Post-Modern Chairs
Strictly speaking, postmodern design was a short-lived movement that manifested itself chiefly in Italy and the United States in the early 1980s. The characteristics of postmodern furniture and other postmodern objects included hot-colored, loud-patterned, usually plastic surfaces; strange proportions and weird angles; and a vague-at-best relationship between form and function.
Critics derided postmodern design as a grandstanding bid for attention and nothing of consequence. The fact that, decades later, postmodern design still has the power to provoke thoughts (along with other reactions) proves they were not entirely correct.
Postmodernism 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. In the next decade in Milan, a cohort of designers led by Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini brought the discussion to bear on design.
Sottsass and Michele de Lucchi, in 1980, gathered a core group of young designers, which would come to include Michael Graves, Marco Zanini, Shiro Kuramata and Matteo Thun, into a design collective they called Memphis. The Memphis Group saw design as a means of communication and they wanted it to shout. That it did: the first Memphis collection appeared in 1981 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. After the initial Memphis show caused an uproar, postmodern design quickly took off in America. The architect Robert Venturi had 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 collection of postmodern furniture includes seating, decorative objects, lighting fixtures and more.
2010s Canadian Post-Modern Chairs
Rattan, Maple
2010s Mexican Post-Modern Chairs
Brass
2010s Danish Post-Modern Chairs
Other
2010s Italian Post-Modern Chairs
Leather
2010s Italian Post-Modern Chairs
Steel
Mid-20th Century American Post-Modern Chairs
Chrome
1970s American Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Chrome
2010s Thai Post-Modern Chairs
Brass
21st Century and Contemporary Danish Post-Modern Chairs
Wool, Beech
2010s Finnish Post-Modern Chairs
Birch, Plywood
1980s Swiss Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Metal
2010s Mexican Post-Modern Chairs
Leather, Mahogany
2010s French Post-Modern Chairs
Bronze
1980s Spanish Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Leather, Walnut
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Chairs
Leather
1980s Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Wood
2010s Dutch Post-Modern Chairs
Leather, Clay, Plastic
2010s Finnish Post-Modern Chairs
Plywood, Birch
2010s Portuguese Post-Modern Chairs
Velvet, Wood
2010s Spanish Post-Modern Chairs
Iron
1980s American Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Fabric, Rattan
1990s Italian Post-Modern Chairs
Aluminum
2010s Thai Post-Modern Chairs
Brass
1980s Italian Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Plywood
2010s Mexican Post-Modern Chairs
Fabric, Walnut
2010s Dutch Post-Modern Chairs
Oak
2010s Korean Post-Modern Chairs
Stainless Steel
1970s Italian Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Wood
1980s Italian Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Steel
1980s Dutch Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Oak
1980s Italian Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Naugahyde, Hardwood
1980s Italian Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Steel, Chrome
2010s Thai Post-Modern Chairs
Brass
2010s Singaporean Post-Modern Chairs
Fabric, Teak
2010s Dutch Post-Modern Chairs
Plastic, Leather, Clay
Early 2000s Scandinavian Post-Modern Chairs
Leather, Oak
Early 2000s Guatemalan Post-Modern Chairs
Bamboo, Plywood
2010s Finnish Post-Modern Chairs
Ash
2010s Finnish Post-Modern Chairs
Plywood, Leather
2010s Danish Post-Modern Chairs
Other
1980s Italian Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Metal
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Chairs
Leather, Wood
1990s Italian Post-Modern Chairs
Aluminum
2010s Mexican Post-Modern Chairs
Oak, Fabric
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Post-Modern Chairs
Plastic
1980s Italian Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Metal
1960s European Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Chrome
2010s Singaporean Post-Modern Chairs
Fabric, Teak
Early 2000s Italian Post-Modern Chairs
Steel
2010s Finnish Post-Modern Chairs
Birch, Plywood
2010s French Post-Modern Chairs
Wood, Oak
2010s American Post-Modern Chairs
Steel
2010s Portuguese Post-Modern Chairs
Velvet, Foam, Wood
2010s Danish Post-Modern Chairs
Other
2010s American Post-Modern Chairs
Steel
2010s Danish Post-Modern Chairs
Other
1950s Italian Vintage Post-Modern Chairs
Ceramic, Leather
1990s Italian Post-Modern Chairs
Steel