Posts Tagged ‘furniture designs’

Art Nouveau Austrian Furniture: DISPLAY CABINET, DISPLAY CABINET, VIENNESE SERVING TABLE, CIRCULAR TABLE, BLACK-PAINTED CUPBOARD, LARCHWOOD TABLE AND CHAIRS, BENTWOOD CHAIR, FOOTSTAND

ART NOUVEAU AUSTRIA
VIENNA WAS PARTICULARLY receptive
to the desire for innovation that swept across Europe in the last 25 years of the 19th century. This recognition of the need for change signalled the approaching demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which collapsed at the end of World War 1. Austria founded her own distinctive version of Art Nouveau, and established a new set of stylistic ideals.
The Vienna art establishment was challenged by a group of artists, architects, and designers, who, in 1897, founded the “Secession” under
the chairmanship of Gustav Klimt. This movement protested against the conservative teachings of its masters and campaigned for modernity,
heralding the beginning of one of Austria’s most creative periods.
BOLD DESIGNS
Sculptors and artists were active in the Secession, as were the architects and interior designers Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, and Josef Maria Olbrich, and furniture designers Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser. This enterprising group created bold furniture designs
for the new century. The Secessionists rejected the flamboyant naturalism of French Art Nouveau, preferring the linear furniture designs created by
the Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh (see pp..364-65), who was widely admired in Vienna. Austrian designers were more influenced by the British Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century than by French or Belgian Art Nouveau.
NATURAL INSPIRATION
The Secessionists were inspired by the geometry of nature. The curving,
sinuous plant forms popular with the French and Belgian Schools were rejected in favour of rectangles and squares. The Secessionists based their designs on a spare, geometric style, using simple shapes and linear patterns and new materials such as plywood, aluminium, and bent beechwood. Their furniture was designed for uncluttered interiors.
KEY FIGURES
The most distinguished Secessionists were Josef Hoffmann and Koloman
Moser, co-founders of the Wiener Werkstatte in 1903. Hoffmann created a purer, more linear version of the Art Nouveau style producing furniture in a simple, geometric form that was elegant and restrained, thereby forging a link between Art Nouveau and Modernism. Hoffmann was a designer for the firm established by the German,
Michael Thonet (see below).
More colourful than most Viennese furniture of the time, Kolomon Moser’s tables, cabinets, and chairs were linear but lavishly embellished. In fact,
decoration often took precedence over form, with luxurious woods, such as rosewood, used for veneers and decorative inlays.
ADOLF LOOS
The architect Adolf Loos was a key member of the Secessionist movement. Better known for his philosophical writings than his buildings, Loos wrote an essay, “Ornament and Crime”, in which he opposed the highly decorative style of Art Nouveau. Instead, he advocated that reason, not passion, should determine the way that people designed.
The Secessionist’s linear, geometric interpretation of Art Nouveau paved the way for the geometric shapes and spare style later favoured by the
Bauhaus and the Modern movement of the 1930s.
The embossed panels with
harpist and knight moths
were inspired by Klimt.
The case is oak, furnished and polished. with maple inlays.
The panels of the glazed door forma geometric pattern with the low shelf.
DISPLAY CABINET
This mahogany display cabinet is part of a dining-room set designed by Otto Wytrlik of Vienna. Note the straight lines of the design and the simple veneered walnut finish and brass fittings. c.1901.
DISPLAY CABINET
This oak cabinet was made in Vienna. It is almost square in shape and rests on a framed plinth. The glazed central door is flanked by flat-panel doors with geometric-pattern oak figuring and maple inlays. The open shelf in
the centre is flanked by brass panels embossed with a scene depicting a harpist and a knight. The design of these panels was influenced by Gustav Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze. The embossed panels were probably created for this piece by Klimt’s brother, Georg. c.1905-10.
VIENNESE SERVING TABLE
This serving table is made of stained oak with brass handles. It has a removable top with glass inlay, and hinged sides with facetted glass panels to allow access to the shelves. c.1905.
CIRCULAR TABLE
This small, circular topped, beech bentwood table is of a very simple design with no additional decoration. It has two circular undertiers, and the piece stands on slightly splayed supports.
BLACK-PAINTED CUPBOARD
Designed by Adolf Loos, this functional cupboard is made from softwood, painted black and then varnished. It has distinctive twin two-over-three glazed doors and brass hardware. c.1908.
Wall mirror This piece is made from carved bentwood to create a simple, elegant effect. The wood has been steamed and then bent into shape, and this technique is a hallmark of Thonet’s furniture.
LARCHWOOD TABLE AND CHAIRS
This round table and chairs were designed
and made by the company of Portois & Fix in
Vienna. The chairs are made of larch wood and the backs are carved in an elaborate floral pattern. The seats are upholstered in a floral
fabric. The table is made of nut wood, with a red-brown leather skiver on the top. The profiled legs are decorated with floral carving, and there is a shelf about halfway down the legs. All of the pieces bear the manufacturer’s stamp. c.1900-05.
BENTWOOD CHAIR
Armchair “No.25″, made by Mundus of Vienna, is made of dark-brown stained beech, with an open backsplat decorated with stylized, scrolling plant stems and a canework seat. c.1910.
FOOTSTAND
This three-legged footstand was designed by Adolf Loos. It has a mahogany-stained, beach top, which is carved into a bowl shape. The piece stands on splayed mahogany legs. c.1905.
In his small furniture workshop, Michael Thonet perfected the bentwood technique – marrying forward-looking, elegant design with industrial production – that ultimately exploded on the international stage. In 1849, Thonet established the Gebruder Thonet company, setting up a host of factories across Eastern Europe. In the following decades the company achieved tremendous growth and success as it paved the way for the industrial mass production of functional, inexpensive and robust furniture that contributed to the fashion for minimal ornamentation.
Towards the end of the 19th century, Thonet’s signature bentwood furniture
with its sinuous, elegant curves inspired a number of celebrated Art Nouveau architects and designers, including Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Henry van de Veldc. The reputation of the Thonet Brothers attracted a collection of visionary talents who designed furniture for the firm, among them one of the pioneering founders of the Wiener Werkstatte Josef Hoffmann, along with Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, Koloman Moser, and Otto Prutscher.
GEBRUDER THONET
IN AUSTRIA, THE EVOLUTION OF ART NOUVEAU FURNITURE OWES MUCH
TO THE TRAILBLAZING DESIGNS OF CRAFTSMAN MICHAEL THONET.
Gebruder Thonet catalogue The catalogue for L`industrie Thonet bears the subtitle “From handcraftsmanship to mass production: bentwood furniture.”
Gueridon This small table is made of beech wood and consists of a plain top above an ornate bentwood base, decorated with oval motifs.

