The first comprehensive study of William Ince and John Mayhew's famous eighteenth-century cabinetmaking partnership, complemented by high-quality photographs of their work. The partnership of William Ince (1737-1804) and John Mayhew (1736-1811) ran from 1758 to 1804, and was one of the most enduring and well-connected collaborations in Georgian London's tight-knit cabinetmaking community. The partners' clientele was probably larger, and their work was arguably more influential over a longer period, than most other leading metropolitan makers - perhaps even than that of their older contemporary, the celebrated Thomas Chippendale. Despite their considerable output and an impressive tally of clients and commissions, much of Ince and Mayhew's work has remained unidentified until recent times. The authors' substantial research in private family archives, county record offices and bank archives has allowed them to uncover much new evidence about the business and its influence within cabinetmaking circles. In Industry and Ingenuity, the results of these new investigations are presented alongside an impressive selection of more than 500 colourful, vibrant photographs of Ince and Mayhew's works, many previously unpublished, which together emphasise the partnership's proper position in the pantheon of great eighteenth-century cabinetmakers.

This stylish publication celebrates the impact of contemporary Nordic style on interiors, furnishings and product design. Its attractiveness lies in the simplicity, attention to detail and high quality of materials that have long been associated with Scandinavian design. This book features fifty notable interior and product designers from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland. Whether they are well established or up and coming, the designers all share a passionate commitment to an elegant design style with widespread international appeal. New Nordic Design builds on the success of the author's earlier Fashion Scandinavia, in the same format, while also being completely new with great potential to reach a wide, global audience for whom Scandinavian living is a dream and an aspiration.

For around 300 years, the harpsichord was the leading domestic musical instrument and often a highly fashionable piece of furniture as well. Usurped by the piano at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was taken up again with the first revival of early music at the beginning of the twentieth century. Over the past 40 years, makers have been getting closer to reproducing examples from the historical past. Now, " The Art of Making a Harpsichord" gives its readers the chance to discover this challenging and rewarding pursuit in a way that is rarely possible without working with an established builder. Beginning with an overview of the instrument, its schools and workshop traditions, the author--himself an experienced maker and researcher--explores the various models and types before leading the reader through the manufacture of an Italian-style instrument, while describing historically-based working methods which are applicable to all traditions. Just as in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, there is no need to rely on large power-tools. This book has been designed to provide assistance to all harpsichord makers, whatever model they choose to make. It is lavishly illustrated with line drawings and photographs, the latter taken--wherever possible--from antique examples that give the reader as full an understanding as possible of the quality of these beautiful instruments.

In 2019, the Vitra Design Museum will publish the Atlas of Furniture Design, the definitive, encyclopedic overview of the history of modern furniture design. Featuring over 1700 objects by more than 500 designers and 121 manufacturers, it includes approximately 2800 images ranging from detailed object photographs to historical images documenting interiors, patents, brochures, and related works of art and architecture. The basis for the Atlas of Furniture Design is the collection held by the Vitra Design Museum, one of the largest of its kind with more than 7000 works. The book presents selected pieces by the most important designers of the last 230 years and documents key periods in design history, including early nineteenth-century industrial furniture in bentwood and metal, Art Nouveau and Secessionist pieces and works by protagonists of classical modernism and postwar design, as well as postmodern and contemporary pieces. The Atlas of Furniture Design employed a team of more than 70 experts and features over 550 detailed texts about key objects. In-depth essays provide sociocultural and design-historical context to four historical epochs of furniture design and the pieces highlighted here, enriched by a detailed annex containing designer biographies, glossaries, and elaborate information graphics. The Atlas of Furniture Design is an indispensable resource for collectors, scholars and experts, as well as a beautifully designed object that speaks to design enthusiasts.

Following the huge demand in contemporary societies to decorate homes in a "green" style, this book offers a more environmentally conscious approach to design and production processes by presenting a wide range of eco furniture products made with natural materials as well as using recycling and more environment respecting technologies. It presents the latest eco-furniture pieces from the world's leading design teams, and aims to encourage more people, especially professional designers to consider a more environmentally conscious approach to their design ideas and processes. * A showcase of the most striking examples of product design in furniture. * A response to an increasing demand concerned with home interiors. * An excellent and inspiring resource for designers and artists. * Few competitor titles in the market: most books are focused on architecture, this one offers an in-depth study of a quite new area of eco-product designing.

