Brutalist Furniture and Design
The term brutalism — which derives from the French word brut, meaning “raw” — was coined to describe an architectural style that emerged in the 1950s featuring monumental buildings, usually made of unornamented concrete, whose design was meant to project an air of strength and solidity. Le Corbusier essentially created the brutalist style; its best-known iterations in the United States are the Marcel Breuer–designed Whitney Museum of American Art and Paul Rudolph's Yale Art and Architecture Building.
Lately, the word “brutalist” has been adopted by the realms of design and the decorative arts to refer to cabinets, tables, and accessory pieces such as mirror frames and lighting that are made of rougher, deeply textured metals and other materials that are the visual and palpable antithesis of the sleek, smooth and suave. Brutalist design encompasses that which is crafted, hewn and worked by hand — an aesthetic rebuke (or, at least, a counterpoint) to furniture that is created using 21st-century materials and technology.
Paul Evans is Exhibit A for brutalist design. His Sculpture Front cabinets laced with high-relief patinated steel mounts have become collector's items nonpareil, while the chairs and tables in his later Cityscape series and Sculpted Bronze series are perhaps the most expressive, attention-grabbing pieces in modern American design. Other exemplars of brutalist design are Silas Seandel, the idiosyncratic New York furniture designer and sculptor whose works in metal — in particular his tables — have a kind of brawny lyricism, and Curtis Jere, a nom-de-trade for the California team of Curtis Freiler and Jerry Fels, the bold makers of expressive scorched and sheared copper and brass mirror frames and wall-mounted sculptures.
The names of other brutalist designers are, so far, unknown to history. The furniture and sculptures on 1stDibs lend unique, eccentric, human notes to an art and design collection.
1960s American Brutalist Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Cut Steel
1970s Canadian Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
1960s Danish Mid-Century Modern Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
1960s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Iron
1960s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Brass
1970s Italian Expressionist Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Bronze
1960s Danish Brutalist Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Brass
1960s Danish Mid-Century Modern Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Metal, Brass
Mid-20th Century French Mid-Century Modern Brutalist Furniture and Design
Sandstone, Cast Stone
1960s Danish Scandinavian Modern Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Brass
1960s Danish Brutalist Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Brass
1970s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Metal, Wire
1980s Japanese Mid-Century Modern Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Metal
1970s American Modern Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Brass, Steel, Metal
1960s Danish Brutalist Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Brass
1970s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Enamel, Chrome
Late 20th Century Brutalist Brutalist Furniture and Design
Wood, Hardwood
1960s Danish Scandinavian Modern Vintage Brutalist Furniture and Design
Brass