THE GLASGOW SCHOOL
AT THE HEART of the Art Nouveau
movement in Scotland, the Glasgow School of Art sowed the seeds of an artistic revolution.
The enterprising director, Francis Newberg, and his wife Jessie, were instrumental in taking the Glasgow School of Art beyond its traditional role as an institution for formal
instruction in painting. A great admirer and champion of the teachings of William Morris, Newberg urged his students to learn as much as they could from the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau movements. He set up art studios where artist-craftsmen provided
broad range of commercial crafts, including bookbinding, woodcarving, ceramics, stained glass, and metalwork.
KEY DESIGNERS
An influential team of designers and architects closely associated with the Glasgow School included Charles Rennie Mackintosh, J. Herbert MacNair, and the sisters Margaret and Frances MacDonald. Known as “The Glasgow Four” or “Four Macs”, they created furniture and interior decoration inspired by Arts and Crafts ideology, but which developed as a movement in its own right and was
“Glasgow Style”. This style incorporated natural imagery together with a strong, psychological identification with the city – then booming economically and culturally – powered by its engineering and industrial skills.
It was a decidedly Scottish and occasionally modest interpretation of the Art Nouveau. Simple, geometric furniture designs were decorated with stylized patterns of flowers, plants, animals, figural patterns, and Celtic-style decoration. These
were shown in unusual colours drawn from local scenery, such as heathery purple, misty greys, and soft green. The Glasgow style won international acclaim, especially at the 8th Secessionist Exhibition in 1900 in Vienna, and exercised a
potent influence on the architects of industrial design in Germany and Austria. The rooms furnished by the group for the 1902 Turin International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Arts focused on controlled line, eschewing serpentine curves, and favouring symmetrical flowers,
elongated figures, and intricate linear designs in glass, metal, and enamel.
THE ROSE EMBLEM
Nature always inspired the Glasgow Four and was occasionally approached from a scientific perspective. Even the group’s emblem – the two-dimensional rose, which was designed by
Mackintosh and featured frequently on its architecture and furniture – was
inspired by a cabbage cut in half. Other talents associated with the Glasgow School were Ernest Archibald Taylor, lauded for his clean, elegant, and highly refined designs in the style of Charles Rennie Mackintosh; George Walton, with his delicate and subtle designs for furniture, textiles, and glass; and Talwin Morris, who worked in a variety of media, from furniture to textiles, metalwork, and glass.
The Glasgow School of Art This building was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1896 and is regarded as one of his most notable architectural achievements.