In recent years, there has been a real revival and appraisal of the works of the mid-century modern movement among architects and interior designers: the furniture, lighting and objects designed by Alvar Aalto, Charles & Ray Eames, Eileen Gray, Poul Henningsen, Arne Jacobsen, Pierre Jeanneret, Finn Juhl, Vladimir Kagan, Poul Kjaerholm, Florence Knoll, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Borge Mogensen, Serge Mouille, George Nakashima, George Nelson, Verner Panton, Ico Parisi, Charlotte Perriand, Gio Ponti, Jean Prouve, Sergio Rodrigues, Jean Royere, Eero Saarinen, Arne Vodder, Jules Wabbes, Ole Wanscher, Hans J. Wegner, Jorge Zalszupin and many others is integrated in their most exclusive projects and their best pieces are sold at record prices at Christies, Philipps, Sotheby's... In the U.S., the mid-century modern movement in interiors, product and graphic design and architecture was a reflection of the International and Bauhaus movements including the works of Gropius, Florence Knoll, Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Brazilian and Scandinavian architects were very influential, with a style characterised by clean simplicity and integration with nature. In Europe, the influence of Le Corbusier and the CIAM resulted in an architectural orthodoxy manifest across most parts of post-war Europe that was ultimately challenged by the radical agendas of the architectural wings of the avant-garde. A critical but sympathetic reappraisal of the internationalist oeuvre, inspired by the Scandinavian Moderns and the late work of Le Corbusier himself, was reinterpreted by groups such as Team X, including structuralist architects and the movement known as New Brutalism. This chic, over-sized coffee table book is an essential object for all mid-century design aficionados, interior designers with a passion for the modernist 1950s and for refined readers seeking inspiration for their own interiors. In 20 reports, interior designers and passionate collectors of mid-century furniture, lighting, objects and artworks show how carefully selected touches of high-end mid-century modernism can contribute to a unique living environment.

As featured in Bookforum, ELLE Decor, and Interior Design Magazine The first and only monograph on the life and work of the iconic Danish-American mid-century furniture designer Jens Risom - an unsung hero of Mid-Century Modern design Jens Risom, a key figure in mid-century modern design, was one of the first designers to introduce Scandinavian design to the United States and his highly collectible original work is currently selling for large sums at auction. In 1942, Risom's designs formed the majority of the inaugural collection of original furniture for the iconic Hans Knoll Furniture Company and many of his key pieces are still in production today, by leading manufacturers including Knoll, Design Within Reach, De Padova, Camira, and Ralph Pucci. This, the first authoritative biography of Risom, spans his education in Denmark, early collaborations with Georg Jensen and Hans Knoll, the creation of his own company - Jen Risom Design - his celebrated prefab house on Block Island, RI, as well as his legacy and presence in the 21st century. With unique access to a plethora of never-before-seen sketches, photographs and ephemera, this book proves, as the immortal slogan in his iconic ad campaign shot by Richard Avedon tells us, 'The answer is Risom'.

Moving Objects deals with emotive design: designed objects that demand to be engaged with rather than simply used. If postmodernism depended upon ironic distance, and Critical Design is all about questions, then emotive design runs hotter than this, confronting how designers are using feelings in what they make. Damon Taylor's original study considers these emotionally laden, highly authored works, often produced in limited editions and sold like art - objects such as a chair made from cuddly toys, a leather sofa that resembles a cow, and a jewellery box fashioned from human hair. Tracing the phenomenon back to the 'Dutch inflection' that began with Droog designers like Jurgen Bey and Hella Jongerius, Taylor conducts an analysis of the development of Design Art and looks for its origins in the uncanny explorations of surrealism. Offering a critique of Speculative Design, and an examination of the work of designers such as Mathias Bengtsson, whose work involves 'growing' furniture inside computers, Taylor asks what happens when the tangible melts into the datascape and design becomes a question of mobilities. In this way, Moving Objects examines contemporary issues of how we live with artefacts and what design can do.

