1980s Postmodern Coral Stone and Glass Coffee Table
Located in Miami, FL
1980s large coral stone stone and glass postmodern coffee table. Designed to make a bold statement
Glass
1980s Postmodern Coral Stone and Glass Coffee Table
Located in Miami, FL
Beautiful 1980s, postmodern coral stone coffee table with an impressive 3/4" thick glass. The
Coral, Stone
1980s Postmodern Lacquered Half Moon Rotating Coffee Table
Located in Saddle River, NJ
Vintage Post Modern Lacquered Half Moon Rotating Coffee Table This vintage coffee table is a must
Lacquer
Postmodern Design Coffee Table in Bamboo by Axel Vervoordt, Belgium 1980's
By Axel Vervoordt
Located in Oud-Turnhout, VAN
Vintage Postmodern Design Coffee Table in Bamboo by Axel Vervoordt. Made in Belgium, 1980's / 90's
Bamboo
1980s Vintage Postmodern Travertine Rectangle Coffee Table
Located in Chicago, IL
Absolutely dreamy travertine coffee table. The beautiful patina gives this table the right balance
Travertine
1980s Postmodern Laminated Pedestals and Glass Rectangular Coffee Table
Located in Farmington Hills, MI
We are very pleased to offer a whimsical, fun coffee table circa the 1980s. This postmodern piece
Glass, Laminate
1980s Eye Shaped Wood Coffee Table Postmodern
Located in Chicago, IL
Solid wood eye shaped coffee table with an open shelf to put anything or nothing! The table is on
Wood
Postmodern Etched Waterfall Custom Made Glass Coffee Table 1980s
Located in Keego Harbor, MI
This custom made waterfall coffee table from the postmodern era combines organic sculptural shape
Glass, Wood
1980s Postmodern Vintage Honed Travertine Coffee Table
Located in Chicago, IL
Oh my! I love this table. Arrived with lacquer so had that removed. Such an organic feel and the
Travertine
1980s, Postmodern Vintage Emperado Marble Coffee Table
Located in Chicago, IL
Love this marble! Browns, grays, taupes, ivories and army greens! The original lacquer finish is in excellent condition so I left it as is. I can see this in a mountain modern or des...
Marble
Postmodern Stainless Steel and Brass Ribbon Coffee Table, 1980s
Located in Culver City, CA
Available right now we have a gorgeous Postmodern dining table that is made of polished stainless
Brass, Stainless Steel
Postmodern minimalist Italian coffee table attributed to Gae Aulenti, 1980s
By Gae Aulenti
Located in Hastings, GB
Postmodern minimalist Italian coffee table attributed to Gae Aulenti, 1980s. Thick tempered glass
Metal
Postmodern black marble and glass coffee table, 1980s
Located in Leuven, Vlaams Gewest
Postmodern coffee table with a clear bent glass and geometrical marble bases. Beautifully sculpted
Marble
1980s Postmodern Triangle Base Travertine Coffee Table, Made in Italy
By Massimo Vignelli
Located in Chicago, IL
Gorgeous and simple coffee table. Hallow triangle bases with a floating glass oval top. Made in
Travertine, Marble
Vintage Postmodern American Emerald Green Lacquered Waterfall Coffee Table 1980s
By Karl Springer
Located in Hastings, GB
Postmodern American emerald green lacquered waterfall side or coffee table, circa 1980s. In
Other
Vintage Postmodern American Emerald Green Lacquered Waterfall Coffee Table 1980s
By Karl Springer
Located in Hastings, GB
Postmodern 1980s American emerald green lacquered extra large waterfall coffee table. In great
Other
1980's Postmodern Waterfall Glass & Stone Sphere Coffee Table Leon Rose for Pace
By Pace Furniture Company, Leon Rosen
Located in Portland, OR
A tempered glass waterfall 1980s coffee table. A very stylish 1980s coffee table made of tempered
Glass, Plaster
Postmodern Glass Coffee Table on Wheels After Gae Aulenti, 1980s
By Gae Aulenti
Located in Miami, FL
Post-modern coffee table in the style of Gae Aulenti for Fontana Arte, designed after Aulenti's
Metal
Memphis Style 1980s Figure Glass and Metal Coffee Table Postmodern
By Memphis Milano
Located in BROOKLYN, NY
Memphis Milano style 1980s figure glass and metal coffee table. Welded metal female figure with
Metal
1980s Nero Marquina Postmodern Black Marble Coffee Table
Located in Chicago, IL
. The original lacquer is in excellent condition. The table top is attached to the base making this kid
