Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) studied architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria, under Art Nouveau architect Otto Wagner, whose theories of functional, modern architecture profoundly influenced his works, and in 1896 he joined his office.
Kubus Arm Chair of 1910 is one of the prize collections for its proud owners.
The Hill House Chair was designed in 1902-1903 by the Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh for the publisher W.W. Blackie.
Originally painted white, this high, narrow Hill House chair was meant to be decorative - not to be actually sat on.
The original still resides in the bedroom of the Hill House in Helensburgh.
Eileen Gray (1878-1976) was a popular Modernist during 1920s and 1930s. Trained as an architect, Gray opened a design workshop in Paris, where she created carpets, wall hangings, screens, and enormously popular lacquer work.
She also exhibited several architectural projects at Le Corbusier's "Pavillion des Temps Nouveaux" in 1937. The Nonconformist Chair by Eileen Gray has only one armrest. It is designed to accommodate the owner's favorite resting position.
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.
The Nonconformist Chair by Eileen Gray
The Bibendum armchair (1927) by Eileen Gray
Le Corbusier was born in 1887 in the Swiss town of La-Chaux-de-Fonds, located within a few kilometers of the French border.
He attended school in his home town where he studied the visual arts and architecture. In 1910, he landed a job working in Germany in the office of Peter Behrens where he may have met Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Unlike his problematic theories for urban planning, Le Corbusier's designer furniture is still very much admired by collectors of modern and Bauhaus seating.
In the Red Blue Chair, Gerrit Rietveld manipulated rectilinear volumes and examined the interaction of vertical and horizontal planes, much as he did in his architecture.
Although the chair was originally designed in 1918, its color scheme of primary colors (red, yellow, blue) plus black—so closely associated with the de Stijl group and its most famous theorist and practitioner Piet Mondrian—was applied to it around 1923.
Hoping that much of his furniture would eventually be mass-produced rather than handcrafted, Rietveld aimed for simplicity in construction. The pieces of wood that comprise the Red Blue Chair are in the standard lumber sizes readily available at the time.
Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) studied architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria, under Art Nouveau architect Otto Wagner, whose theories of functional, modern architecture profoundly influenced his works, and in 1896 he joined his office.
Kubus Arm Chair of 1910 is one of the prize collections for its proud owners.
The Modernists rebelled against the concept of furniture that was merely decorative and created sleek, impersonal furniture that was designed to fit in many situations.
Technology was a key for these followers of the Bauhaus School and saw the machine as an extension of the hand. His furnitures were designed to support industrial production.
Here is the "Tulip Chair" designed in 1956 by the Finnish-born architect, Eero Saarinen. Made of fiberglass-reinforced resin, the seat of the Tulip Chair rests on a single leg.
Also displayed is the Womb Chair.
The Barcelona chair by was designed by Mies van der Rohe for the 1929 World Exposition in Barcelona. Leather straps were used to suspend leather-covered cushions from chrome plated steel frame.
The Barcelona chair was a custom design created for the King and Queen of Spain. This was used as an artistic statement to illustrate how negative space could be used to transform a functional item to a sculptural object.
"A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Chippendale is famous." --Mies van der Rohe quoted in Time magazine, February 18, 1957.
One of the most common pieces of furniture that we use in our everyday life is a Chair. How many times so we try and find out how this chair came into existence. Some of the most sought after chair design has been designed by famous architects. Usually we associate architect with building design and we always try and distinguish the interiors designed by architects with that designed by Interior designers.
Some tend to argue that Architects are very rigid and lack imagination when it comes to designing interior space. On the other hand architects themselves consider interior design as mere of decoration. Following are a few of the chairs designed by some of the greatest architects of our times.
Frank Lloyd Wright once said that "Every chair must be designed for the building it will be in." This "Barrel Chair" made of natural cheery wood with an upholstered leather seat was designed in 1937 for Herbert Johnson's house and apparently was a rework on a design he created in 1904. Wright saw the chair as an architectural challenge and used tall straight chairs as screens around tables. Unlike many of his contemporary stalwarts, Wright believed that machines could actually enhance the designs.
The Taliesin armchair 1949 by Frank Lloyd Wright
On Nantucket, Massachusetts, a couple commissioned Botticelli & Pohl Architects and interior designer Elissa Cullman to create their seaside retreat. “The dining room,” says Cullman, “with its hand-painted scenic canvas by Chuck Fischer, is the most vibrant room in the house.”
“The space itself was inspirational,” designer Charles Allem says of a penthouse he remade for a Manhattan couple. Walnut doors, fitted with bronze hardware, open to the dining room. Hanging over the expansive walnut table is an 18-foot-long bespoke fixture. Fabricated using 105 sandblasted-glass cylinders of varying heights, it gives off “incredible shades that reflect all over the room,” Allem remarks.
Art, books and light fill author and historian Barbara Goldsmith’s Manhattan apartment, designed by Mica Ertegun, of MAC II. “Instead of jewelry,” says Goldsmith, “books have become my Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” For the dining room/library, Ertegun bought an Art Déco table at a Paris flea market; the chairs were designed by MAC II. At rear is Three Weeks, 1957, by Larry Rivers.
Combining raw, native materials with a modern sensibility, interior designer Mariette Himes Gomez and architect Jim Morter created a singular retreat in Wyoming for Anne and Allen Dick and their children. An English Arts and Crafts leather screen adds texture to the dining area. The chairs, with a Larsen tweed, were designed by Gomez.
