Sejour Lounge Chair

Iconic Danish furniture and lighting manufacturer Gubi was founded in Copenhagen by designer-couple Lisbeth and Gubi Olsen in 1967. The brand is celebrated globally for its innovative chairs, lighting fixtures, mirrors, sofas and other furnishings and decor. 

The company began as a platform to manufacture the textiles and furniture designed by Lisbeth and Gubi. Soon, the business model broadened. While recent contemporary pieces manufactured by Gubi such as GamFratesi’s Beetle chair have become darlings of today’s interiors, the company is also widely known as a leader in reissuing exquisite Scandinavian and other mid-century modern furniture by a range of design legends. 

Swedish architect and interior designer Greta Magnusson Grossman — the first woman to receive a prize for furniture design from the Swedish Society of Industrial Design — emigrated to the United States and built 14 homes in Los Angeles in the postwar era that were inspired by the Case Study Houses. She furnished these homes with her own designs, and her impossibly sleek Grasshopper table lamps and floor lamps — created for Barker Bros. but today made by Gubi — were frequent fixtures in the interiors. Another Scandinavian architect and industrial designer, Louis Weisdorf designed the wildly popular Multi-Lite line of lighting fixtures, which were originally created during the early 1970s and reissued by Gubi in 2016.

Beyond lighting, Spanish designer Barbara Corsini created the distinctively geometric Pedrera coffee table during the mid-1950s that is now made by Gubi, while the Hungarian-born French master of postwar design, Mathieu Matégot, created the Tropique dining table and an elegant three-legged Nagasaki chair, both of which were reissued by the Danish brand. French furniture designer Pierre Paulin created the inviting, organically shaped Pacha lounge chair in 1975. This design yielded a loveseat and a sofa as well. All of these pieces were reissued by Gubi.

Since 2001, Gubi founders’ son, Jacob Olsen, has managed the company, and travels the world to find heirs to the iconic designers of yesteryear in order to secure permission to give their works a second life. 

On 1stDibs, find Gubi lighting, seating, tables and more. 

As a practical focal point in your living area, antique and vintage coffee tables and cocktail tables are an invaluable addition to any interior.

Low tables that were initially used as tea tables or coffee tables have been around since at least the mid- to late-1800s. Early coffee tables surfaced in Victorian-era England, likely influenced by the use of tea tables in Japanese tea gardens. In the United States, furniture makers worked to introduce low, long tables into their offerings as the popularity of coffee and “coffee breaks” took hold during the late 19th century and early 20th century.

It didn’t take long for coffee tables and cocktail tables to become a design staple and for consumers to recognize their role in entertaining no matter what beverages were being served. Originally, these tables were as simple as they are practical — as high as your sofa and made primarily of wood. In recent years, however, metal, glass and plastics have become popular in coffee tables and cocktail tables, and design hasn’t been restricted to the conventional low profile, either.

Visionary craftspeople such as Paul Evans introduced bold, geometric designs that challenge the traditional idea of what a coffee table can be. The elongated rectangles and wide boxy forms of Evans’s desirable Cityscape coffee table, for example, will meet your needs but undoubtedly prove imposing in your living space.

If you’re shopping for an older coffee table to bring into your home — be it an antique Georgian-style coffee table made of mahogany or walnut with decorative inlays or a classic square mid-century modern piece comprised of rosewood designed by the likes of Ettore Sottsass — there are a few things you should keep in mind.

Both the table itself and what you put on it should align with the overall design of the room, not just by what you think looks fashionable in isolation. According to interior designer Tamara Eaton, the material of your vintage coffee table is something you need to consider. “With a glass coffee table, you also have to think about the surface underneath, like the rug or floor,” she says. “With wood and stone tables, you think about what’s on top.”

Find the perfect centerpiece for any room, no matter what your personal furniture style on 1stDibs — shop Art Deco coffee tables, travertine coffee tables and other antique and vintage coffee tables and cocktail tables today.