Scriba Chair
21st Century and Contemporary Mexican Modern Dining Room Chairs
Leather, Oak
21st Century and Contemporary Mexican Modern Dining Room Chairs
Leather, Oak
21st Century and Contemporary Mexican Modern Dining Room Chairs
Leather, Oak
People Also Browsed
21st Century and Contemporary American Industrial Chandeliers and Pendants
Milk Glass
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Mid-Century Modern Chandeliers and...
Brass
21st Century and Contemporary French Mid-Century Modern Wall Lights and ...
Metal, Aluminum
21st Century and Contemporary Russian Brutalist Benches
Oak
2010s Danish Modern Chandeliers and Pendants
Aluminum, Brass
2010s Scandinavian Modern Chandeliers and Pendants
Brass, Bronze
2010s American Modern Dressers
Brass
2010s British Lounge Chairs
Oak, Sheepskin
21st Century and Contemporary Canadian Modern Side Tables
Stone, Marble
21st Century and Contemporary Danish Mid-Century Modern Wall Mirrors
Brass
21st Century and Contemporary Finnish Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
Brass, Metal
2010s American Organic Modern Side Tables
Pine, Wood
Vintage 1950s Danish Scandinavian Modern Lounge Chairs
Wool, Oak
2010s American Modern Wall Lights and Sconces
Brass
2010s American Modern Wall Lights and Sconces
Brass, Steel
2010s Turkish Night Stands
Wood, Paint
Recent Sales
Early 2000s Italian Modern Desks
Oak
A Close Look at modern Furniture
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 The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics.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.