Brueton Waterfall Coffee Table

Initially known as Spanish Metal Arts — a supplier of fencing for stately homes on Long Island — the principals at New York furniture manufacturer Brueton were artistically minded from the start, ensuring that their furniture company would become a major player in the world of stylish, modern stainless steel-based design. The company’s sculptural glass-topped dining tables and vintage mid-century modern chrome-framed armchairs are welcome additions to any contemporary interior.

Brueton got its start with the Manufacturers Hanover Trust building in Manhattan. When award-winning architect Gordon Bunshaft of engineering firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) was designing what would become a modernist marvel in the 1950s — a structure that traded sleek glass facades for the stone columns typically associated with banks — SOM worked with Spanish Metal Arts’s Bruno Saudino and Tony Vitale to furnish the property.

For Bruno and Tony, it marked the start of the aptly named Brueton — the pair produced understated side tables and seating made of glass and aluminum for SOM’s project. Revolutionary for its time, instead of traditional narrow windows, the Manufacturers Hanover Trust building was practically transparent — allowing passers-by to see the vault from the outside. (Celebrated photographer Ezra Stoller, who chronicled iconic New York buildings like Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building and the soaring silhouette of Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal, shot the building in 1954.)

Much like the material associated with so many of its offerings, Brueton built a reputation of being a strong, dependable and polished manufacturer. The brand worked with designers such as J. Wade Beam, who created cylindrical tables of polished chrome and exquisite marble mirrors during the 1970s, as well as Massimo and Lella Vignelli, a pair of innovative polymaths who ​​left a profound mark on design and wider visual culture.

On 1stDibs, find vintage Brueton case pieces and storage cabinets, tables and seating on 1stDibs.

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. Browse a vast selection of antique, new and vintage coffee table and cocktail tables today.