A Glasgow School hammered brass mirror This piece has a repousse, stylized, floral motif design with long, flowing tendrils ending in a swirl, and a circular bud design with striking blue, enamel.

MAHOGANY CUPBOARD
This inlaid cupboard is made from mahogany and consists of elegant, vertical lines embellished with a projecting and moulded cornice. It is raised on a plinth. In contrast to the simple lines of the piece, the fielded, panelled door is inlaid with florid, geometric, stylized flowers, plant forms, foliage, and stems, and is flanked by similarly inlaid panels.
The moulded hinges and handles are elaborately decorated with foliate motifs. The plinth is pierced at the front and sides with a repeating heart-shaped pattern that echoes the inlaid design. The cupboard was possibly designed by J.S. Henry, a Glasgow wholesale company that often supplied furniture to Liberty and Co. and worked with leading
designers such as George Walton.
HALLSTAND
This hallstand is made of stained oak. It was designed by Wylie and Lochhead and shows the influence of Mackintosh. The moulded cornice above a central bevelled plate is flanked by repouss6 copper panels showing stylized briar roses. Decorative supports in the form of flower stems add to the overall design.

Art Deco British Furniture: ART DECO TUB CHAIR, NEST OF TABLES, CHEST OF DRAWERS, BURR MAPLE TABLE, OAK BOOKCASES

DURING THE FIRST HALF of the 1920s,
most British furniture designers remained loyal to the principles of the Arts and Crafts Movement (see p.330), but occasionally used decorative elements inspired by French Art Deco in their work. One of London’s most successful retailers and manufacturers, Heal & Son, produced Arts and Crafts designs made from sycamore, oak, or limed oak, quietly embellished with some Art Deco features. The furniture was essentially machine-made but was finished by hand.
RESTRAINED STYLE
Gordon Russell’s furniture designs of the 1920s exhibited the more traditional Art Deco style. He adopted motifs, such as sunbursts and chevrons, and used exotic materials such as ivory and
macassar ebony Exhibiting to great acclaim at the 1925 Exhibition in Paris, Russell rejected the opulence favoured by his French counterparts, and displayed a cabinet that celebrated the simplicity of traditional Georgian design with a minimum of decoration.
The 1925 Paris Exhibition influenced the Heal’s designer, J.E Johnson. From 1926 to 1927, he displayed a range of bedroom furniture made from macassar ebony and influenced by the high Parisian Art Deco style of Emile Jacques Ruhlmann (see p.393). In 1928 Waring & Gillow, who provided luxury furniture for ships and hotels,
displayed fine furniture in the high Art Deco style in an exhibition called “Modern Art in French and English Furniture and Decoration”. The
exhibition marked the launch of their Department of Modern Art, which was headed by the Russian emigre Serge Ivan Chermayeff. Although Chermayeff favoured the use of opulent veneers, he soon moved away from the French Art Deco style towards a more Modernist aesthetic. His sofas and coffee tables were geometric in form and the upholstery and carpets featured geometric patterns. His designs were widely copied, using less expensive materials, and were mass produced for the middle class home.
A TASTE FOR LUXURY
Fashionable Art Deco furniture made of sumptuous, expensive materials. and echoing traditional shapes – albeit with a Modernist twist – was also created in Britain by Betty Joel and Sir Edward Maufe. Sir Edward Maufe had won a medal at the 1925 Paris Exhibition for his mahogany camphor wood, and ebony writing desk, which was gessoed and gilded with hire gold, and featured silk tasselled handles. Betty Joel’s prestigious and exclusive clientele included the King and Queen and Louis Mountbatten.
By the 1930s, Gordon Russell was producing more Modernist pieces, developing a successful range of good quality, mass-produced furniture that made use of new materials such as tubular steel. Sir Ambrose Heal was also firmly aligned with the Modernist movement. However, elements of Art Deco persisted in Britain. The sunburst motif and stepped tiling could be seen in many suburban houses, and household objects, such as radios, telephones, and vacuum cleaners, exhibited the streamlined style of American Art Deco. In 1933, Maurice Adams produced the archetypal streamlined cocktail cabinet in ebonized mahogany with metal casing and chromium mounts.
The lobby of the former Daily Express building in Fleet Street, London The lobby was designed in 1932 by Robert Atkinson and was inspired by Hollywood film sets. It features a starburst
ceiling with a silvered pendant lamp and a huge silver and gilt plaster relief panel along one side.

