Alphaville Honed Brass Cocktail Table

Potter-turned-home-design guru Jonathan Adler is a man with a peripatetic mind, inspired in equal parts, it seems, by classic modern design, Surrealism and pop culture.

Although his namesake company has expanded into a mini empire touching just about every aspect of modern living — chairs and ice buckets, wallpaper and menorahs, chandeliers and rugs — made in myriad materials, Adler still creates almost every object in clay first. His guiding principle is a simple one: “I make the stuff I want to surround myself with, and I surround myself with it.”

Adler grew up in a New Jersey farm town. His grandfather became a local judge, and his father returned home after graduating from the University of Chicago. “My pop was a brilliantly talented artist. At one point, he had to decide whether to become an artist or a —,” he pauses, searching for the right word, “person.” His father became a lawyer but spent all his free time in his studio, “making art, unencumbered by the need to make money from it. It was a totally pure pursuit.” Adler’s mother, who had worked at Vogue and moved to the rural town reluctantly, was also creative, and both parents encouraged their three children’s creativity.

When he was 12, Adler went to sleepaway camp, where he threw his first pot. “And it was on,” he says. His parents bought him a pottery wheel, and he spent the remainder of his adolescence elbow-deep in clay. Even while majoring in semiotics and art history at Brown University, he hung out at the nearby Rhode Island School of Design, making pots.

Adler moved to New York City, worked briefly in entertainment, and in 1993 returned to his true love, throwing pots (in exchange for teaching classes) at a Manhattan studio called Mud Sweat & Tears. One day, at Balducci’s food market, he ran into Bill Sofield, an old friend who had recently cofounded, with Thomas O’Brien, the now-legendary Aero Studios, a design firm and shop. Sofield paid a studio visit and promptly gave him an order. Then, another friend introduced Adler to a buyer at Barneys New York, who also wrote an order.

For about three years after Adler began devoting himself to ceramics full-time. Despite the street cred of both Aero and Barneys, he also wasn’t really making enough money to live on. Then, in 1997, he teamed with Aid to Artisans, a nonprofit aimed at creating economic opportunity for skilled artisans in developing countries, and traveled to Peru to hire potters who could follow his designs, thus increasing production.

Adler’s first store opened in 1998, in the Soho shopping mecca in Manhattan. He now operates about two dozen shops, as far-flung as London and Bangkok. During Adler’s trip to Peru, he connected not only with potters but also with several talented weavers and decided to branch out into textiles. Other categories followed, leading him to travel the world in search of artisans who could execute his endless supply of ideas. In India, Adler found a man who’s expert at beadwork; he has his limed furniture made in Indonesia, his honey-colored wood pieces in Vietnam.

After a friend asked him to decorate her house, Adler expanded to interior design, taking on hotels as well as private residences — projects for which he remains “agnostic,” using pieces by other designers. “I really try to get to know my clients and then make them seem more glamorous and more eccentric than they think,” he says. “I see myself as a slimming mirror for them.”

Find Jonathan Adler seating, case pieces, decorative objects and other furniture on 1stDibs.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”

Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.

Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — crafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.

Whether burnished or lacquered, antique, new and vintage brass furniture can elevate a room.

From traditional spaces that use brass as an accent — by way of brass dining chairs or brass pendant lights — to contemporary rooms that embrace bold brass decor, there are many ways to incorporate the golden-hued metal.

“I find mixed metals to be a very updated approach, as opposed to the old days, when it was all shiny brass of dulled-out silver tones,” says interior designer Drew McGukin. “I especially love working with brass and blackened steel for added warmth and tonality. To me, aged brass is complementary across many design styles and can trend contemporary or traditional when pushed either way.”

He proves his point in a San Francisco entryway, where a Lindsey Adelman light fixture hangs above a limited-edition table and stools by Kelly Wearstler — also an enthusiast of juxtapositions — all providing bronze accents. The walls were hand-painted by artist Caroline Lizarraga and the ombré stair runner is by DMc.

West Coast designer Catherine Kwong chose a sleek brass and lacquered-parchment credenza by Scala Luxury to fit this San Francisco apartment. “The design of this sideboard is reminiscent of work by French modernist Jean Prouvé. The brass font imbues the space with warmth and the round ‘portholes’ provide an arresting geometric element.”

Find antique, new and vintage brass tables, case pieces and other furnishings now on 1stDibs.

The right vintage, new or antique tables can help make any space in your home stand out.

Over the years, the variety of tables available to us, as well as our specific needs for said tables, has broadened. Today, with all manner of these must-have furnishings differing in shape, material and style, any dining room table can shine just as brightly as the guests who gather around it.

Remember, when shopping for a dining table, it must fit your dining area, and you need to account for space around the table too — think outside the box, as an oval dining table may work for tighter spaces. Alternatively, if you’ve got the room, a Regency-style dining table can elevate any formal occasion at mealtime.

Innovative furniture makers and designers have also redefined what a table can be. Whether it’s an unconventional Ping-Pong table, a brass side table to display your treasured collectibles or a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk to add an air of nostalgia to your loft, your table can say a lot about you.

The visionary work of French designer Xavier Lavergne, for example, includes tables that draw on the forms of celestial bodies as often as they do aquatic creatures or fossils. Elsewhere, Italian architect Gae Aulenti, who looked to Roman architecture in crafting her stately Jumbo coffee table, created clever glass-topped mobile coffee tables that move on bicycle tires or sculpted wood wheels for Fontana Arte. 

Coffee and cocktail tables can serve as a room’s centerpiece with attention-grabbing details and colors. Glass varieties will keep your hardwood flooring and dazzling area rugs on display, while a marble or stone coffee table in a modern interior can showcase your prized art books and decorative objects. A unique vintage desk or writing table can bring sophistication and even a bit of spice to your work life. 

No matter your desired form or function, a quality table for your living space is a sound investment. On 1stDibs, browse a collection of vintage, new and antique bedside tables, mid-century end tables and more .