Upholstered pieces of furniture are familiar to all of us as more or less constant companions of everyday life. Upholstery is comfortable, it conveys security and promises comfort, it has a specific design, asserts or creates status and tells a (hi)story. We rarely consider its interior. At the same time, a view into the hidden content of chairs and armchairs is a journey into secrets, into lashed and sprung constructions that prove to be unknown masterpieces of craftsmanship. Deep-Seated. The Secret Art of Upholstery explores furniture and its interiors and explains why upholstery is always also a part of cultural and social history. With contributions by Thomas Andersch, Maximilian Busch, Cordula Fink, Thomas Rudi, Stefanie Seeberg, Thomas Schriefers, Xenia Schurmann, and a foreword by Olaf Thormann. Text in English and German.

The twentieth century offered up countless visions of domestic life, from the aspirational to the radical. Whether it was the dream of the fully mechanised home or the notion that technology might free us from home altogether, the domestic realm was a site of endless invention and speculation. But what happened to those visions? Are the smart homes of today the future that architects and designers once predicted, or has 'home' proved resistant to radical change? Home Futures: Living in Yesterday's Tomorrow -accompanying a major Design Museum exhibition of the same title-explores a number of different attitudes toward domestic life, tracing the social and technological developments that have driven change in the home. It proposes that we are already living in yesterday's tomorrow, just not in the way anyone predicted. This book begins with a lavishly illustrated catalogue portraying the 'home futures' of the twentieth century and beyond, from the work of Ettore Sottsass and Joe Colombo to Google's recent forays into the smart home. The catalogue is followed by a reader consisting of newly commissioned essays by writers such as Dan Hill and Justin McGuirk, which explore the changes in the domestic realm in relation to space, technology, society, economy and psychology.

Luke Hughes & Company's enduring and meticulously engineered furniture, an eloquent response both to the architecture it inhabits and to the true Arts and Crafts spirit, has been placed at the forefront of the 'craft-led renaissance in British manufacturing.' Flexible in use, commercially viable and environmentally sustainable, the work furnishes many of the world's most distinguished buildings, from Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London and most of the Oxford and Cambridge University colleges to the Keystone Academy in Beijing and one of New York City's most vibrant synagogues. Through an introduction to the studio and 25 case studies, Furniture in Architecture explores the company's place in the Arts and Crafts tradition and examines the philosophy and work of founder Luke Hughes. Aidan Walker sheds light on how the studio balances modern manufacturing technologies with abiding craft values, rendering the small furniture workshop a relevant and profitable proposition even when fulfilling large-scale commissions. This fascinating survey defines the elements of successful design and addresses the meaning of craft and craftsmanship in the digital age.

The modular did not have to be invented: it can be found everywhere. We divide surfaces into grids, spaces into parts, and time into rhythmic units. Modular structures are also increasingly being recognized as a way of communicating, where the aim is not to construct a universal principle but to facilitate interplay between different systems. Building on the visionary design system that architect Fritz Haller and engineer Paul Scharer developed in 1965 for Swiss furniture company USM, Rethinking the Modular brings together specially commissioned essays and interviews with leading designers, architects and thinkers to present the wide-ranging importance and influence of modular design over the past fifty years. In revealing the broad possibilities created by balancing structure with flexibility, the timely publication redefines the place of modularity in modern design history, and offers a rich resource for designers today.

For millions of years humans have led physically active lives. In recent centuries, however, industrialization has fostered passivity and the growing predominance of the sitting posture for more and more people. Increasingly, chairs and furniture for sitting have become standard pieces of equipment in the workplace, institutions, and private homes. These sitting devices were designed according to the established standard of the chair, based on the accepted western manner of sitting. In Rethinking Sitting, Scandinavian industrial designer Peter Opsvik addresses the issue of whether this is the only, and functionally best, design for the human body. When the various authorities on ergonomics promote their one and only "correct" sitting posture, he says all of them are right: Every recommended sitting posture is good. Opsvik sees it as his task to design chairs that allow as many different sitting postures as possible and make it easy to move and change frequently between positions. In this beautifully illustrated reference Opsvik offers insight into his thinking on the subject of sitting and explains the philosophy that informs his furniture designs. Rethinking Sitting contains important information for everyone who is interested, for professional, educational, or personal reasons, in sitting solutions.

Covering the period from the publication of Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers' Director (1754) to the Great Exhibition (1851), this book analyses the relationships between producer retailers and consumers of furniture and interior design, and explores what effect dialogues surrounding these transactions had on the standardisation of furniture production during this period. This was an era, before mass production, when domestic furniture was made both to order and from standard patterns and negotiations between producers and consumers formed a crucial part of the design and production process. This study narrows in on three main areas of this process: the role of pattern books and their readers; the construction of taste and style through negotiation; and daily interactions through showrooms and other services, to reveal the complexities of English material culture in a period of industrialisation.