OAK BOOKCASES
This pair of Betty Joel bookcases is made from Australian silky oak. Each bookcase is asymmetrical, with random open and enclosed shelves and two cupboard doors. The circular door handles contrast with the rectangular and
square shapes of the cupboards and shelves. The bookcases stand on fluted square feet. Each one bears the following label on the base: “Token Hand-Made Furniture by Betty Joel, made by J. Emery at Token Works Portsmouth.” 1932.
BURR MAPLE TABLE
DINING CHAIR
MIRROR
This Art Deco mirror, by Whytock and Reid of Edinburgh, has a shaped, rectangular red-lacquered frame. The stylized plant motifs in the crested moulding are highlighted in gilt.

CHEST OF DRAWERS
This English chest of drawers, made from walnut, has black-lacquer banding around the drawers and the edges of the case which accentuate Its rectilinearity. The distinctive, slender drawer handles are attached vertically in juxtaposition to the horizontal, rectangular drawers. c.1930
NEST OF TABLES
These three tables are made from amboyna and satinwood with a decorative inlay. Each table top has a geometric sunburst design, made from contrasting woods, and a moulded edge. The tables are supported on tapering splayed legs and have moulded pad feet. c.1925.
TUB CHAIR
This squat, geometric tub chair, one of a pair, has a U-shaped framework with a curved back and arms that are veneered in oak from top to bottom. The back and apron of the chair, and the loose cushion seat, are upholstered in a striped fabric. The other chair of the pair has a slightly taller back.

MACASSAR SIDEBOARD
Heal & Son designed this Art Deco, ebony-veneered macassar sideboard. Its unusual appeal arises from the panels of green shagreen on the surface of the sideboard combined with an ogee-moulded ebony edge. The sides and front of the sideboard are veneered in boldly figured timber with a geometric border at
the top and base of ebony with ivory lines. The fluted, turned legs terminate in ivory feet, and the square door and drawer handles are also made of ivory. The overall shape of the sideboard is reminiscent of an 18th-century commode. c.1930.
The fluted, turned legs terminate in ivory feet.
Geometric borders of ebony and ivory line the top and bottom of the sideboard.
The sideboard echoes the shape of an 18th-century French commode.
Square, tapering ivory handles contrast with the boldly figured veneer.

