Retro Cracked Ice Table And Chairs

Like so many artists and designers, husband and wife John McGuire (1920–2013) and Elinor Stevenson (1914–2005) became masters in their trade by accident. For the founders of McGuire Furniture Company, well, furniture wasn’t actually in the plans.

The couple met just before the start of World War II (during which John was in the U.S. Navy and Elinor was a navigation instructor) and got married after it ended. They settled down in San Francisco where John held a couple of jobs — among them selling newspaper ads for the San Francisco Examiner while Elinor worked for Boeing Aircraft. Soon, an old Navy buddy of John’s asked him to help sell a bunch of rattan furniture and, needing the money, John agreed. His side business became so successful that John decided to quit his ad-sales job and work full-time in design.

In 1948, McGuire Furniture Company was born. Alongside the mid-century modern furniture designs then gaining popularity in the United States, John introduced an unconventional idea: traditional armchairs, stools and tables made of natural materials such as bamboo, which was strong yet could be rendered pliable when steamed, that were intended for the indoors rather than the front porch.

The brand’s first success was the now famous Director’s X-Chair by Leonard Linden. The military-campaign-style solid oak folding chair launched in 1956 and saw rattan binded with rawhide strips and a high-grade leather slug seat and back that eliminated the need for a plush cushion. Elinor, too, designed some of the brand’s popular pieces, such as 1968’s Cracked Ice chair. With its rattan oval back a dazzling celebration of geometric forms that give it its charming moniker, the Cracked Ice chair was an instant classic and is one of the brand’s most recognizable designs.

Today, McGuire and another American furniture manufacturer, Baker Furniture Company, comprise Baker Interiors Group. McGuire remains true to the founders’ ideals and commitment to crafting the kind of organic modern furnishings that are synonymous with the warm and relaxed feel of California design. The company has collaborated with interior designers Steven Volpe, Orlando Diaz-Azcuy and Nicole Hollis, and, as of 2019, its luxury furnishings share a 16,500-square-foot showroom with Baker’s in San Francisco. Some of the earliest McGuire Furniture Company designs are part of the permanent collection at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City.

Find a range of McGuire Furniture on 1stDibs.

Bamboo — the reed-like, woody grass revered the world over for its attractiveness, durability and unbeatable versatility — has a purity and elegance that Ming Dynasty dignitaries, European royals and workaday folks alike have appreciated for centuries. Antique and vintage bamboo furniture can help introduce an air of relaxation in any space, and pairs well with chinoiserie decor and a range of porcelain decorative objects.

So why is bamboo — in its many forms — so enduringly popular? The grass itself is classic-looking and pleasingly geometric, and it evokes a subtle exoticism that’s both glamorous and (due in large part to its sustainability) highly attainable.

Bamboo is harder than mahogany. It’s a rigid and hollow reed, and as such it is not rattan, which is dense, steamable and bendable, and has become its own ultimate decorative-arts chameleon over the years. But like rattan, bamboo is an organic material that provides a link to nature, helping us to bring a bit of the outside in, in an elegant yet no-frills way that seems comforting and familiar. Plus, bamboo’s lightness and slight irregularities make it the perfect counterpoint to heavy-feeling interiors.

For organic modern interiors — or any space that would benefit from a dose of the natural world — a variety of vintage bamboo outdoor furniture, side tables, dining chairs and more can be found on 1stDibs.