Chiado Console

The Greenapple furniture company creates captivating pieces using novel forms, colors and materials inspired by modern and Art Deco styles. Its unique 21st-century furniture combines luxury and an uncommon eye for design. Greenapple creates high-end furniture for homes, hotels and commercial spaces, with the tastes and needs of its clients considered in every step of the design process.

The furniture company was started in 2005, when Portuguese economists Rute Martins and Sérgio Rebola teamed up with the idea of employing traditional Portuguese craftsmanship to create beautiful bespoke furniture and decor.

Over time, Greenapple grew to a team of 30 craftspeople, all bringing their individual skills to each new design. A master woodworker, upholsterer and finishing specialist lead the team, with their work also passing down this expertise to the next generation of creators.

Greenapple challenges the uniformity of mass-produced furniture, such as in its playful forms for velvet-upholstered seating and wall mirrors that involve eclectic materials like green onyx, gold leaf and marble. Whether infusing complexity into the structure of a side table or bringing a silhouette of simple elegance to a set of uncomplicated dining chairs, Greenapple incorporates bold concepts and fresh ideas into every piece.

Greenapple has showcased its work around the world, including in Shanghai in 2018 for an Associative Design business mission. The company has an international clientele, including collectors in Asia, North America and across Europe. 

On 1stDibs, explore the vibrant luxury of Portuguese master craftsmanship with Greenapple seating, tables, lighting, decorative objects and more.

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.

Few pieces of furniture are celebrated for their functionality as much as their decorative attributes in the way that console tables are. While these furnishings are not as common in today’s interiors as their coffee-table and side-table counterparts, console tables are stylish home accents and have become more prevalent over the years.

The popularity of wood console tables took shape during the 17th and 18th centuries in French and Italian culture, and were exclusively featured in the palatial homes of the upper class. The era’s outwardly sculptural examples of these small structures were paired with mirrors or matching stools and had tabletops of marble. They were most often half-moon-shaped and stood on two scrolled giltwood legs, and because they weren’t wholly supported on their two legs rather than the traditional four, their flat-backed supports were intended to hug the wall behind them and were commonly joined by an ornate stretcher. The legs were affixed or bolted to the wall with architectural brackets called console brackets — hence, the name we know them by today — which gave the impression that they were freestanding furnishings. While console tables introduced a dose of drama in the foyer of any given aristocrat — an embodiment of Rococo-style furniture — the table actually occupied minimal floor space (an attractive feature in home furniture). As demand grew and console tables made their way to other countries, they gained recognition as versatile additions to any home.

Contemporary console tables comprise many different materials and are characterized today by varying shapes and design styles. It is typical to find them made of marble, walnut or oak and metal. While modern console tables commonly feature four legs, you can still find the two-legged variety, which is ideal for nestling behind the sofa. A narrow console table is a practical option if you need to save space — having outgrown their origins as purely ornamental, today’s console tables are home to treasured decorative objects, help fill empty foyers and, outfitted with drawers or a shelf, can provide a modest amount of storage as needed.

The rich collection of antique, new and vintage console tables on 1stDibs includes everything from 19th-century gems designed in the Empire style to unique rattan pieces and more.