Ara Driade

Italian furniture brand Driade offers modern designs that are joyful, whimsical and slightly mischievous — words that might be used to describe the tree nymph of Greek mythology for which the company is named. Faye Toogood’s chunky, stout Roly Poly armchair and Fabio Novembre’s enigmatic Nemo chair — in which a backrest assumes the form of a human face — are just two examples of Driade’s eclectic furnishings.

Driade was founded in 1968 by brother and sister Enrico and Antonia Astori, and Adelaide Acerbi Astori, Enrico’s wife. Described by the company as a “factory of art,” Driade was focused solely on bringing distinctive and creative seating, case pieces and decorative objects to market in its early years. The brand sought to mass-produce decor and furniture that could also be seen as provocative works of art.

Driade's initial collaborations included Italian designers such as Enzo Mari, Nanda Vigo, Giotto Stoppino and Rodolfo Bonetto, to name a few. In the 1980s, the brand worked with influential and renowned designers from around the globe. In 1984, Driade partnered with French designer Philippe Starck and debuted his iconic Costes armchair during the same year. Projects with architects and furniture designers such as Ron Arad, Toyo Ito, Borek Sipek, Patricia Urquiola and others followed into the 2000s.

Over more than five decades — the company celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2018 — Driade’s fruitful partnerships have culminated in a vast catalog of chairs, sofas, coffee tables and other furnishings for the home and garden that evoke a unique and diverse blend of cultures.

Driade has also garnered international acclaim, winning the Compasso d’Oro award in 1979 and 2001 for Enzo Mari’s Delfira chair and ebony-finished, chipboard-top table, and again in 2008 for Ron Arad’s MT3 rocking armchair.

On 1stDibs, discover a range of vintage and contemporary Driade tables, cabinets, armchairs and other furniture.

Organically shaped, clean-lined and elegantly simple are three terms that well describe vintage mid-century modern furniture. The style, which emerged primarily in the years following World War II, is characterized by pieces that were conceived and made in an energetic, optimistic spirit by creators who believed that good design was an essential part of good living.

ORIGINS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN

• Emerged during the mid-20th century 
• Informed by European modernism, Bauhaus, International style, Scandinavian modernism and Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture
• A heyday of innovation in postwar America 
• Experimentation with new ideas, new materials and new forms flourished in Scandinavia, Italy, the former Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in Europe

CHARACTERISTICS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN

• Simplicity, organic forms, clean lines  
• A blend of neutral and bold Pop art colors 
• Use of natural and man-made materials — alluring woods such as teak, rosewood and oak; steel, fiberglass and molded plywood 
• Light-filled spaces with colorful upholstery 
• Glass walls and an emphasis on the outdoors 
• Promotion of functionality

MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW

• Charles and Ray Eames
• Eero Saarinen
• Milo Baughman
• Florence Knoll
• Harry Bertoia 
• Isamu Noguchi 
• George Nelson 
• Danish modernists Hans Wegner and Arne Jacobsen, whose emphasis on natural materials and craftsmanship influenced American designers and vice versa

ICONIC MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNS

• Eames lounge chair
• Nelson daybed
• Florence Knoll sofa
• Egg chair
• Womb chair
• Noguchi coffee table
• Barcelona chair

VINTAGE MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS

The mid-century modern era saw leagues of postwar American architects and designers animated by new ideas and new technology. The lean, functionalist International-style architecture of Le Corbusier and Bauhaus eminences Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius had been promoted in the United States during the 1930s by Philip Johnson and others. New building techniques, such as “post-and-beam” construction, allowed the International-style schemes to be realized on a small scale in open-plan houses with long walls of glass.

Materials developed for wartime use became available for domestic goods and were incorporated into mid-century modern furniture designs. Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen, who had experimented extensively with molded plywood, eagerly embraced fiberglass for pieces such as the La Chaise and the Womb chair, respectively. 

Architect, writer and designer George Nelson created with his team shades for the Bubble lamp using a new translucent polymer skin and, as design director at Herman Miller, recruited the Eameses, Alexander Girard and others for projects at the legendary Michigan furniture manufacturer. 

Harry Bertoia and Isamu Noguchi devised chairs and tables built of wire mesh and wire struts. Materials were repurposed too: The Danish-born designer Jens Risom created a line of chairs using surplus parachute straps for webbed seats and backrests.

The Risom lounge chair was among the first pieces of furniture commissioned and produced by celebrated manufacturer Knoll, a chief influencer in the rise of modern design in the United States, thanks to the work of Florence Knoll, the pioneering architect and designer who made the firm a leader in its field. The seating that Knoll created for office spaces — as well as pieces designed by Florence initially for commercial clients — soon became desirable for the home.

As the demand for casual, uncluttered furnishings grew, more mid-century furniture designers caught the spirit.

Classically oriented creators such as Edward Wormley, house designer for Dunbar Inc., offered such pieces as the sinuous Listen to Me chaise; the British expatriate T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings switched gears, creating items such as the tiered, biomorphic Mesa table. There were Young Turks such as Paul McCobb, who designed holistic groups of sleek, blond wood furniture, and Milo Baughman, who espoused a West Coast aesthetic in minimalist teak dining tables and lushly upholstered chairs and sofas with angular steel frames.

Generations turn over, and mid-century modern remains arguably the most popular style going. As the collection of vintage mid-century modern chairs, dressers, coffee tables and other furniture for the living room, dining room, bedroom and elsewhere on 1stDibs demonstrates, this period saw one of the most delightful and dramatic flowerings of creativity in design history.