Gunni Omann Highboard

Gunni Omann built a reputation for having created a range of alluring credenzas, desks and other furnishings during the postwar years, and his fans reportedly included the likes of legendary designer and woodworker Hans Wegner. Serving as the main designer in his father’s company, Omann Jun Møbelfabrik A/S, Gunni is known to enthusiasts of Scandinavian modernism for iconic works such as the Model 75 executive desk in 1958 and the gorgeous Model 18 sideboard in 1960.

Founded in 1933 by Andreas Omann in Ølholm, Denmark, the family-run business produced and exported teak, oak and rosewood furniture worldwide between the 1950s and the 1970s. Next door to Omann Jun Møbelfabrik A/S, Andreas’s father owned and operated Ølholm Møbelfabrik, which was later run by Andreas’s brother Sigfred Omann and collaborated with forward-thinking modernist designers such as Arne Vodder. 

Gunni Omann took over Omann Jun Møbelfabrik A/S in 1979 with his younger brother Bjarne, and by then, Ølholm Møbelfabrik and Omann Jun Møbelfabrik were part of one company. Omann continued to design until 1989 when health complications forced the sale of his shares in the brand. 

The company remains in the family and as of 2005, Ulrich Omann has taken leadership and directed their focus toward office furniture. (That said, Omann Jun Møbelfabrik began reproducing many of Gunni’s vintage designs in 2016 for a new market, including the popular Model 18 case piece.)

Outside of the family business, Gunni Omann worked with Axel Christiansen Odder/ACO Møbler. Still, regardless of who Omann designed for, each piece of furniture places the natural beauty of the wood grains at the forefront of its design. 

On 1stDibs, find a collection of vintage Gunni Omann tables, seating and storage cabinets.

Once simply boards made of wood that were used to support ceremonial dining, sideboards have taken on much greater importance since their modest first appearance. In Italy, the sideboard was basically a credenza, a solid furnishing with cabinet doors. It was initially intended as an integral piece of any dining room where the wealthy gathered for meals in the southern European country.

Later, in England and France, sideboards retained their utilitarian purpose — a place to keep hot water for rinsing silverware and from which to serve cold drinking water — but would evolve into double-bodied structures that allowed for the display of serveware and utensils on open shelves. We would likely call these buffets, as they’re taller than a sideboard. (Trust us — there is an order to all of this!)

The sideboard is often deemed a buffet in the United States, from the French buffet à deux corps, which referred to a storage and display case. However, a buffet technically possesses a tiered or shelved superstructure for displaying attractive kitchenware and certainly makes more sense in the context of buffet dining — abundant meals served for crowds of people.

An antique or vintage sideboard today is a sophisticated and stylish component in sumptuous dining rooms of every shape, size and decor scheme, as well as a statement of its own, showcased in art galleries and museums. Furniture maker and artist Paul Evans, whose work has been the subject of various celebrated museum exhibitions, created ornamented, welded and patinated sideboards for Directional Furniture, collections such as the Cityscape series that speak to his place in revolutionary brutalist furniture design as much as they echo the origins of these sturdy, functional structures centuries ago.

If mid-century modern sideboards are more to your liking than an 18th-century mahogany sideboard with decorative inlays by Hepplewhite, the particularly elegant pieces crafted by designers Hans Wegner, Edward Wormley or Florence Knoll are often sought by today’s collectors.

Whether you have a specific era or style in mind or you’re open to browsing a vast collection to find the right fit, 1stDibs has a variety of antique, new and vintage sideboards to choose from.