furniture designed by 速 HARVEY PROBBER 1940s through 1970s
“Design has a fourth dimension; the intangible quality of aging gracefully.” Harvey Probber 1958 Merchandise Mart Conference Address
Harvey Probber in 1946 when he was 24 yars old. Rendering of Nuclear Sert living room from the same year.
When the Probber Foundation informed me M2L had been selected as the licensee for the original designs of Harvey Probber it was a distinct honor. My time inside the Probber archives was spent gathering information on how to faithfully produce original Harvey Probber designs. The added bonus was getting to know Harvey Probber the person and his journey from 1946, at age 24, to being recognized as a modern design pioneer. Harvey was a self educated, Brooklyn born American modernist, historically recognized as ‘the father of modularity’ in 1946 he revolutionized the design and manufacture of soft seating. In this brochure we feature soft seating classics which were leading edge for the decade designed: Nuclear Sert (40’s), Architectural series (50’s), Cubo modular (60’s) and Deep Tuft modular (70’s). Original and fresh today as the day they were introduced. Enjoy the world of Harvey Probber originality. Michael Manes M2L BRAND
Nuclear Sert - Circa 1946
Nuclear Sert - Genuine Reissue 2014
The original Harvey Probber catalog shows iterations of Nuclear Sert evolving from the 1940’s-60’s. Clockwise: Buttoned seat and back, button seat with buttonless back and loose cushions, buttonless seat and back.
Nuclear Sert - Genuine Reissue 2014
Probber’s most significant design breakthrough came when he was exploring approaches to seating furniture and found that, in his words, “the key to salvation was in bits and pieces of plane geometry… they were meaningless alone, but when fused to conventional shapes, profoundly altered their character.” These “bits and pieces” became templates for the line he named the Sert Group (after Spanish- born architect Jose Luis Sert, later dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design). It consisted of nineteen different elements – simple upholstered forms like half-circles, quadrants, wedges, and corner sections that could be assembled into any desired seating configuration. Probber even developed scale models that resembled odd-shape building blocks, placing them on tabletops in his showroom so that clients could design their own arrangements. The upholstered elements could be ordered as a single seamless piece, or separate, individual ones – providing a more flexible alternative to the sectional sofas that were becoming popular
all the time. The use of modules also made it possible to adapt the same basic form to any styling – loose cushions or tight, skirted or plain. Probber referred to the concept as a modular system, a name not then in use, and the individual pieces as modules. Although what was then called “unit furniture” dates to the first decades of the twentieth century, in designs by early German modernists and Le Corbusier, Probber’s modular seating was the first of its kind. Taking the concept further, he introduced “nuclear furniture” – which included occasional tables with interchangeable pedestals, in different shapes and sizes that could, like seating, be clustered in varying configurations. In the 1960s, he extended the idea to case goods, making it possible to offer many variations on one basic design… the same case was available in a choice of finishes, legs, bases, heights, and hardware. Differences that were cosmetic rather than conceptual were economical to produce – evidence that Probber’s business acumen matched his design ability. - Judith Gura
1945 Probber Modular Systems concept
Preliminary layout Š 2016 Jones Studio Ltd.
“Too often in our search for newness, we have overlooked the essentials. As always, the essentials are people.� - Harvey Probber
catalog 042715-010
Cubo - Circa 1963 11
Cubo - Genuine Reissue 2015
Cubo Configurations - Genuine Reissue 2015
Deep Tuft - Circa 1972
Deep Tuft - Genuine Reissue 2015
Probber was intrigued by new materials – an early user of foam rubber in the mid-1940s, he installed in 1967 what was probably the first cold-cure urethane foam furniture production facility in the United States, using it to produce molded seating groups like Cubo. His early use of laminates in upscale office furniture helped make that material more acceptable. Despite this, he never forsook his preference for wood and other natural materials over synthetics and hardedge metal. His 1977 Artisan collection used materials like wicker, cane, and fiber woven from leaves, and was made by local craftsmen at a production facility he established in Haiti. As deft with words as with pencils and brush, Probber was typically outspoken in interviews, criticizing furniture that was too severely modern, over-decorated, or slavish to style changes. In a 1957 interview, he cautioned consumers, “Don’t be intimidated into thinking last year’s purchases are obsolete simply because a new style appears on the market… good furniture doesn’t have to change with the seasons, leaping in and out of fashion like a woman’s hat.” A clear-eyed observer of his profession even after leaving it, he commented in 1988, “Fashion is a word invented by the avaricious to prey upon the insecure.”
catalog 042715-002
Architectural Series - Circa 1960
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Architectural Series - Genuine Reissue 2014
2003 exhibition catalog Sidney Mishkin Gallery Baruch College
Mayan Sofa - Circa 1972
Mayan Sofa - Genuine Reissue 2016
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