Belgian Black Marble
Large deep blue postmodern vintage lacquer waterfall coffee table, USA 1980s
By Karl Springer
Located in Hastings, GB
Extra large postmodern lacquered waterfall coffee table, USA 1980s. In great condition, and such an
Plywood, Lacquer
Postmodern Faux Goatskin Vinyl Laminate Coffee Table with 2 Drawers, 1980s
Located in Delray Beach, FL
Incredible postmodern square coffee table with two spacious drawers. The table features a faux goat
Wood
Large Vintage Postmodern Wave Coffee Table, Textured Plaster & Glass, Usa 1980s
Located in Hastings, GB
An incredible large vintage postmodern wave coffee table, USA 1980s. Textured plaster-covered
Plaster
1980s Italian Postmodern Modular Coffee and Nesting Tables, in Travertine
Located in Delray Beach, FL
Gorgeous set of modular travertine tables. Authentic Italian design and marble from the late 20th
Travertine, Marble
1980s Vintage Maitland Smith Tessellated Stone Coffee Table Postmodern
By Maitland Smith
Located in Chicago, IL
Stunning Maitland Smith Coffee table with rounded square edges. Perfect for a chic living or family
Stone
Sold|$753 / item
Postmodern Blue Metal Table, Europe, 1980s
Located in London, GB
This Postmodern table is made from folded perforated metal sheeting, in a dark matte blue paint
Metal
Postmodern Marble Malachite Chrome Tavola Coffee Table by Oggetti 1980s Italy
By Oggetti
Located in Keego Harbor, MI
For your consideration is a "Tavola" tessellated marble coffee table, with chrome accents and
Marble, Chrome
1980s Cipollino Ondulato Postmodern Eye Shaped Marble Coffee Table
Located in Chicago, IL
veining on this particular table. The top floats on two triangular channeled bases.
Marble
Postmodern Italian 1980s Beige Travertine Marble Rounded Square Coffee Table
Located in Keego Harbor, MI
An Italian postmodern coffee table. This lovely coffee table features a lovely stone construction
Travertine
Large Postmodern White & Green Laminate Coffee Table on Casters, USA 1980s 1990s
Located in Hastings, GB
A large vintage postmodern American white & green laminate coffee table, with cross design. Moves
Laminate, Wood
Erwin & Estelle Kidney shaped 1980s, Postmodern Lucite and Glass Coffee Table
Located in Las Vegas, NV
1980s, Postmodern Lucite and Glass Coffee Table Unique vintage coffee table with two lucite
Glass, Lucite
postmodern coffee table Apocalypse now by Carlo Forcolini for Alias - 1980s
By Alias, Carlo Forcolini
Located in Saarbrücken, SL
- rare italian coffee table "Apocalypse Now" by Carlo Forcolini - 1980s - beatiful patinated corten
Steel
Vintage Large Postmodern Faux Marble Laminate Waterfall Coffee Table, USA, 1980s
Located in Hastings, GB
This large post-modern American 'waterfall' coffee / cocktail table epitomises the super-desirable
Laminate, Wood
Fiam Italia 1980s Glass Waterfall Cocktail Coffee Table with Black Sphere Base
By FIAM
Located in Keego Harbor, MI
A Fiam Italia waterfall cocktail coffee table with black sphere base. This super cool postmodern
Stone
1980s Postmodern Cantilevered Coffee Table
Located in La Mesa, CA
Modernist sculptural oak coffee table in an “origami” shape. Geometrical nooks are perfect to store
Fiberglass, Lacquer
Postmodern Faux Travertine Laminate and Gold Coffee Table
Located in Delray Beach, FL
Amazing postmodern 1980s rectangular coffee table. Features a faux travertine laminate and gold
Laminate, Wood
Pair of German Postmodern GEBRA Cantilevered Glass & Chrome Side Coffee Tables
Located in London, England
A pair of German vintage 1980s (design) postmodern coffee, side or bedside tables from GEBRA
Chrome
Postmodern Glass + Ceramic Coffee Table, USA 1980s
Located in Chicago, IL
A Postmodern glass coffee table featuring a round .375” thick beveled glass tabletop resting on a
Ceramic, Glass
Postmodern Italian Handkerchief Crystal Coffee Table, 1980s
Located in Puglia, Puglia
Crystal table handkerchief made in Italy in the 1980s, probably by Fiam. Measurements of the top
Crystal
Postmodern Modernist Rougier Articulating 3-Tier Coffee Table, 1980s
By Maison Rougier
Located in Keego Harbor, MI
