Italian Post Modern
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Marble
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Sectional Sofas
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Chairs
Metal
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Stainless Steel
Late 20th Century Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Breccia Marble
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Floor Lamps
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Wall Mirrors
Mirror, Plastic
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Table Lamps
Glass
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Wall Mirrors
Metal
2010s Italian Post-Modern Ceramics
Ceramic
2010s Italian Post-Modern Ceramics
Ceramic
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Chandeliers and Pendants
Plastic
Vintage 1980s French Post-Modern Benches
Leather
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Floor Lamps
Plastic
20th Century Italian Post-Modern Wall Lights and Sconces
Aluminum
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Floor Lamps
Steel, Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Picture Frames
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Stools
Iron
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Ceramics
Marble
Vintage 1970s Italian Coat Racks and Stands
Travertine
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Tray Tables
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coat Racks and Stands
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Armchairs
Fabric, Wood
2010s Italian Post-Modern Decorative Art
Metal
2010s Italian Post-Modern Decorative Art
Metal
2010s Italian Post-Modern Decorative Art
Metal
Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Centerpieces
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Floor Lamps
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Tray Tables
Steel
Vintage 1980s Italian Modern Urns
Marble
1990s Italian Sculptures and Carvings
Metal
1990s Italian Sculptures and Carvings
Metal
1990s Italian Sculptures and Carvings
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Wood
Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Plexiglass
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Pedestals and Columns
Travertine, Marble
Late 20th Century Post-Modern Lounge Chairs
Polyester
2010s Italian Post-Modern Cabinets
Wood
2010s Italian Post-Modern Cabinets
Wood
Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Metal
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Side Chairs
Steel
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Sofas
Fabric, Plastic
Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Sofas
Leather, Wood
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Chairs
Wood
Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Steel
Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Steel
1990s Italian Serving Bowls
Glass
Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Pillows and Throws
Fabric
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Steel
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Abstract Sculptures
Bronze
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Wall Mirrors
Brass
Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Armchairs
Leather
Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Prints
Plastic, Wood
Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Pillows and Throws
Fabric
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
Steel, Nickel
Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Table Lamps
Plexiglass
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Side Tables
Steel
Vintage 1970s Italian Post-Modern Dining Room Chairs
Leather, Lacquer
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Side Tables
Travertine
Vintage 1980s Italian Post-Modern Floor Lamps
Metal
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Italian Post Modern For Sale on 1stDibs
How Much is an Italian Post Modern?
A Close Look at post-modern Furniture
Postmodern design was a short-lived movement that manifested itself chiefly in Italy and the United States in the early 1980s. The characteristics of vintage postmodern furniture and other postmodern objects and decor for the home included loud-patterned, usually plastic surfaces; strange proportions, vibrant colors and weird angles; and a vague-at-best relationship between form and function.
ORIGINS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
- Emerges during the 1960s; popularity explodes during the ’80s
- A reaction to prevailing conventions of modernism by mainly American architects
- Architect Robert Venturi critiques modern architecture in his Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966)
- Theorist Charles Jencks, who championed architecture filled with allusions and cultural references, writes The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977)
- Italian design collective the Memphis Group, also known as Memphis Milano, meets for the first time (1980)
- Memphis collective debuts more than 50 objects and furnishings at Salone del Milano (1981)
- Interest in style declines, minimalism gains steam
CHARACTERISTICS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
- Dizzying graphic patterns and an emphasis on loud, off-the-wall colors
- Use of plastic and laminates, glass, metal and marble; lacquered and painted wood
- Unconventional proportions and abundant ornamentation
- Playful nods to Art Deco and Pop art
POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW
- Ettore Sottsass
- Robert Venturi
- Alessandro Mendini
- Michele de Lucchi
- Michael Graves
- Nathalie du Pasquier
VINTAGE POSTMODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS
Critics derided postmodern design as a grandstanding bid for attention and nothing of consequence. Decades later, the fact that postmodernism still has the power to provoke thoughts, along with other reactions, proves they were not entirely correct.
Postmodern design began as an architectural critique. Starting in the 1960s, a small cadre of mainly American architects began to argue that modernism, once high-minded and even noble in its goals, had become stale, stagnant and blandly corporate. Later, in Milan, a cohort of creators led by Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini — a onetime mentor to Sottsass and a key figure in the Italian Radical movement — brought the discussion to bear on design.
Sottsass, an industrial designer, philosopher and provocateur, gathered a core group of young designers into a collective in 1980 they called Memphis. Members of the Memphis Group, which would come to include Martine Bedin, Michael Graves, Marco Zanini, Shiro Kuramata, Michele de Lucchi and Matteo Thun, saw design as a means of communication, and they wanted it to shout. That it did: The first Memphis collection appeared in 1981 in Milan and broke all the modernist taboos, embracing irony, kitsch, wild ornamentation and bad taste.
Memphis works remain icons of postmodernism: the Sottsass Casablanca bookcase, with its leopard-print plastic veneer; de Lucchi’s First chair, which has been described as having the look of an electronics component; Martine Bedin’s Super lamp: a pull-toy puppy on a power-cord leash. Even though it preceded the Memphis Group’s formal launch, Sottsass’s iconic Ultrafragola mirror — in its conspicuously curved plastic shell with radical pops of pink neon — proves striking in any space and embodies many of the collective’s postmodern ideals.
After the initial Memphis show caused an uproar, the postmodern movement within furniture and interior design quickly took off in America. (Memphis fell out of fashion when the Reagan era gave way to cool 1990’s minimalism.) The architect Robert Venturi had by then already begun a series of plywood chairs for Knoll Inc., with beefy, exaggerated silhouettes of traditional styles such as Queen Anne and Chippendale. In 1982, the new firm Swid Powell enlisted a group of top American architects, including Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Stanley Tigerman and Venturi to create postmodern tableware in silver, ceramic and glass.
On 1stDibs, the vintage postmodern furniture collection includes chairs, coffee tables, sofas, decorative objects, table lamps and more.
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This Rare Set of 100 Alessi Vases Includes Designs by Scores of International Artists
Alessandro Mendini, Michael Graves, Ettore Sottsass and other design luminaries contributed to this unusual collection of porcelain wares representing a time capsule of late-20th-century decorative art.
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