Postmodern Waterfall
Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Console Tables
Wood, Laminate
Mid-20th Century American Post-Modern Stools
Naugahyde, Lucite
1990s American Post-Modern Dressers
Brass
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Credenzas
Plastic, Plaster, Wood
Mid-20th Century Post-Modern Night Stands
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Console Tables
Formica, Wood
Mid-20th Century Post-Modern Dressers
Brass
1990s American Post-Modern Benches
Metal
Vintage 1970s Post-Modern Console Tables
Grasscloth
20th Century American Art Deco End Tables
Lucite
Vintage 1980s Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Grasscloth
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Benches
Brass, Chrome
Vintage 1980s North American Post-Modern Lounge Chairs
Velvet
Vintage 1980s Post-Modern Stools
Fabric
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Benches
Fabric
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Night Stands
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Beds and Bed Frames
Laminate, Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Side Tables
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Night Stands
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Wall Mirrors
Mirror, Wood, Laminate
Vintage 1980s Canadian Post-Modern Beds and Bed Frames
Wood, Lacquer
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Credenzas
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Cabinets
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Night Stands
Wood
Vintage 1980s Post-Modern Ottomans and Poufs
Fabric
Vintage 1980s North American Post-Modern Footstools
Fabric
Vintage 1980s American Dressers
Wood
20th Century American Post-Modern Dressers
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Beds and Bed Frames
Wood, Laminate
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Side Tables
Wood
20th Century American Post-Modern Cabinets
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Formica
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Dressers
Metal
Vintage 1980s American Night Stands
Wood
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Carts and Bar Carts
Metal
20th Century American Post-Modern Dressers
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Night Stands
Wood
20th Century American Post-Modern Beds and Bed Frames
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Wardrobes and Armoires
Wood
20th Century American Post-Modern Ottomans and Poufs
Fabric
20th Century American Post-Modern Desks and Writing Tables
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Dressers
Wood
20th Century American Post-Modern Beds and Bed Frames
Wood
20th Century American Post-Modern Night Stands
Wood
20th Century American Post-Modern Dressers
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Night Stands
Wood
Vintage 1980s Mid-Century Modern Night Stands
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Benches
Velvet
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Wall Mirrors
Mirror, Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Decorative Bowls
Ceramic
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Lucite
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Sideboards
Wood, Lacquer
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Benches
Upholstery
Vintage 1970s American Post-Modern Shelves
Metal
Vintage 1970s American Post-Modern Dining Room Tables
Brass
Vintage 1970s Post-Modern Floor Lamps
Brass
Vintage 1970s American Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Oak
Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Chrome
- 1
Postmodern Waterfall For Sale on 1stDibs
How Much is a Postmodern Waterfall?
A Close Look at post-modern Furniture
Postmodern design was a short-lived movement that manifested itself chiefly in Italy and the United States in the early 1980s. The characteristics of vintage postmodern furniture and other postmodern objects and decor for the home included loud-patterned, usually plastic surfaces; strange proportions, vibrant colors and weird angles; and a vague-at-best relationship between form and function.
ORIGINS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
- Emerges during the 1960s; popularity explodes during the ’80s
- A reaction to prevailing conventions of modernism by mainly American architects
- Architect Robert Venturi critiques modern architecture in his Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966)
- Theorist Charles Jencks, who championed architecture filled with allusions and cultural references, writes The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977)
- Italian design collective the Memphis Group, also known as Memphis Milano, meets for the first time (1980)
- Memphis collective debuts more than 50 objects and furnishings at Salone del Milano (1981)
- Interest in style declines, minimalism gains steam
CHARACTERISTICS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
- Dizzying graphic patterns and an emphasis on loud, off-the-wall colors
- Use of plastic and laminates, glass, metal and marble; lacquered and painted wood
- Unconventional proportions and abundant ornamentation
- Playful nods to Art Deco and Pop art
POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW
- Ettore Sottsass
- Robert Venturi
- Alessandro Mendini
- Michele de Lucchi
- Michael Graves
- Nathalie du Pasquier
VINTAGE POSTMODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS
Critics derided postmodern design as a grandstanding bid for attention and nothing of consequence. Decades later, the fact that postmodernism still has the power to provoke thoughts, along with other reactions, proves they were not entirely correct.
Postmodern design began as an architectural critique. Starting in the 1960s, a small cadre of mainly American architects began to argue that modernism, once high-minded and even noble in its goals, had become stale, stagnant and blandly corporate. Later, in Milan, a cohort of creators led by Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini — a onetime mentor to Sottsass and a key figure in the Italian Radical movement — brought the discussion to bear on design.
Sottsass, an industrial designer, philosopher and provocateur, gathered a core group of young designers into a collective in 1980 they called Memphis. Members of the Memphis Group, which would come to include Martine Bedin, Michael Graves, Marco Zanini, Shiro Kuramata, Michele de Lucchi and Matteo Thun, saw design as a means of communication, and they wanted it to shout. That it did: The first Memphis collection appeared in 1981 in Milan and broke all the modernist taboos, embracing irony, kitsch, wild ornamentation and bad taste.
Memphis works remain icons of postmodernism: the Sottsass Casablanca bookcase, with its leopard-print plastic veneer; de Lucchi’s First chair, which has been described as having the look of an electronics component; Martine Bedin’s Super lamp: a pull-toy puppy on a power-cord leash. Even though it preceded the Memphis Group’s formal launch, Sottsass’s iconic Ultrafragola mirror — in its conspicuously curved plastic shell with radical pops of pink neon — proves striking in any space and embodies many of the collective’s postmodern ideals.
After the initial Memphis show caused an uproar, the postmodern movement within furniture and interior design quickly took off in America. (Memphis fell out of fashion when the Reagan era gave way to cool 1990’s minimalism.) The architect Robert Venturi had by then already begun a series of plywood chairs for Knoll Inc., with beefy, exaggerated silhouettes of traditional styles such as Queen Anne and Chippendale. In 1982, the new firm Swid Powell enlisted a group of top American architects, including Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Stanley Tigerman and Venturi to create postmodern tableware in silver, ceramic and glass.
On 1stDibs, the vintage postmodern furniture collection includes chairs, coffee tables, sofas, decorative objects, table lamps and more.
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This Rare Set of 100 Alessi Vases Includes Designs by Scores of International Artists
Alessandro Mendini, Michael Graves, Ettore Sottsass and other design luminaries contributed to this unusual collection of porcelain wares representing a time capsule of late-20th-century decorative art.
29 Incredible Pools
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Remembering Alessandro Mendini, a Towering Figure in Italian Design
Aided by photos taken of the maestro in his Milan studio, we honor the influential design talent who died last month at 87.
This Hotshot Duo Is the Design World’s Next Big Thing
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