In recent years, there has been a great deal of interest in 'design classics', both in their increased availability and affordability through re-issues, and in their widespread re-interpretation by contemporary designers and artists. Focusing on chairs, this book examines this significant aspect of contemporary design practice. It does so, not only in terms of works by well-known designers, but also relative to ubiquitous designs such as the monobloc, Thonet number 14, and Ming chairs. These varied examples of re-imagining and re-working are examined from an international perspective as designers and artists across the globe seek to bring new formal, material, and narrative interpretations to these iconic designs. Renewed interest in do-it-yourself, together with the growth of hacking, open-source design and digital fabrication, have all contributed to an expansion of the concepts of re-imagine and re-make in the new millennium. Embraced by professionals, amateurs and companies alike, these developments further attest to the diverse practice of re-interpretation in contemporary design. Bringing together key examples of the re-issuing, re-imagining and re-making of design icons, the book draws on observations from designers, artists and manufacturers in order to understand the varied motivations behind these activities. It places the works within their historical and cultural context, and considers the boundaries between art and design. Further, the book interrogates the issues of authenticity and authorship and the ethical and legal rights to copy and to alter iconic objects that are raised by these re-interpretations.

Maria Campos Carles de Pena, a leading expert in furniture history, has undertaken an exhaustive project of research into the large and varied production of furniture made in Peru in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - the colonial period - for churches, convents, monasteries and private collections. Over eleven chapters she provides a thorough description of this type of furniture, which was inspired by artistic styles ranging from Mannerism to Neoclassicism, with their many variants and creators. Her analysis allows for an appreciation of the way vice-regal furniture in Peru is a valuable witness to its time: an example of a syncretism of varied and different cultures, endowed with symbolism, iconographic meaning and enormous beauty."

This book explores the history of the furniture manufacturer Harris Lebus from 1840 to 1970. Four generations of the Lebus family were engaged in the business which evolved from a family partnership into a public company. Oliver Lebus was chairman when the company ceased cabinet furniture manufacturing at Tottenham Hale in 1970. Using personal testimonies from those who were there, aspects of the story of 'the largest furniture factory' in the world are told through their eyes and using, in as far as possible, their own words. On a relatively, unremarkable North London Street, at Tottenham Hale, a set of railings stops short at a bricked wall on which a metal gatepost is affixed - this was the Ferry Lane entrance to Harris Lebus 'the largest furniture factory in the world'. Beyond the solitary post, a sloped, grass verge leads to a pleasant, low-rise housing built in the 1970's - Ferry Lane estate, and it is hard to imagine that this was once a bustling, energised furniture manufacturing hub. For seventy years furniture flowed on conveyor belts, and through a tunnel under Ferry Lane as the factory expanded in the fifties to occupy what is now Hale Village. During both World Wars the parts for wooden aircraft were made and assembled in huge workshops that were shrouded in secrecy. With the discovery of the factory underground war shelters in 2008 under what is now Hale Village and a subsequent Lebus exhibition curated by Haringey Local History Archives, interest was generated in this aspect of history and which has subsequently gathered momentum. Thousands of workers, each living individual lives came from near and far to spend their working days at Lebus. Many formed lifelong friendships, and just as four generations of the Lebus family spent their working lives in the factory, so too did successive generations of other families. Seemingly forgotten in the passing of time, they all left an indelible mark in this history. And in the case of some, their identities now emerge as their stories are explored; they are brought back to life telling their experiences in their own words. This is Paul Collier's first foray into authorship. In 2008, shortly after moving to Ferry Lane estate, Paul made a connection with Oliver Lebus, then in his nineties and who was the last family member of four generations at the company. They formed a special friendship and over several afternoons at his home in Kensington, Oliver introduced the author to his personal archives on which the foundations of this book were laid. Fully supported by both Haringey Local History Archives and members of the extended Lebus family, Harris Lebus - A Romance with the Furniture Trade, fully illustrated with over 200 photographs and images is a must read! His debut book appeals to a wide audience - interest in this history extends far beyond the locality of Tottenham Hale and Haringey, and will delight social historians and those with connections to the furniture trade, past and present.

