Italian Post Modern Coffee Table
Vintage 1980s Italian Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Chrome
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Ta...
Plexiglass
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Breccia Marble, Belgian Black Marble
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Steel
Late 20th Century Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Breccia Marble
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Rattan, Glass
Mid-20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Bamboo, Rattan, Glass
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Metal, Brass
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Stainless Steel
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Steel
1990s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Steel
Vintage 1980s Italian Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Oak, Glass
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Wood
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble
20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Brass
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Crystal
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Metal, Chrome
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Glass, Laminate
20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Travertine, Carrara Marble
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Polystyrene
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Metal
Vintage 1960s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Wood
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble, Carrara Marble
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Travertine, Marble
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Ta...
Brass
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Birdseye Maple
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Side Tables
Travertine
20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble, Travertine
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Side Tables
Travertine
2010s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Carrara Marble, Brass
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Glass, Wood
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Steel
1990s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Carrara Marble
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Wood
2010s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Steel
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Steel
2010s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble
2010s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble
Mid-20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Lacquer
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Brass, Chrome
20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Travertine, Marble
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Side Tables
Travertine
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Brass
2010s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble
2010s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Laminate, Hardwood
2010s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble
2010s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble, Brass
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Steel
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Carrara Marble
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Steel
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Ebony
2010s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Travertine
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Steel
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble
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Italian Post Modern Coffee Table For Sale on 1stDibs
How Much is an Italian Post Modern Coffee Table?
A Close Look at post-modern Furniture
Strictly speaking, postmodern design was a short-lived movement that manifested itself chiefly in Italy and the United States in the early 1980s. The characteristics of postmodern furniture and other postmodern objects included hot-colored, loud-patterned, usually plastic surfaces; strange proportions and weird angles; and a vague-at-best relationship between form and function.
Critics derided postmodern design as a grandstanding bid for attention and nothing of consequence. The fact that, decades later, postmodern design still has the power to provoke thoughts (along with other reactions) proves they were not entirely correct.
Postmodernism began as an architectural critique. Starting in the 1960s, a small cadre of mainly American architects began to argue that modernism, once high-minded and even noble in its goals, had become stale, stagnant and blandly corporate. In the next decade in Milan, a cohort of designers led by Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini brought the discussion to bear on design.
Sottsass and Michele de Lucchi, in 1980, gathered a core group of young designers, which would come to include Michael Graves, Marco Zanini, Shiro Kuramata and Matteo Thun, into a design collective they called Memphis. The Memphis Group saw design as a means of communication and they wanted it to shout. That it did: the first Memphis collection appeared in 1981 and broke all the modernist taboos, embracing irony, kitsch, wild ornamentation and bad taste.
Memphis works remain icons of postmodernism: the Sottsass Casablanca bookcase, with its leopard-print plastic veneer; de Lucchi’s First chair, which has been described as having the look of an electronics component; Martine Bedin’s Super lamp: a pull-toy puppy on a power cord leash. After the initial Memphis show caused an uproar, postmodern design quickly took off in America. The architect Robert Venturi had already begun a series of plywood chairs for Knoll Inc. with beefy, exaggerated silhouettes of traditional styles such as Queen Anne and Chippendale. In 1982, the new firm Swid Powell enlisted a group of top American architects, including Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Stanley Tigerman and Venturi to create postmodern tableware in silver, ceramic and glass.
On 1stDibs, the collection of postmodern furniture includes seating, decorative objects, lighting fixtures and more.
Finding the Right Coffee and Cocktail Tables for You
As a practical centerpiece to your living area, antique and vintage coffee and cocktail tables are an invaluable addition to any interior.
Low tables that were initially used as tea 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 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 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 style on 1stDibs. Browse a vast selection of antique, new and vintage coffee and cocktail tables today.