Lea Dresser

Finding herself an outsider in the male-dominated furniture-making world, Kate Duncan carved out her own path. She creates modern heirloom-quality furniture not only with an eye for design but with a mind for inclusivity. Her gorgeous, solid wood dining tables, credenzas and bed frames showcase a mastery of traditional woodworking and a keen sense of contemporary trends.

Duncan was born and raised on Vancouver Island. She discovered woodworking in shop class in junior high school, where she fell in love with the craft. Speaking to Natural Habitat magazine, she recalled, "there were pictures of projects cut out from magazines on the walls, so it was a little like shopping for me. I realized that if I could make it, I could have it." She proceeded to take part in woodworking competitions on the weekend.

After earning her degree in education from the University of British Columbia, Duncan spent 10 years as a high school woodshop teacher. She returned to school for a master's degree in gender equitable programming from Royal Roads University, which she completed in 2009. Though intending to continue teaching, Duncan suffered a motorcycle accident shortly after. She opened a woodshop in Vancouver while rehabilitating and decided to shift to full-time woodworking in 2012.

Every piece of furniture created by Duncan is entirely made by hand with traditional methods like dovetail joinery. She uses only sustainably harvested North American hardwoods and draws much of her design inspiration from the brutalist movement of the 1970s and 80s. Her work is clean, bold and simple, but often features playful attributes like hidden drawers.

Shortly after establishing her studio, Duncan set her sights on offering an alternative to the region’s yearly trade show, which she felt lacked inclusivity. In 2014, she founded the Address Design Show to showcase the established and up-and-coming designers often sidelined at more mainstream shows. The Address Design Show has been held every year since.

In 2019, Duncan moved to Toronto, taking the show with her and partnering with the DesignTO Festival. She continues mentoring and hiring women in her workshop.

On 1stDibs, find Kate Duncan tables, case pieces, bedroom furniture 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.

Antique and vintage credenzas can add an understated touch of grace to your home. These long and sophisticated cabinet-style pieces of furniture can serve a variety of purposes, and they look great too.

In Italy, the credenza was originally a small side table used in religious services. Appropriately, credere in Italian means “to believe.” Credenzas were a place to not only set the food ready for meals, they were also a place to test and taste prepared food for poison before a dish was served to a member of the ruling class. Later, credenza was used to describe a type of versatile narrow side table, typically used for serving food in the home. In form, a credenza has much in common with a sideboard — in fact, the terms credenza and sideboard are used almost interchangeably today.

Credenzas usually have short legs or no legs at all, and can feature drawers and cabinets. And all kinds of iterations of the credenza have seen the light of day over the years, from ornately carved walnut credenzas originating in 16th-century Tuscany to the wealth of Art Deco credenzas — with their polished surfaces and geometric patterns — to the array of innovative modernist interpretations that American furniture maker Milo Baughman created for Directional and Thayer Coggin.

The credenza’s blend of style and functionality led to its widespread use in the 20th century. Mid-century modern credenzas are particularly popular — take a look at Danish furniture designer Arne Vodder’s classic Model 29, for instance, with its reversible sliding doors and elegant drawer pulls. Hans Wegner, another Danish modernist, produced strikingly minimalist credenzas in the 1950s and ’60s, as did influential designer Florence Knoll. Designers continue to explore new and exciting ways to update this long-loved furnishing.

Owing to its versatility and familiar low-profile form, the credenza remains popular in contemporary homes. Unlike many larger case pieces, credenzas can be placed under windows and in irregularly shaped rooms, such as foyers and entryways. This renders it a useful storage solution. In living rooms, for example, a credenza can be a sleek media console topped with plants and the rare art monographs you’ve been planning to show off. In homes with open floor plans, a credenza can help define multiple living spaces, making it ideal for loft apartments.

Browse a variety of antique, new and vintage credenzas on 1stDibs to find the perfect fit for your home today.