Today, Italian architect and designer Carlo Mollino (1905-73) is known chiefly for his furniture designs. He is famous also for his erotic polaroid photography of the 1960s, which has been subject of many exhibitions and has lost nothing of its great appeal to the fashion world today. Much less attention has so far been given to Mollino's architecture, and a comprehensive critical study of his work in this field has been lacking. Yet his built work, although relatively small, constitutes a seminal contribution to modernism that is uniquely marked by a strong relationship with Surrealism. Based on years of research and drawing on rich archival material as well as on Mollino's own writings, this new book is the overdue tribute to an extraordinary personality in 20th-century architecture. It features an exemplary selection of his key designs, both built and unrealised, lavishly illustrated with images and reproductions of previously unpublished plans, drawings, and documents. Rounded out with scholarly essays by expert authors, this is a long-awaited addition to the library of architecture lovers, professionals, and scholars.

An authoritative and insightful study, surveying the life and work of "the greatest of the English artist-craftsmen" This study of the renowned designer-maker Ernest Gimson (1864-1919) combines biography with analysis of his work as an architect and designer of furniture, metalwork, plaster decoration, embroidery, and more. It also examines Gimson's significance within the Arts and Crafts Movement, tracing the full arc of his creative career, ideas, and legacy. Gimson worked in London in the 1880s, joining the circle around William Morris at the Art Workers' Guild and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. He later moved to the Cotswolds, where he opened workshops and established a reputation for distinctive style and superb quality. Gimson's work influences designers today and speaks directly to ongoing debates about the role of craft in the modern world; this book will be the standard reference for years to come.

A vivid company biography of leading furniture manufacturer Walter Knoll based on its formative figures Wilhelm, Hans, and Walter Knoll, and most recently, Markus Benz. Walter Knoll, the book, charts the one-and-a-half-century-old history of this remarkable furniture dynasty, tracing the evolution of its designs in relation to key cultural and historical developments. When the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles was recently bought by the Federal Republic of Germany and transformed into a representative "transatlantic meeting place," it was Walter Knoll furnishings that defined its interior design and showcased German creativity and performance in arts and business. Based in Herrenberg, near Stuttgart, the 150-year-old furniture business is one of the most successful furniture companies of the modern era and a global leader in high-end furnishing manufacturing. Walter Knoll's impressively long history dates back to Wilhelm Knoll, the founding father of the Knoll dynasty, who first set up a leather shop in Stuttgart in 1865. Knoll rose from being a cobbler to the court purveyor to the House of Wurttemberg. When his sons, Willy and Walter, took over the company in 1907, they began producing chairs - introducing the first club armchair to Germany and becoming the industry's first exporter. Their advances marked a revolution in upholstered furniture. After founding his own company in the 1920s, Walter Knoll was a breakout sensation in the avant-garde interior design world with a landmark exhibition at the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, under the direction of the Mies van der Rohe, in 1927. His son, Hans Knoll, went to the U.S. in the 1930s and himself founded his own company, Knoll Inc., and with it, re-wrote design history. In 1993, Markus Benz, the son of Rolf Benz, joined the Knoll ranks, continuing the successful cooperation with internationally-renowned architects and designers. This fascinating company story shows how the Stuttgart area, one of the strongest economic regions in the world, was also a wellspring of modern design and culture.

Tim Gosling is a British interior designer with an international reputation for designing exquisite interiors and beautifully crafted furniture for a range of public and private clients. Classic Contemporary showcases Gosling's recent work and gives the historical context for his designs, with archive drawings and photographs of the work of architects and designers whose work he admires. The book is structured by period, beginning with the eighteenth century and finishing in the twenty-first. Each chapter begins with one page that lists the Design Rules, the Materials and the Leading Figures associated with the era and style. The text of the chapter discusses key architects and designers, particularly those who have influenced Tim or whom he admires, and the style that emerged in that period, illustrated with historical images. The rest of the chapter consists of an extended plate section showing Gosling's interiors and furniture with extended captions in which he comments on the elements of the period's style incorporated into his work. The final chapter has a discussion and photographs of the craftsmanship that goes into the production of the furniture Tim designs. Through these pages, Regency, Victorian, Art Deco or Modernism can be viewed in a new light, resulting in a book that provides a unique insight into the work of one of today's most popular and respected designers.