Raka Studio On Sale

At first glance, the beguiling furniture creations of Raka Studio look like optical illusions. A joint project of three brothers — Saleh, Waleed and Rayan Ahmed Salman — this exciting modern Pakistan-based company marches to the beat of its own drum. Its one-of-a-kind coffee tables, floor lamps and sofas serve as functional pieces of furniture and sculptural works of art.

Raka Studio was established in 2018 after the self-taught brothers produced their first pieces for the family home. The driving force behind all of their visually stunning designs is a love of nature and natural variance. Each piece is made entirely by hand, usually from ash wood imported from the United States, and can take weeks to complete.

In the studio, furniture is curved using ancient Japanese wood-bending techniques, giving the pieces an organic fluidity. The goal is to disrupt prevalent design trends while prioritizing quality craftsmanship. “This approach to our work helps us create distinct pieces that are also technically and aesthetically intriguing,” the brothers explained to StyleRow.

These unique designs have earned Raka Studio critical acclaim and partnerships in the United States and the United Kingdom. The brothers have exhibited at galleries and completed commissions for hotels. 

Since its establishment, the studio has grown to include not just the brothers but a team of skilled craftsmen, with plans to introduce new materials and techniques over time. At Raka Studio, it’s all about pushing the limits of design.

On 1stDibs, find Raka Studio tables, lighting, seating 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 The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics.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, new and vintage bentwood furniture has become very popular in interiors over the years. Today bentwood chairs, tables, sofas and pendants are receiving striking modern interpretations from makers like Thonet, which are being carried on by the next generation.

Bentwood furniture dates as far back as the Middle Ages, but it is the 19th-century German-Austrian cabinetmaker Michael Thonet who is most often associated with this now-classic technique. Thonet in 1856 patented a method for bending solid wood through the use of steam, and from there the bentwood look skyrocketed to furniture fame. Bentwood was embraced by design greats ranging from Josef Hoffmann to Gio Ponti, and Adolf Loos to Alvar Aalto for its versatility, timelessness and simple elegance.

In the Czech Republic — home to a range of talented but unsung mid-century modern and Art Deco designers — the company TON held a bentwood furniture exhibition in Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Villa Tugendhat in recent years. TON manufactures their bentwood furniture in the same workshops where Michael Thonet set up his operations in the 1800s.

Sophisticated bentwood furniture designs include Alvar Aalto’s cantilever lounge chairs, Italian designer Luigi Crassevig’s 1970s rocking chairs — which feature cane seats — curvaceous hanging lamps and other lighting by Spanish architect José Antonio Coderch and lots more.

Find a collection of antique, new and vintage bentwood furniture on 1stDibs.