1980s Postmodern Furniture
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Sofas
Oak, Fabric, Foam
20th Century American Modern Paperweights
Glass
Late 20th Century American Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Steel
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Chandeliers and Pendants
Metal, Chrome
Mid-20th Century Post-Modern Night Stands
Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Console Tables
Burl
20th Century American Post-Modern Vases
Terracotta
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Platters and Serveware
Metal
20th Century American Stools
Leather, Wood
Vintage 1980s Japanese Post-Modern Wall Clocks
Plastic
20th Century Italian Post-Modern Table Lamps
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Iron
Vintage 1980s Post-Modern Sofas
Velvet
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Club Chairs
Suede
20th Century American Space Age Table Lamps
Metal
20th Century Italian Post-Modern Bookends
Marble
20th Century Italian Post-Modern Serving Pieces
Acrylic
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Floor Lamps
Metal
20th Century American Post-Modern Vases
Stainless Steel
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Club Chairs
Fabric, Wood
Vintage 1980s Danish Post-Modern Chairs
Plywood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Armchairs
Velvet
20th Century American Post-Modern Decorative Boxes
Ceramic
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Floor Lamps
Metal
20th Century American Post-Modern Console Tables
Cherry, Mahogany
Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Glass, Plaster
Vintage 1980s Belgian Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Metal
20th Century European Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Stone
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Sofas
Upholstery
Vintage 1980s Slovenian Post-Modern Table Lamps
Metal
Vintage 1980s Post-Modern Table Lamps
Plaster
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Leather, Wood
Late 20th Century Post-Modern Paintings
Canvas
Vintage 1980s Post-Modern Credenzas
Wood, Lacquer
Late 20th Century North American Post-Modern Vases
Aluminum
Vintage 1980s German Post-Modern Table Clocks and Desk Clocks
Plastic
Vintage 1980s Japanese Post-Modern Barware
Plastic, Lacquer
Late 20th Century American Post-Modern Console Tables
Wood, Laminate
Vintage 1980s Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Leather
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Dining Room Tables
Oak
Vintage 1980s Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Cotton, Wood
Vintage 1980s Italian Hollywood Regency Dining Room Chairs
Wood
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Shelves
Metal, Chrome
20th Century Italian Post-Modern Armchairs
Leather, Fabric
Vintage 1980s Scandinavian Post-Modern Table Lamps
Plexiglass
Vintage 1980s French Post-Modern Armchairs
Suede, Beech
Vintage 1980s European Post-Modern Chairs
Metal
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Benches
Mirror
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Sofas
Metal
Vintage 1980s North American Post-Modern Dining Room Tables
Marble
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Sofas
Leather, Plywood
20th Century American Post-Modern Table Lamps
Ceramic
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Chaise Longues
Metal
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Console Tables
Formica, Wood
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Dressers
Lacquer
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Armchairs
PVC
Vintage 1980s Serbian Post-Modern Wall Clocks
Wood
Vintage 1980s Unknown Post-Modern Stools
Steel
Vintage 1980s American Post-Modern Stools
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Candlesticks
Silver Plate
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1980s Postmodern Furniture For Sale on 1stDibs
How Much is a 1980s Postmodern Furniture?
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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