The period of Eclecticism,
The Biedermeier style is regarded as the last creative style of the nineteenth century. Furniture makers had started casting their eyes back to examples in classical antiquity during the period of
It became fashionable to decorate and furnish in oriental style at the end of the nineteenth century. Furnishings such as carpets and rugs, vases, mother-of-pearl decorated furniture, and divans were widely found at this time.
The heroic style of the first Napoleon was overwhelmed beneath a welter of large upholstered pieces and drapes in the France of Napoleon III.
This excess and ostentation covered up a lack of creativity on the part of the citoyens who now held the leading positions in industry and commerce. This also brought about an increase in mass production. The flood of cheap and indiscriminate furniture led to a marked reduction in fine hand-made furniture by craftsmen. This process was also hastened by the attitude of the schools for the applies arts.
Eclecticism manifested itself in virtually every branch of the arts. Only Michael Thonnet contributed new creativity at this time. He discovered in about 1830 that it was possible to make thin lightweight sheets of oak veneer which could be bent and laminated in order to make furniture. He bent laminated sheets of oak veneer with the help of steam.
Another raw material which was also popular in the past for making lightweight chairs is rattan.
Jugendstil, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco
Opposition to Eclecticism arose in the late nineteenth century. The imitations of old styles and tasteless mass produced items were detested. Artists formed themselves into groups in many countries and strove for pure craftmanship and simple art. Above all objects were to be functional, original, and logically constructed.
Munich became an important centre in this movement. A publication entitled Die Jugend was established there and this gave its name to style which arose: Jugendstil.
This was more of a movement and trend than a style in itself with many different approaches in different countries.
An important group formed around John Ruskin in England for which the social aspect was also important. The emphasis was placed on craft traditions that still existed and had done so since the Middle Ages. The Arts and Crafts movement, as it was known, placed its main emphasis on craftmanship in the making of pieces. Another group of artists in Scotland, led by the architect Charles Rennie Macintosh, went its own way. Another important centre was Vienna where Sezession was formed, under leadership of the artists J.M. Olbricht and Gustav Klimt.
France had been pushed into the background during the previous period of furniture making and Art Nouveau arose as an innovative movement which tied in with activities elsewhere at that time. The main centres of French Art Nouveau were Paris and Nancy.
The British Arts and Crafts movement had hardly any effect on France and certainly none on its furniture designs. Hence the French developed a style of their own. French artists produced many delightful decorations with elegant and original designs, using expensive materials. Generally these new styles started from a standpoint that the eclectic character of nineteenth century furniture was pompous. The new designs were therefore lighter, more transparent in their construction, more fluid, and more `honest’. The silhouettes used were still of classical origin. Decorative elements were drawn from nature and the extent to which these were then stylised depend on the individual movement. This can be seen in the difference between Jugendstil and French Art Nouveau. Jugendstil’s decorations are more naturalistic than the stylised forms of Art Nouveau.
Major names of furniture designers of the time are Van der Velde and Horta in Belgium, Bugatti in Italy, and Louis Majorelle and Emile GaIIe in France. The German makers included names such as tioners in Britain. In addition to Macintosh, another great name from around the turn of the century is C.F.A. Voysey.
A further detail tends more towards Art Nouveau.
The Viennese Werkstatte was led by Josef Hoffmann who found himself drawn to the work of the Scot Macintosh. In common with other centres, the artists of the Werkstdtte did not fully subscribe to the ruling ideas of either Jugendstil or Art Nouveau. They did not consider that only traditional hand-crafting was valid and they also used machinery. Reproductions of the popular main great styles continued to be made up to the outbreak of World War I.
The styles of the French Kings Louis, Sheraton, and Chippendale continued to be very popular and not everyone admired the modern art approach of Jugendstil and Art Nouveau. After World War I a new style was discerned — Art Deco. Art Deco absorbed much of Art Nouveau but rejected its adherence to hand craftmanship and expressly chose to machine make objects. It was not furniture of the mid eighteenth century that inspired Art Deco designers, rather than that of Louis XVI and the Directoire at the end of the century.
The influence of Cubism can be readily seen in the modern designs of this time.

After World War I, furniture designers combined luxury and practicality in their products, and created both traditional types of furniture and innovative forms. In France, traditional Art Deco furniture was typified by elegant styles looking back to the 18th or 19th centuries, using inlay and exotic woods. After 1925 French makers started to incorporate the “new” materials
that were part of the Modernist aesthetic, such as chromium, aluminium, and tubular steel — as advocated by the innovative German Bauhaus, whose industrial designers created functional furniture for mass production. In the USA, designers were influenced by both traditional and Modern European Art Deco, using materials such as laminated wood and chromed metal.

