Furniture Design History

Question 1

Koloman Moser & Josef Hoffmann

Answer 1

• Secessionist architects
• Founded Wiener Werkstätte in 1903
• Also designed furniture for Thonet

Question 2

Wiener Werkstätte

Answer 2

• Find solution for poorly designed industrial furniture
• Craft-focused enterprise
• Beginning of truly progressive design
• Creation of radical new aesthetic that became style and substance of 20th century design

Question 3

Thonet

Answer 3

• First company to mass-manufacture furniture - since 1850’s
• Innovative approach to wooden furniture production
• Worked with the best designers

Question 4

Michael Thonet

Answer 4

• Cabinet maker and entrepreneur

Question 5

Frank Lloyd Wright

Answer 5

• Larkin Building, Buffalo, NY

- Larking Office Chair

Question 6

Sitzmaschine Chair

Answer 6

• Designed by Josef Hoffmann at Werkstätte in 1905
• Considered one of the first “modern” chairs
• Significant break from past and combined function/restrained expressive ornament
• Heralded ascendance of functionalism/utility over adornment (along with Larkin Office Chair)

Question 7

Gerrit Rietveld

Answer 7

• Experimental work at the cutting edge
• Contribution to reinvention of furniture was as significant as Picasso’s engagement with abstraction or Strauss’s increasing use of dissonance
• Red Blue Chair
• Sideboard
• Rejection and deconstruction of structure/decoration

Question 8

Bauhaus School

Answer 8

• Founded in 1919, Weimar

Question 9

Wassily Chair

Answer 9

• Marcel Breuer

Question 10

Mart Stam

Answer 10

• Dutch architect
• Credited with producing first cantilever chair
• Awarded European patent

Question 11

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Answer 11

• Considered to be greatest of all Modernist architects
• Several groundbreaking furniture designs - 1920’s
• Barcelona Chair
• Visually extravagant, minimalist version of Modernism
• More democratic designs

Question 12

Le Corbusier & Charlotte Perriand

Answer 12

• Took traditional types of furniture and recreated using pared-down industrial aesthetic
• Shapes and styles of the past made way for clean lines of new materials
• Despite prominence, their designs were not easy to manufacture and had high cost

Question 13

Isokon

Answer 13

• UK Company
• Promoted technical innovation in furniture design - produced innovative products in 1930’s
• Employed Marcel Breuer as director of design

Question 14

Alvar Aalto

Answer 14

• Finnish architect
• Had greatest impact on subsequent manufacturing and design: lamination of large, complex one-piece forms
• Paimio Armchair

Question 15

Practical Equipment Ltd (PEL)

Answer 15

• Established in UK in 1931
• “Modernist” steel furniture with some sophistication for mass market
• Large volume of low-cost contract furniture
• RP6 Nesting Chairs

Question 16

Finn Juhl’s Pelican Chair

Answer 16

• Danish designer
• One of his least technically advanced designs, but sculptural and visual language was entirely original
• From a modern perspective, well ahead of its time

Question 17

Hans Wegner’s Peacock Chair

Answer 17

• 1947
• First great impact on European and American design
• Still rooted in craft vernacular vs. “new world” envisaged by Eames/Saarinen

Question 18

Hans Wegner’s Wishbone Chair

Answer 18

• Mature style that strongly referenced past but had modern sensibilities
• Still required significant amount of benchwork - less successful due to manufacturing cost
• Never meant to be a “people’s” chair

Question 19

Utility Scheme

Answer 19

• Created in 1941 due to material shortages - continued until 1948
• Oversight of textiles/furniture with efficient design
• Well made and sustainable
• Restrained in style, but represented sound design principles
• Part of post-war reconstruction of society/economy/infrastructure

Question 20

Robin Day

Answer 20

• UK designer
• Built on success in 1948 MoMA furniture competition with Clive Latimer
• Became design director for Hille
• Created Hillestak Chair in 1950 - marked shift in British design
• Created one-piece injection-molded polypropylene chair - important technical innovation

Question 21

George Nelson

Answer 21

• One of USA’s foremost architects in 1940’s and 50’s

- Swag Leg Chair

Question 22

Dieter Rams

Answer 22

• German industrial designer
• Huge influence on product design from 1950’s onwards
• 606 Universal Shelving System for Vitsoe + Zapf
• Possibly first designer to be described as minimalist
• Simplicity, sensitivity to composition/proportion

Question 23

Verner Panton

Answer 23

• First cantilevered, monobloc injection-molded plastic version of S Chair at 1967 Milan Furniture Fair
• For Herman Miller

Question 24

Vico Magistretti

Answer 24

• Selene (another of the first monobloc chairs), 1969, with furniture-design company Cassina

Question 25

Gaetano Pesce

Answer 25

• First designer to fully use properties of polyurethane foam
• UP series of chairs for C&B Italia
• Could be packaged in vacuum-sealed bag

Question 26

Peter Opsvik

Answer 26

• Not concerned with styling
• ## Tripp Trapp Chair - universal chair that was height-adjustable for children and adults

Question 27

Memphis Group

Answer 27

• Based in Milan
• Sought to break with the past in 1980’s
• Direct influence often overstated

Question 28

Philippe Starck

Answer 28

• Greatest influence in 1980s

- Many successful products