Design icon of the week: Arne Jacobsen
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
“The fundamental factor is proportion…Proportion is precisely what makes the old Greek temples beautiful…And when we look at some of the most admired buildings of the Renaissance or the Baroque, we notice that they are all well-proportioned. That is the essential thing.” –Arne Jacobsen
Swan chair, Designed in 1956
ARNE JACOBSEN (1902-1971) was one of Denmark’s most influential 20th century architects and designers. Both his buildings and products, like his Swan and Egg Chairs, combine modernist ideals with a Nordic love of naturalism.
As an architect and an industrial designer, Jacobsen always strove to achieve this grace and coherence. In the process, he emerged as the single most influential Danish architect of the 20th century and the designer of such modernist classics as the Swan, Egg and Ant Chairs as well as the stainless steel, abstract-shaped cutlery which the director Stanley Kubrick chose as timelessly futuristic props for his film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Ant chair, Designed in 1951
See his full bio at the Design Museum!
* Modern Interior Designer San Francisco *
Tags: arne jacobsen, Danish designers, Design Icons, modern furniture design, modern interior design
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Design Icon of the Week: Eileen Gray
Friday, July 17th, 2009
Above: Rue de Lota apartment designed by Eileen Gray.The tubular shaped Bibendum chair is shown, one of her most recognizable designs.
Eileen Gray has always been a favorite of mine. Maybe it’s the fact that she was a woman in a male dominated field, or maybe because flexibility and function were at the forefront of her furniture designs. Here is an excerpt from the Design Museum about Gray:
Neglected for most of her career, EILEEN GRAY (1878-1976) is now regarded as one of the most important furniture designers and architects of the early 20th century and the most influential woman in those fields. Her work inspired both modernism and Art Deco.
In the August 1917 issue of British Vogue magazine a writer described the work of Miss Gray, a lacquer artist who had fled her home in Paris to seek refuge in London during World War I. “Influenced by the modernists is Miss Gray’s art, so they say,” it began. “But is it not rather that she stands alone, unique, the champion of a singularly free method of expression.”
Her design style was as distinctive as her way of working, and Gray developed an opulent, luxuriant take on the geometric forms and industrially produced materials used by the International Style designers, such as Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand and Mies Van Der Rohe, who shared many of her ideals.
Her voluptuous leather and tubular steel Bibendum Chair and clinically chic E-1027 glass and tubular steel table are now as familiar as icons of the International Style as Le Corbusier and Perriand’s classic Grand Confort club chairs, yet for most of her career she was relegated to obscurity by the same proud singularity that makes her work so prized today.
Above: The adjustable E-1027 table, a modern classic. Reproductions now available at DWR.
Now, you can find me at the Examiner! Check out my page for more interior design articles, tips and local sources or visit: www.NicheInteriors.com for more info.
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Design Icon of the Week: Alvar Aalto
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
I spotted an Alvar Aalto vase at the flea market this weekend and the dealer thought the designer was from Mexico. That made me laugh a bit, and prompted the idea of featuring a design icon every week. Here is a short bio from the Design Museum about Aalto:
The most important Finnish architect of the 20th century, ALVAR AALTO (1898-1976) was a central figure in international modernism. His greatest buildings, like the 1927 Viipuri Library and 1928 Paimio Sanatorium, fused the naturalism of Finnish romanticism with modernist ideals: as did his influential furniture and glassware.
Here are a few of his most recognizable designs. And yes, the forms in his designs are evident at IKEA today.
Stool 60, designed in 1932. Stackable and constructed of Birch wood.
Savoy vase, designed in 1936 for a competition at the World Fair in Paris. Still produced today by Iittala.
Paimio chair, designed in 1931. Made of bent plywood and birch.
For more info visit: www.NicheInteriors.com
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A Peek at the Farnsworth House
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
The Farnsworth House is one of the most celebrated modernist structures of the 20th century. The glass and steel house designed by Mies van der Rohe and built in 1951 in Plano, Illinois is now a historical landmark. We were in Chicago this weekend and were dying to see the Farnsworth House despite the fact that no tours were available until April 1st. I will skip the details on how we managed to experience it, let’s just say it was worth the trip. But, I highly recommend booking a tour to see the interior.
“The dominance of a single, geometric form in a pastoral setting, with a complete exclusion of extraneous elements normally associated with habitation, reinforces the architect’s statement about the potential of a building to express “dwelling” in its simplest essence. While the elongated rectangle of the house lies parallel to the course of the Fox River, the perpendicular cross axis, represented by the suspended stairways, faces the river directly. With its emphatically planar floors and roof suspended on the widely-spaced, steel columns, the one-story house appears to float above the ground, infinitely extending the figurative space of the hovering planes into the surrounding site.” (To read more please visit the Farnsworth Landmarks Illinois website).Posted in Architecture, Design Icons, inspiration | No Comments »