The Cassetti brand was born in 1926 from the creativity and entrepreneurial mind of Renzo Cassetti, a disciple of the valuable tradition introduced by Benvenuto Cellini of Florentine master engravers, goldsmiths and silversmiths. Renzo, the typical artist, only signed unique pieces, some of which became of historical relevance, like those you can still find in the Vaticano decor. In his workshop, close to the Ponte Vecchio, many famous personalities used to pass by wishing to be able to buy a one of a kind piece handmade by some of the best silversmiths of the time working alongside him. In the 50’s Maria Grazia, daughter of Renzo, makes her way in the company, bringing along her feminine touch and eccentricity. Soon after, the first pieces in Silver with Crystal and Silver with Porcelain were made, an authentic innovation for the market. The small workshop wasn’t enough anymore, so they had to move to San Gaggio, just outside of the historical city walls, on Viale dei Colli, where we could hold our rapidly growing enterprise. It was under the attentive guide of Andrea and Maria Grazia that we had our industrial consecration. They introduced modern technologies and strategies, always keeping in mind the taste for Florentine craftsmanship.

A Close Look at post-modern Furniture

Postmodern design was a short-lived movement that manifested itself chiefly in Italy and the United States in the early 1980s. The characteristics of vintage postmodern furniture and other postmodern objects and decor for the home included loud-patterned, usually plastic surfaces; strange proportions, vibrant colors and weird angles; and a vague-at-best relationship between form and function.

ORIGINS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN

Emerges during the 1960s; popularity explodes during the ’80s
A reaction to prevailing conventions of modernism by mainly American architects
Architect Robert Venturi critiques modern architecture in his Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966)
Theorist Charles Jencks, who championed architecture filled with allusions and cultural references, writes The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977)
Italian design collective the Memphis Group, also known as Memphis Milano, meets for the first time (1980)
Memphis collective debuts more than 50 objects and furnishings at Salone del Milano (1981)
Interest in style declines, minimalism gains steam

CHARACTERISTICS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN

Dizzying graphic patterns and an emphasis on loud, off-the-wall colors
Use of plastic and laminates, glass, metal and marble; lacquered and painted wood
Unconventional proportions and abundant ornamentation
Playful nods to Art Deco and Pop art

POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW

VINTAGE POSTMODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS

Critics derided postmodern design as a grandstanding bid for attention and nothing of consequence. Decades later, the fact that postmodernism still has the power to provoke thoughts, along with other reactions, proves they were not entirely correct.

Postmodern design 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. Later, in Milan, a cohort of creators led by Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini — a onetime mentor to Sottsass and a key figure in the Italian Radical movement — brought the discussion to bear on design.

Sottsass, an industrial designer, philosopher and provocateur, gathered a core group of young designers into a collective in 1980 they called Memphis. Members of the Memphis Group, which would come to include Martine Bedin, Michael Graves, Marco Zanini, Shiro Kuramata, Michele de Lucchi and Matteo Thun, saw design as a means of communication, and they wanted it to shout. That it did: The first Memphis collection appeared in 1981 in Milan 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. Even though it preceded the Memphis Group’s formal launch, Sottsass’s iconic Ultrafragola mirror — in its conspicuously curved plastic shell with radical pops of pink neon — proves striking in any space and embodies many of the collective’s postmodern ideals.

After the initial Memphis show caused an uproar, the postmodern movement within furniture and interior design quickly took off in America. (Memphis fell out of fashion when the Reagan era gave way to cool 1990’s minimalism.) The architect Robert Venturi had by then 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 vintage postmodern furniture collection includes chairs, coffee tables, sofas, decorative objects, table lamps and more.

Finding the Right barware for You

Whether it’s streamlined or sophisticated, a bar area is always a welcoming feature in any home interior. A cheery well-made drink with friends and family has the potential to yield some unforgettable moments alongside those that aren’t easily remembered. And the only way to conjure that exemplary cordial is by putting the proper antique, new or vintage barware to work.

Essential barware equipment ranges from sterling-silver barspoons for mixing your cocktails in tall collins glasses to jiggers, shakers and strainers that allow you to whip up martinis and old-fashioneds.

From a design standpoint, some barware, such as our array of Art Deco glass whiskey sets or mid-century modern silver-banded tumblers crafted by Dorothy Thorpe, can help position your bar as a bold and attractive centerpiece to a room. At the very least, a carefully curated collection of barware can elevate with subtlety the bar’s nearby fixtures, as a handcrafted crystal decanter might do for your vintage 1960s bar cart.

As cocktail hour draws near, find inspiration in our gorgeous gallery of home bars in locales ranging from London to New York to San Francisco, and browse the exquisite selection of antique, new and vintage barware and glassware on 1stDibs.