Modern Industrial and Work Tables
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 The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics.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.
1990s Italian Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Wood
1990s Danish Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Steel, Chrome
1960s Danish Vintage Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Rosewood
1960s American Vintage Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Aluminum
1980s Italian Vintage Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Metal
1890s Japanese Antique Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Metal
1960s American Vintage Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Brass
1870s English Antique Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Pine
1960s Vintage Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Chrome
1960s Danish Vintage Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Resin, Lacquer, Teak
1940s French Vintage Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Iron
1970s Danish Vintage Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Rattan, Oak, Teak
20th Century French Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Wood
Mid-20th Century American Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Steel
1990s Dutch Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Metal
1990s Dutch Modern Industrial and Work Tables
Metal