While many great American furniture brands have come and gone, Bernhardt continues to thrive in its space. Spanning more than 130 years and four generations of family leadership, the company maintains an enduring presence in the modern era. It is a global manufacturer of furniture and home accessories and has garnered widespread acclaim for its signature high-quality craftsmanship. Today Bernhardt lounge chairs, coffee tables and dressers are reliable mainstays in living rooms, bedrooms, offices, school campuses and hospitality properties all over the world.

The company was founded in 1889 by John Bernhardt, a veteran of the sawmill trade who intended to produce durable furniture made of wood from the white oak trees that grew in his native North Carolina. Bernhardt quickly earned a reputation for his exceptionally strong, sturdy, striking pieces and eventually gained competitors in the likes of Broyhill and Kent-Coffey, two Lenoir companies that were established in the early 1900s. Bernhardt created fruitful relationships for distributing his furniture all over the country, and as the business gained steam, the company was able to survive the trials and tribulations of World War I and the Great Depression.

While World War II yielded labor and material shortages, demand for furniture took shape in the postwar years as new homeowners looked to furnish their spaces. Expansion followed for Bernhardt, and in 1958, the company added upholstered furniture to its growing catalog. As often as you can find boxy club chairs in Bernhardt’s inventory that are inspired by iconic designs by Le Corbusier or Milo Baughman, the brand has introduced reproductions of furnishings in period styles such as Chippendale, Hollywood Regency and chinoiserie.

Bernhardt continued to expand over time and, in 1981, added the Bernhardt Design division, which focuses on furnishing offices and public spaces. It entered the new millennium by announcing a licensed furniture partnership with Martha Stewart in 2001. Bernhardt and Stewart have since collaborated on several additional collections. In 2008 and 2009, the company launched two more divisions: Bernhardt Interiors for customizable and high-design furniture and Bernhardt Hospitality to cater to the needs of the hospitality market.

Bernhardt has garnered many prestigious awards over its long history, including multiple Pinnacle Design Achievement Awards from the American Society of Furniture Designers. The company is also a leader in sustainable manufacturing and works with the Sustainable Forestry Initiative and the Forest Stewardship Council.

In 2019, Bernhardt introduced the Bernhardt Exteriors division for high-quality and innovative outdoor furniture. Today, the company operates eight manufacturing facilities and continues to be a leader and trendsetter in the growing worldwide oak furniture market.

On 1stDibs, find Bernhardt seating, tables, case pieces and more.

A Close Look at brutalist Furniture

The design of brutalist furniture encompasses that which is crafted, hewn and worked by hand — an aesthetic rebuke (or, at least, a counterpoint) to furniture that is created using 21st-century materials and technology. Lately, the word “brutalist” has been adopted by the realms of furniture design and the decorative arts to refer to chairs, cabinets, tables and accessory pieces such as mirror frames and lighting that are made of rougher, deeply textured metals and other materials that are the visual and palpable antithesis of the sleek, smooth and suave.

ORIGINS OF BRUTALIST FURNITURE DESIGN

Brutalism emerged during the mid-20th century
Term coined by architecture critic Reyner Banham
Originated in the United Kingdom
Brutalist architecture gained popularity in the United States beginning in the early 1960s
Inaugural brutalist projects include Unité d'habitation and the city of Chandigarh, India, both of which owe to influential architect Charles-Édouard “Le Corbusier” Jeanneret
Le Corbusier’s cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, designed hundreds of chairs, tables, cabinets and lamps for Chandigarh
Informed by the Bauhaus, constructivism, modernism and the International Style; part of mid-century modernism
Contrasted starkly with Beaux Arts style

CHARACTERISTICS OF BRUTALIST FURNITURE DESIGN

Use of industrial materials — tubular steel, concrete, glass, granite
Prioritizes functionalism, minimalism and utilization of negative space
Spare silhouettes, pronounced geometric shapes
Stripped-down, natural look; rugged textures, modular construction
Interiors featuring airy visual flow and reliance on neutral palettes

BRUTALIST FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW

VINTAGE BRUTALIST FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS

The term brutalism — which derives from the French word brut, meaning “raw” — was coined by architecture critic Reyner Banham to describe an architectural style that emerged in the 1950s featuring monumental buildings, usually made of unornamented concrete, whose design was meant to project an air of strength and solidity.

Le Corbusier essentially created the brutalist style; its best-known iterations in the United States are the Whitney Museum of American Art, which was designed by Marcel Breuer, and Paul Rudolph's Yale Art and Architecture Building. The severe style might have been the most criticized architectural movement of the 20th century, even if it was an honest attempt to celebrate the beauty of raw material. But while the brutalist government buildings in Washington, D.C., seemingly bask in their un-beauty, brutalist interior design and decor is much more lyrical, at times taking on a whimsical, romantic quality that its exterior counterparts lack.

Paul Evans is Exhibit A for brutalist furniture design. His Sculpture Front cabinets laced with high-relief patinated steel mounts have become collector's items nonpareil, while the chairs, coffee table and dining table in his later Cityscape series and Sculpted Bronze series for Directional Furniture are perhaps the most expressive, attention-grabbing pieces in American modern design. Other exemplary brutalist designers are Silas Seandel, the idiosyncratic New York furniture designer and sculptor whose works in metal — in particular his tables — have a kind of brawny lyricism, and Curtis Jere, a nom-de-trade for the California team of Curtis Freiler and Jerry Fels, the bold makers of expressive scorched and sheared copper and brass mirror frames and wall-mounted sculptures.

Brutalist furniture and sculptures remain popular with interior designers and can lend unique, eccentric, human notes to an art and design collection in any home.

Find authentic vintage brutalist chairs, coffee tables, decorative objects and other furniture on 1stDibs.

Finding the Right coffee-tables-cocktail-tables for You

As a practical focal point in your living area, antique and vintage coffee tables and cocktail tables are an invaluable addition to any interior.

Low tables that were initially used as tea tables or coffee tables have been around since at least the mid- to late-1800s. Early coffee tables surfaced in Victorian-era England, likely influenced by the use of tea tables in Japanese tea gardens. In the United States, furniture makers worked to introduce low, long tables into their offerings as the popularity of coffee and “coffee breaks” took hold during the late 19th century and early 20th century.

It didn’t take long for coffee tables and cocktail tables to become a design staple and for consumers to recognize their role in entertaining no matter what beverages were being served. Originally, these tables were as simple as they are practical — as high as your sofa and made primarily of wood. In recent years, however, metal, glass and plastics have become popular in coffee tables and cocktail tables, and design hasn’t been restricted to the conventional low profile, either.

Visionary craftspeople such as Paul Evans introduced bold, geometric designs that challenge the traditional idea of what a coffee table can be. The elongated rectangles and wide boxy forms of Evans’s desirable Cityscape coffee table, for example, will meet your needs but undoubtedly prove imposing in your living space.

If you’re shopping for an older coffee table to bring into your home — be it an antique Georgian-style coffee table made of mahogany or walnut with decorative inlays or a classic square mid-century modern piece comprised of rosewood designed by the likes of Ettore Sottsass — there are a few things you should keep in mind.

Both the table itself and what you put on it should align with the overall design of the room, not just by what you think looks fashionable in isolation. According to interior designer Tamara Eaton, the material of your vintage coffee table is something you need to consider. “With a glass coffee table, you also have to think about the surface underneath, like the rug or floor,” she says. “With wood and stone tables, you think about what’s on top.”

Find the perfect centerpiece for any room, no matter what your personal furniture style on 1stDibs. Browse a vast selection of antique, new and vintage coffee table and cocktail tables today.