I love this new twist on an old idea. These stumps are coated in real silver, and make great side tables…organic with a touch of class. The 47 table By Council Design retails for around $1200.
-Robert
Tag Archives: Furniture
A Closer Look: The Architect and the Painter
The husband-and-wife team of Charles and Ray Eames are widely regarded as America’s most important designers.
By now you must have seen seen their bent plywood and fiberglass furniture, designs which have become synonymous with the Mid-Century Modern Style.
But you might not know that this design duo was prolific in many other ways as well, and had a broad influence on significant events in American life – from modernism to the dawn of the computer age.
Their creative output included everything from splints for the wounded of World War II, to photography, multi-media exhibitions, graphics, games, films, toys, and sculpture:
My personal favorite is “Tops,” an elegant short film that simply observes the classic toy in action.
A new film, The Painter and the Architect, sheds light on their multi-faceted creative and personal lives. Find out more about the film here.
–Robert
image 1: herman miller
image 2: blogspot
image 3: SFBlog
image 4: thefoxisblack
Sunday Dreaming: Scala Luxury
Scala Luxury is a furniture company based in California with a taste for opulent materials. It’s not uncommon to see their products made with bronze, bone, horn, parchment (goat skin), and shagreen (skate skin). If you need something really special, look no further. The Honeycomb Cabinet above is finished in black polished lacquer with bone inlaid pattern, and retails for around $12,000.
-Robert
Sunday Dreaming: Suspended in Time
I love Bleu Nature’s line of acrylic furniture and accessories. Natural materials like wood and coral are suspended in crystal-clear acrylic, creating meditative compositions frozen in time. They come as occassional tables, stools, lamps, and tabletop accessories. Starting around $1,500 at select retailers.
–Robert
Sunday Dreaming: George Nakashima
Oft-Imitated, Never Matched. George Nakashima’s furniture has become a hot collector’s item and is available at fine auctions the world over. You can tour his studio in New Hope Pennsylvania, where his daughter carries on the tradition. Check out more at this website.
-Robert
A Closer Look: Gaetano Pesce’s Unusual Chairs
One of the advantages of mass production is consistency and predictability. But when it comes to home furnishings, what if we want something unique and personal?
Gaetano Pesce has come up with a solution to this problem in a most unusual way. An Italian designer known for his colorful resin furniture, Pesce enlists the help of furniture makers in determining the final look of his chairs. Each piece is manufactured according to a standard design, but there is alot of room for improvisation. The furniture makers ultimately choose what color the chairs will be.
Take a look at the examples in this post – all of these “Brodway” chairs start out the same, but they soon become as unique as their makers.
Pesce is achieving something that we at Design Lines strive for everyday: creating unique solutions that are personal and anything but mass-produced.
-Robert
A Closer Look: The Furniture of Franz West
It doesn’t matter what art looks like, but how it’s used.
–Franz West
Franz West is an Austrian artist whose work began as a reaction to the Action and Performance Art of the 1960s. Instead of making objects to be viewed, he created sculptures to be touched. His “adaptives” were sculptures meant to carried around the gallery, so that viewers could observe how they “adapted” to their bodies.
More recently, West began creating “adaptives” of a different sort – this time they took the form of furniture. In his chairs, couches, and light fixtures, West blurs the line between furniture and art. I like how his efforts pay off – art objects become familiar to the viewer on a more personal level, though they always maintain the presence of a sculpture. One of my favorite pieces is his floor lamp (below) made of rebar topped by a bare lightbulb.
West’s furniture, like his sculptures, have an awkward and sometimes grotesque appearance. But at the same time, they are surprisingly elegant and beautiful. Take a look. See how they change the way you look at furniture.
-Robert
image 1: Gagosian Gallery
image 2: New York Times Magazine
image 3: Christie’s
image 4: Phillips de Pury & Co
image 5: Artnet