In the early 20th century, Dutch, German, and
Scandinavian furniture designers were at the forefront of the Modern movement. Designing specifically for Machine production, they rejected ornament and experimented with the new materials of tubular steel, aluminium, chromium, and preformed plywood, aiming to create standardized, functional furniture accessible to all markets.
THE NETHERLANDS
Among the earliest furniture designs inspired by the new machine aesthetic ere those of Gerrit Rietveld 1888-1964). From c.1918 Rietveld was associated with the Dutch magazine De Stijl (Style), whose contributors, a group of avant-garde architects, painters, designers, and theorists, aimed
to create a new “universal” art based on lines, geometric shapes, primary colours, and black and white. Rietveld’s “Red-Blue” chair, designed in 1918, is one of the best-known expressions of De Stijl ideas. Its straightforward construction meant that it was highly suitable for mass production. Versions made before 1923 are stained, varnished, or limed, reflecting Rietveld’s traditional training in carpentry. Only after this date was the chair painted in red, blue, black, and yellow. From c.1918 Rietveld’s furniture designs were constructed from linear wooden elements; from the mid-1920s they featured flat Wooden planes. Rietveld produced his own furniture until 1924, when he sold his business to his assistant Gerard van der Groenekan. Rights to the designs were sold in 1971 to the Italian furniture company Cassina, which still reproduces them today.
GERMANY
Most of the well-known furniture designers in Germany in the inter-war period were associated with the Bauhaus. Founded in 1919 in Weimar by the architect Walter Gropius (1883– 1969), the Bauhaus was one of the first schools to train artists and craftsmen to design high-quality goods specifically for industrial production. It is particularly renowned for the functional, geometric style of its products and its experimentation with new Materials such as tubular steel and plywood.
The best-known furniture designs associated with the Bauhaus were those produced by the Hungarian-born architect Marcel Breuer (1902-81), head of the school’s carpentry workshop from 1925 to 1928. His earliest designs feature linear wooden components, similar in
style to Rietveld’s furniture. However, by c.1925, Breuer was designing chairs with tubular steel frames, and his “Wassily” chair (1925) was one of the first tubular steel pieces to be produced on a large scale. Designs including the “Wassily” chair and the tubular steel-framed, cantilevered “B32″ chair (1926) were manufactured by such firms as Standard-Mobel Lengyel & Co. in Berlin and Thonet in Vienna. In 1932 Breuer began to design aluminium furniture for the Wohnbedarf furnishings stores in Switzerland; since aluminium is weaker than steel, these designs are more complex in construction than his tubular steel pieces. In 1935 Breuer emigrated to Britain, where he met Jack Pritchard (b. 1899), owner of Isokon (1932-9), which produced furniture in the Modern style and promoted the use of plywood. For Isokon, Breuer designed the “Long Chair”, a sculptural plywood reclining chair that moulded to the position of the body, and lightweight tables and chairs created from single sheets of cut and moulded plywood.
The avant-garde architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), artistic director of the Bauhaus from 1930 to 1933, designed cantilevered tubular steel furniture for mass production by the firm of Berliner Metallgewerbe
from 1927 to 1931. Many of his other designs, although functional in appearance, were in fact handmade for the luxury market. A notable example is his padded leather and chrome “Barcelona” chair and stool, designed for
the German pavilion at the 1929 International Exhibition in arcelona. With a curved X-frame inspired by Classical furniture, the chair was designed as a “throne” for King Alfonso XIII of Spain for the opening ceremony of the exhibition. Original Berliner Metallgewerbe models are exceptionally rare and valuable today, but since 1947-8 the chair has been mass-produced by the American firm of Knoll, and these reproductions are more accessible to collectors.
SCANDINAVIA
In the 1920s and 1930s, Scandinavia was less industrialized than the rest of Europe or the USA, and
its craft tradition was still highly evident in furniture and interior design. This tradition continued even with the advent of Modernism, Scandinavian designers preferring curving forms and wood to the angular shapes and tubular steel favoured by their German peers. This is well illustrated by the furniture designed by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto (1898-1976), who from from 1929 experimented with plywood for such items as chairs and trolleys, and in 1933 patented a method of bending wood to make stacking stools. Like other Modernist furniture of the period, Aalto’s designs are simple in construction, with no surface decoration, although they may be painted in bright primary colours. His furniture was produced from 1930 to 1933 by the firm of Otto Korhonen in Turku and from 1935 by his own manufacturing company, Artek, in Helsinki. Aalto’s versatile furniture, especially his stacking stools, proved particularly popular in Britain, where it was imported and distributed by Finmar Ltd (est. 1934-5).

•    COLLECTING original 1920s and 1930s pieces are rarer and more valuable than recent versions; many designs were sold to large furniture companies from the 1940s and have been in continuous production since
Gerrit Rietveld
•    CONSTRUCTION linear elements were typical before the early 1920s; planar designs thereafter
•    COLOURS primary colours, plus black and white; early versions of “Red-Blue” chair are unpainted
Marcel Breuer
MATERIALS tubular steel, aluminium, or bent and
laminated plywood; leather arid cane for seats
•    CONSTRUCTION simple contours
construction; chairs and tables made after 1925 have runners rather than feet; Isokon side-chairs and tables are made from single sheets of cut plywood

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
•    MATERIALS tubular steel combined with padded leather upholstery, raffia, or glass
•    CONSTRUCTION Some chairs are cantilevered; the “Barcelona” chair and stool have a distinctive X-frame; careful hand-finishing is typical
•    COLLECTING on early, handmade “Barcelona” chairs the top rail is in bent chromed steel with lap joints and chrome-headed bolts; on later, mass-produced pieces (after 1947-8) the top rail is of cut and welded stainless steel
Alvar Aalto
•    MATERIALS woods, especially plywood, bent laminated (which may flake), and solid birch
Marks
Some Finnish furniture is marked “Aalto Mobley, Svensk Kvalitet Sprodurt”; most pieces have an applied metal label bearing a model number