Monster Stools

The creative force behind some of the most inventive furniture and interiors of the past 30 years, the Amsterdam-based Marcel Wanders continues to take his work in new directions.

Wanders, who launched his design career in 1994 as cofounder, with Renny Ramakers and Gijs Bakker, of Droog, has since built an international brand of his own, Marcel Wanders, embodying his sense that design should be playful, romantic, verging on surreal and — when there’s a choice between the two — over- rather than understated. Moooi, a furniture brand he cofounded with Revised’s Casper Vissers, was established in 2001.

Wanders's style might best be defined as contemporary Rococo. Individual pieces that have reached design icon status include his Knotted chair (1995–96), an international breakthrough for Wanders that he made of aramid-fiber cord for Cappellini; his Skygarden pendant lamp for FLOS (2007); his monumental Calvin floor lamp (also 2007). Then there’s the Happy Hour chandelier (2005), created by Wanders with choreographer Nanine Linning, which is part a design object, part a performance in which a “dancing angel” hangs from the center of the fixture, serving little spoons of chocolate mousse and champagne flutes to the people below.

Wanders’s studio collaborations include creating bespoke hides with leather artisans from Bill Amberg Studio and designing crystal game boards for Maison Baccarat, in addition to the handcrafted Nightbloom lamps for Lladró. Wanders is also known for designing what might be called experiential spaces — interiors imbued with his design ethos, as in the eclectic and theatrical Mondrian South Beach hotel, in Miami (2008), and the Andaz Amsterdam Prinsengracht hotel (2012).

Find a collection of authentic Marcel Wanders sofas, chairs, tables and other furniture on 1stDibs.

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.

Stools are versatile and a necessary addition to any living room, kitchen area or elsewhere in your home. A sofa or reliable lounge chair might nab all the credit, comfort-wise, but don’t discount the roles that good antique, new and vintage stools can play.

“Stools are jewels and statements in a space, and they can also be investment pieces,” says New York City designer Amy Lau, who adds that these seats provide an excellent choice for setting an interior’s general tone. 

Stools, which are among the oldest forms of wooden furnishings, may also serve as decorative pieces, even if we’re talking about a stool that is far less sculptural than the gracefully curving molded plywood shells that make up Sōri Yanagi’s provocative Butterfly stool. 

Fawn Galli, a New York interior designer, uses her stools in the same way you would use a throw pillow. “I normally buy several styles and move them around the home where needed,” she says.

Stools are smaller pieces of seating as compared to armchairs or dining chairs and can add depth as well as functionality to a space that you’ve set aside for entertaining. For a splash of color, consider the Stool 60, a pioneering work of bentwood by Finnish architect and furniture maker Alvar Aalto. It’s manufactured by Artek and comes in a variety of colored seats and finishes.

Barstools that date back to the 1970s are now more ubiquitous in kitchens. Vintage barstools have seen renewed interest, be they a meld of chrome and leather or transparent plastic, such as the Lucite and stainless-steel counter stool variety from Indiana-born furniture designer Charles Hollis Jones, who is renowned for his acrylic works. A cluster of barstools — perhaps a set of four brushed-aluminum counter stools by Emeco or Tubby Tube stools by Faye Toogood — can encourage merriment in the kitchen. If you’ve got the room for family and friends to congregate and enjoy cocktails where the cooking is done, consider matching your stools with a tall table.

Whether you need counter stools, drafting stools or another kind, explore an extensive range of antique, new and vintage stools on 1stDibs.