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DESIGNER PROFILES
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Everything you wanted to know about the designers behind some of Europe by Net's great products.......
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Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971)
A Danish architect who combined the freshness of Danish style with
progressive modernism. He embraced the whole concept of house design that
included the interior as well as the exterior. Most of his designs
originated as being specific to each house he designed, but were
translatable to a more general market.
In 1952 he designed the famous "Ant" chair, which gained infamous status for the
Christine Keeler photograph. It's curvy, sensuous form lent itself perfectly
to a naughty image, even though it was designed for stackable seating in a
town hall! In reality the chair was a symbol of pure function. Simply
constructed from a single piece of plywood, steamed into shape and attached
to tubular steel legs.
Jacobsen's designs embraced the ethos of modernity. They had an obvious design
language and were a part of a movement that combined industrial mass
production with high art.
Other distinctive designs are his Swan and Egg chairs and the Vola taps, to
name but a few.
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Ant Chair
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Egg Chair
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Foot Stool
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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969)
A German architect who became director of the Bauhaus in 1930. The Bauhaus
movement, like William Morris and the Arts and Craft movement before it,
believed that their mission lay in trying to improve society by harmonising
the environment with well-designed buildings and objects. Form and function
became their ideals.
Unlike the Arts and Craft movement, Bauhaus
designers did not have a problem with mass production. They utilised
industrial manufacturing developments to achieve ground-breaking designs.
Bauhaus designers like Mies van der Rohe became most associated with
classic modern furniture.
Mies van der Rohe's furniture legitimised industrial production in the
importance of design. Function determined the form as well as the material.
Its simplicity was an abstraction of all these elements and an edifying
process. Out of this came stunning pieces of furniture that are still
desirable now. They can not be bettered.
His most famous piece is of course the Barcelona chair. Designed in 1929, it
is made of chrome-plated steel and leather. It was designed for the German
Pavilion in the International Exhibition in Barcelona. From 1948 it was
produced in America and came to symbolise all that is modern and new.
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Barcelona Chair
Foot Stool
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Barcelona Day bed
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Square Day bed
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Cantilevered Chair
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Harry Bertoia (1915 - 1978)
Bertoia had trained as a sculptor and was commissioned by Florence and Hans
Knoll to produce a chair. He spent two years developing the Diamond range,
using welded steel rods. It was launched in 1952 and consisted of a
sculptural, flowing seat made entirely of an open, metal mesh. They were
"studies in space, form and metal." The range was, however, always expensive
and exclusive, relying on hand welding and intensive finishing. This was
Bertoia's only brush with furniture design. He returned to sculpture, but
the Diamond chair expressed the aesthetics of post-war design, at the time
using new materials with new methods. It still looks pretty good.
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Diamond Chair
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Diamond Armchair
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Diamond Stool
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Le Corbusier (1887-1965)
Le Corbusier's real name was Charles-Edouard Jeanneret. He was one of the most
influential architects of the 20th century. As a modernist, he was
dedicated to the creation of a new aesthetic.He designed his furniture as a
continuation of his vision, an extension of his architecture. He wanted his
clients to use furniture to reflect the flowing lines of the architecture,
rather than fill his houses with everyday furniture. What resulted was
"machines for sitting in" to co-exist with machines for living in. The
houses would become a total design entity.
He also collaborated with other
young furniture designers, such as Charlotte Perriand, who created the famous
chaise longue in 1928. His designs were likened to machines because of their
use of welded chrome, and tubular steel. Leather armrests loop like drive
belts over the frame and the upholstery has a strong geometric, box-like
feel. They looking almost inside out, exposing their structure. Le Corbusier
demonstrated that these radical ideas were not futuristic fantasies but
provided real living solutions. Eighty years on, this philosophy still
applies and his furniture is still in production.
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Confort Mini Sofa
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Confort Sofa
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Confort Chair
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Chaise Longue
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Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988)
An American/Japanese, Noguchi was a renowned sculptor who began as an assistant to
Alexander Calder in the 1920's. His influences came from organic forms
inspired by the natural world and his love for garden design. His recognisable
table, designed in 1944, became an icon for sculptural, curvy 50's culture.
He used simple, identical shapes for the base, one of which was inverted and
attached to the other, with a glass top. Noguchi was influential in developing the sense of furniture as
sculpture.
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Coffee Table
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Marcel Breuer (1902 - 1981)
Marcel Breuer began his career at the most famous design school of the
20th century, the Bauhaus. It is said that he was inspired to use
tubular steel in furniture design by the handle bars of his bicycle. Chairs
like Wassily and Spoleto, designed in 1926, were constructed of continuous
curved steel and cantilevers. He ingeniously used fabric, now leather, for
the seat back and armrests to prevent contact with cold metal. Unlike other
Bauhaus designers, Marcel Breuer was not an architect when he produced these
pieces of furniture, but did go on to design buildings later and even taught architecture at Harvard. He became a strong influence for a new
generation and a new demographic.
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Cantilevered Chair
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Eileen Gray (1879 - 1976)
Eileen Gray was another architect who believed in total planning, designing both
the building and its contents. These lifestyle concepts were centre to the
International Style movement, along with people like Le Corbusier. She was
using new materials, such as tubular steel and glass, both in her buildings and in
the furniture to go in them. She designed her famous coffee table in 1927.
originally as a bed table, with the circular foot designed to slide under the bed. It
now takes pride of place in the living room with striking visual impact.
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Coffee Table
Arm Chair
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Frank Lloyd Wright (1869 - 1959)
Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the greatest American architects. His work
pushed the boundaries of buildings and of ideas. Although the style and look
of his buildings changed throughout his career, the common denominator was
always the relationship between the building and nature. This fascination with
natural materials and the vernacular lead to him design furniture that was
as integral as the design of the houses themselves. He designed the
Barrel chair in 1937.
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Barrel Chair
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Achille Castiglioni (1918 - ) and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni (1913 - 1968)
These two brothers collaborated together often on designs. They were both
inspired by the work of people like Marcel Dechamps and the tradition of the
"found object". As a team, the Castiglioni brothers were backed by a series
of Italian manufacturers, who helped develop their concepts and see them through
to fruition. The Arco floor lamp, designed in 1962, began as a light for a
dining table or task light, but now is used more as a floor lamp. The solid
lump of marble acts as a counter balance for the wide sweeping arc of the
lamp. Its lines are simple and uncluttered, yet so stylish.
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Arco Lamp
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