Topic
Furniture
Fritz Haller and Paul Schärer designed the USM Haller system in 1965 for the Schärer family's metalworking company in Münsingen, Switzerland, and it is still built from the same chrome tubes and ball connectors. Furniture covers pieces like that, made to last and still in production decades later. Charles and Ray Eames introduced their lounge chair with Herman Miller in 1956. Arne Jacobsen designed the Egg chair in 1958 for Copenhagen's SAS Royal Hotel. Isamu Noguchi's coffee table, two interlocking wooden legs under a heavy slab of glass, was first produced by Herman Miller in 1947. Pierre Jeanneret's chairs for Chandigarh, once ordinary government office furniture, became auction lots. Ettore Sottsass and Memphis broke the rules in 1981 with plastic laminate, loud color and the Carlton bookcase. Donald Judd built severe wooden chairs and tables in Marfa that follow his sculpture. Each article explains materials and construction, how licensed production works and what to check on a vintage piece. Before buying a used Eames lounge, look at the rubber shock mounts that join the shells, since they are the part that fails.
Stories
Design4 min read
The Wassily Chair Was Never Kandinsky's
A bicycle, a Bauhaus workshop and an Italian who needed a better name than B3. How Breuer's steel tube club chair got a painter's first name.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
The Egg Chair Was Built for a Hotel Lobby
Arne Jacobsen designed a Copenhagen tower down to the ashtrays. The chair he put in its lobby outlived almost everything else in the building.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
Isamu Noguchi's Coffee Table Started as a Grudge
A pilfered model, a three-legged insult and a summer trip to Gifu gave Isamu Noguchi his two best-selling objects. Both are still in production.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
The Panton Chair Has No Legs and No Seams
One sweep of plastic, held up by nothing but its own curve. It took Verner Panton a decade to find a factory and Vitra five materials to get it right.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
Memphis, Sottsass and the Laminate That Broke Good Taste
A Dylan record on repeat, a gallery in Milan and furniture surfaced like a diner counter. Memphis lasted seven years and still hasn't gone away.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Travel4 min read
Copenhagen Design Guide: Hospitals, Hotels and Room 606
A design museum in an eighteenth-century hospital, a hotel built down to the cutlery and a square that has sold furniture since 1925.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
Ligne Roset's Togo, the Sofa That Is Nothing but Foam
No frame and no legs, only foam. Michel Ducaroy's crumpled 1973 seat sold slowly at first, then turned into a social media fixture with a counterfeit problem.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design5 min read
The Bauhaus Lasted 14 Years and Rewired Design
A school that changed cities twice, lost three directors and was shut down by the Nazis still decides what your furniture looks like.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
USM Haller, the Office Furniture That Became a Flex
A Swiss locksmith's grandson, an architect obsessed with systems and a Paris bank order for 600 workstations. The chrome grid is still being bolted together.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Travel4 min read
Milan Design Week: How Salone and Fuorisalone Actually Work
One trade fair in Rho, a few thousand events across the city and six days to see them. A field guide to April in Milan.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design4 min read
Donald Judd Built Furniture Because Stores Failed Him
A pair of sinks, a bed for his kids and a small town in far West Texas. How the minimalist sculptor ended up designing furniture by the dozen.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Design5 min read
Pierre Jeanneret's Chandigarh Chairs and the Fakes Problem
Government office chairs from a planned Indian city became a luxury status object. Then came the scrap auctions, the reconstructions, the replicas and the police.
By Quiet Menace Editors /
Related Hubs
All TopicsIndustrial DesignArchitectureMid-Century ModernArtCity GuidesTravel GuidesKnollHerman MillerVitra