented extensively with molded plywood, eagerly embraced fiberglass for pieces such as the La Chaise and the Womb chair, respectively.Īrchitect, writer and designer George Nelson created with his team shades for the Bubble lamp using a new translucent polymer skin and, as design director at Herman Miller, recruited the Eameses, Alexander Girard and others for projects at the legendary Michigan furniture manufacturer. Materials developed for wartime use became available for domestic goods and were incorporated into mid-century modern furniture designs.

New building techniques, such as “post-and-beam” construction, allowed the International-style schemes to be realized on a small scale in open-plan houses with long walls of glass. The lean, functionalist International-style architecture of Le Corbusier and Bauhaus eminences Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius had been promoted in the United States during the 1930s by Philip Johnson and others. The mid-century modern era saw leagues of postwar American architects and designers animated by new ideas and new technology. VINTAGE MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS ICONIC MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNS

Danish modernists Hans Wegner and Arne Jacobsen, whose emphasis on natural materials and craftsmanship influenced American designers and vice versa.

MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW

Glass walls and an emphasis on the outdoors.

Light-filled spaces with colorful upholstery.Use of natural and man-made materials - alluring woods such as teak, rosewood and oak steel, fiberglass and molded plywood.A blend of neutral and bold Pop art colors.Experimentation with new ideas, new materials and new forms flourished in Scandinavia, Italy, the former Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in EuropeĬHARACTERISTICS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN.A heyday of innovation in postwar America.Informed by European modernism, Bauhaus, International style, Scandinavian modernism and Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture.ORIGINS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN The style, which emerged primarily in the years following World War II, is characterized by pieces that were conceived and made in an energetic, optimistic spirit by creators who believed that good design was an essential part of good living. Organically shaped, clean-lined and elegantly simple are three terms that well describe vintage mid-century modern furniture.