10 DESIGNS THAT MAKE TIME STAND STILL

There are some furniture designs that seem to belong to both the past and the future, that wouldn’t look out of place in the home of your grandparent or grandchild, that give no clue to when they were designed by the way they look – are they a recent Barber and Osgerby triumph, or a classic Gio Ponti number?

Really, it’s thanks to the Modernist movement which began its climb to dominance in the early 1900s, properly getting going post World War II when contemporary designers turned their backs on the ornate classical furniture of their forbears, instead looking to tone things down and shake things up. As Le Corbusier put it; ‘A great epoch has begun. There exists a new spirit.’

Out went Art Deco, Neoclassical and Victorian styles – no more dark carved woods, gilded carpentry or rich patterns – and in came the shiny and new. Pared-back forms, a focus on function over style and visual lightness, all gloriously mass-produced with gleaming new technologies, were finally available and affordable(ish) to all.

Design icons rained down. Furniture took on sculptural, minimal forms as hallowed architects began producing smaller objects to fill their projects, and names such as Eames, Wegner, Castiglioni and Breuer were sanctified in the furniture hall of fame.

Jump forward to the present day, and the tubular steel is gleaming just as brightly as it did 70, 80, 90, 100 years ago, and those alluring curves look like they just fell out of the pages of a contemporary design magazine. Traversing the decades is no easy feat, yet several key 20th-century pieces of furniture have made the leap with ease, their utter minimalism protecting them from the ravages of time and blending them in so well with the present-day, it’s hard to tell what new and what’s a revered design icon.

We all know the bonafide classics – the Wishbone chairs, the Tulip tables, the Eames loungers – so let’s discover those (slightly) more under-the-radar pieces that have made it through the years thanks to their brilliantly time-proof aesthetic.

Wassily lounge chair by Marcel Breuer, 1925

Designed by Hungarian modernist architect Marcel Breuer in 1925, it’s hard to believe the gleaming shapely form of the Wassily lounge chair, now produced by Knoll, is hovering around its hundredth birthday!

PH Septima pendant light by Poul

Designed between 1927-31 for Louis Poulsen, when the first prototype of the PH Septima light was presented at the Danish Museum of Decorative Art, the crowd broke into spontaneous applause.

S 533 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1927

With sculptural curves slotting it into modern-day sensibilities and the ongoing trend for all things round, the S 533 chair by leading German-American modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe defies the rules of time.

La Chaise by Charles & Ray Eames, 1948

The Dali-esque La Chaise by lauded American industrial designers Charles & Ray Eames was inspired by the Floating Figure sculpture by French artist Gaston Lachaise. A conceptual, freeform design on which the user could either recline or sit up straight on, the daybed is an icon of organic design.

CH07 Shell Lounge Chair by Hans J. Wegner, 1963

A new type of shell chair with three legs, no armrests and a deep recline, the CH07 Shell Lounge Chair was created by ‘master of chairs’ Danish architect Hans J. Wegner in 1963, its organically curving seat gaining it the nickname of ‘the smiling chair’.

Haller storage by Fritz Haller, 1965

Purposefully designed to be timeproof, Haller storage was designed by Swiss architect Fritz Haller for Swiss brand USM in 1965 and has had a place in New York’s Museum of Modern Art since 2001.

PK24 chaise lounge by Poul Kjærholm, 1965

Simple, elegant, and minimalist, the PK24 chaise lounge is an iconic Poul Kjærholm piece, the seat is also referred to as the Hammock Chair to highlight its function of suspending the body between two points.

Snoopy lamp by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, 1967

A 1960s child in more ways than one, the Snoopy lamp by Italian architect and designer brothers Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni was created in 1967, taking its shape from the loveable illustrative dog from the cartoon strip Peanuts which was at its peak at the time.

Soriana lounge chair by Afra and Tobia Scarpa, 1969

Created by postmodern Italian architects and designers Afra and Tobia Scarpa in 1969, the Soriana lounge chair is a true style icon, changing the face of upholstered furniture and winning the illustrious Compasso d’Oro prize in 1970.

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