For your consideration is an appealingly luxe looking, asymmetrical, three tier coffee table by
Lacquer
Postmodern Glass Coffee Table on Wheels After Gae Aulenti, 1980s
By Gae Aulenti
Located in Miami, FL
Postmodern coffee table in the style of Gae Aulenti for Fontana Arte, designed after Aulenti's
Glass, Wood
G Plan New Seasons Coffee Table, Postmodern Memphis Style, 1980s
By G Plan Furniture
Located in London, GB
Part of G Plan’s postmodern experimentation in the 1980s, the New Seasons range played with form
Ash
1980s Postmodern Travertine Eye Tear Shape Coffee Table
Located in Chicago, IL
Beautiful and simple vintage travertine coffee table that floats on two triangle bases. Excellent
1980s Postmodern Italian Travertine Coffee Table by Stone Intentional, Italy
By Stone International
Located in Miami, FL
Large Postmodern Italian travertine square coffee table by Stone Intentional Florence, Italy. Circa
Travertine
1980s Postmodern Square Plaster Coffee Table on Plinth Base
Located in Chicago, IL
Super cool coffee table! Very modern minimal with a space age vibe. Heavy but not too heavy - 2
Plaster
Italian Postmodern Eye or Teardrop Shaped Travertine Marble Coffee Table 1980s
By Ello Furniture, Stone International
Located in Philadelphia, PA
Designed and made in Italy in the 1980s, this teardrop or eye shaped coffee table sits on two
Breccia Marble
Ettore Sottsass Style Postmodern Crystal and Lacquered Wood Coffee Table, 1980s
By Ettore Sottsass
Located in Puglia, Puglia
Coffee table in black lacquered wood and thick glass top, Ettore Sottsass style.
Crystal
1980s Italian Walnut Travertine Postmodern Coffee Table with Bowed Edge, Honed
Located in Chicago, IL
This looks like the dessert. Unbelievable. The slab is beautiful and after honing it it’s even better than I could have imagined. The most beautiful combination of brown, ivory, and ...
Travertine
Pace Vintage Postmodern Travertine, Brass Coffee Table with Glass Top
By Pace Collection
Located in Miami, FL
vintage Postmodern 1980s Pace coffee table with a travertine base. The table has a substantial oval glass
Travertine, Brass
Magnussen Ponte Mactan Stone Coffee or Fossil Stone Table, 1980s
Located in Oud Beijerland, NL
Lovely Postmodern 1980s design, coffee or side table by Magnussen Ponte. The base of this cute
Travertine
Nuvole Coffee Table Saporiti Postmodern, 1980s
By Maurizio Salvato, Saporiti
Located in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Novel coffee table designed by Maurizio Salvato in 1983. Produced by Saporiti Italia. Rounded
Aluminum
1980's Postmodern Waterfall Glass Coffee Table
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Glass coffee table with a waterfall edge and plaster ball. Origin: USA circa 1980’s. In excellent
Glass, Plaster
Sold|$1,114
Postmodern Coffee Table in Glass, 1980s
Located in Ixelles, Bruxelles
Postmodern Coffee Table in Glass, 1980s Design Period - Eighties Measurements - Width 90 cm x Depth
Metal
1980s Postmodern Lacquered Swiveling Coffee Table
Located in Houston, TX
Epic postmodern lacquered swiveling teardrop-shaped coffee table, c.1980s. Nothing screams “80s
Wood, Lacquer
Postmodern Sculptural Coffee Table, Black Faux Marble and Glass, 1980s
Located in Zagreb, HR
Postmodern clear glass coffee table from the 1980s Beautiful contemporary reinterpretation of
Cast Stone
Postmodern Asymmetrical Waterfall Table, 1980s
Located in Philadelphia, PA
- Postmodern bent glass waterfall coffee table on curved wood base, circa 1980s - Condition: Excellent
Glass, Wood
Vintage Postmodern Goatskin Coffee Table with Zig-Zag Legs, 1980s
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Vintage coffee or cocktail table with deco-style zig-zag legs on a waterfall style body. Covered in
Goatskin, Wood
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
CHARACTERISTICS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW
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.
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 — shop Art Deco coffee tables, travertine coffee tables and other antique and vintage coffee tables and cocktail tables today.