Svelte and seductive, the Spine chair, shown on the cover of this book, is one of the most renowned objects in contemporary design. Its creator, Andre Dubreuil, after initially pursuing a career of antique dealer and a painter-decorator, became one of the leading figures of new English design in the mid-1980s, with Mark Brazier-Jones and Tom Dixon. After first working his magic on the rebar, Dubreuil tackled traditional forms, breathing new life into them. This return to citation, ornament, and to "craftsmanship" was carried out without qualms. For him, invention is what counts above all. The history of styles has never caught hold of him because he does not know where his craft will lead tomorrow. It is a craft which, through random experimentation, has been the catalyst for 400 enigmatic furniture objects from 1985 to today: chairs, chests of drawers, mirrors, cabinets, clocks, lanterns, etc. in which dreams, invention and mystery prevail over function.

An inspiring collection of the writings of two of the 20th century's most brilliant and influential designers An Eames Anthology collects for the first time the writings of the esteemed American architects and designers Charles and Ray Eames, illuminating their marriage and professional partnership of fifty years. More than 120 primary-source documents and 200 illustrations highlight iconic projects such as the Case Study Houses and the molded plywood chair, as well as their work for major corporations as both designers (Herman Miller, Vitra) and consultants (IBM, Polaroid). Previously unpublished materials appear alongside published writings by and about the Eameses and their work, lending new insight into their creative process. Correspondence with such luminaries as Richard Neutra and Eero Saarinen provides a personal glimpse into the advance of modernity in mid-century America.

Unique in style, Chinese furniture has long been celebrated for its elegant, artistic lines and strong, durable structure. Ranging from pieces designed simply to display the beauty and texture of natural woods, to magnificent pieces decorated with lavish carvings, lacquer or precious metals and stones, Chinese furniture is an outstanding representative of the oriental arts. This book provides an accessible, illustrated introduction to the history, production techniques and rich variety of Chinese furniture, revealing the important part that this furniture has played in the development of China's culture.

Although renowned for his work as a verrier, lamps did not form a significant part of Galle's repertoire in glass until immediately prior to 1900. Indeed, only in the last few years of his life does it appear that he realised the full aesthetic potential of opalescent glass viewed by transmitted light. In an Art Nouveau context, Galle's creations reached their apogee between 1900 and his death in 1904, a brief period during which he adapted the shape of much of his glassware to its theme. Vases decorated with lilies became lily-shaped in a marriage of form and function. Fully-ripened gourds pendent on their vines glowed from within at the touch of a switch. Mushroom lamps brought the concept to full embodiment in the metamorphosis of the giant fungi into light fixtures. This comprehensive volume catalogues the full range of light fixtures produced by the Galle cristallerie, from those made during his lifetime to those manufactured for more than twenty-five years after his death. Including table, bedside, hanging and wall models, 'Galle Lamps' reveals the extraordinary variety of thematic shade-and-base combinations introduced by the firm: butterflies, moths, dragonflies, swallows and eagles hover, flutter, glide or swoop over flora and mountain vistas in a seemingly endless interplay of Nature's decorative motifs. This volume is a companion to 'Galle Furniture' ISBN:9781851496624.

From the white plastic bed for the Prisunic catalogue (1966) to the Culbuto armchair issued by Knoll, and from the Lip watch to the private apartments of the Elysee Palace, Paris, (1983), the furniture and objects conceived by Marc Held have been emblematic of the renewal of French design, following the line of Scandinavians such as Alvar Aalto and Arne Jacobsen...With his gallery L'Echoppe on the rue de Seine, Paris, and then with his agency, the designer and architect Marc Held also took part in major projects for IBM and Renault. This book traces fifty years of design, whose success with the public at large has contributed to a great liberation in our style of life. The generosity of his vision has remained faithful to the humanist values that guided his childhood in Bagnolet, where he was born in 1932. Having settled in Greece, on the island of Skopelos, over twenty years ago, Marc Held still continues to build houses and furnish them with his creations, working closely with Greek craftsmen.

Our streets are enriched by a huge variety of objects, from water fountains and horse troughs to post boxes, signposts and more. Collectively, these objects are known as street furniture. From Roman-era milestones to modern infrastructure disguised as artwork, they tell us much about contemporary life. This book relates the compelling history of street furniture's design and manufacture, featuring notable architects and major ironfounders, as well as curiosities like King Edward VIII post boxes. It brings the story right up to date, detailing the new generation of environmentally friendly and digitally connected street furniture. The book also charts the dangers to our streetscapes, which are particularly vulnerable to change, with heritage street furniture at risk of being forgotten or lost. This book includes many fascinating images of surviving street furniture and vanished pieces, with archive material allowing readers to see long-gone items in use. It will appeal to those interested in social and transport history, in how we lived in the past, and indeed how we may live in the future.

Blu Dot is an American pioneer of democratic design. Founded and run by its principal designer and with the mission of making the best design accessible to the most people the brand is celebrated for minimal, innovative, and modern furniture that is American-made and affordable. Published to coincide with the brand s twentieth anniversary, this carefully produced book collects two decades worth of ideas, inspiration, designs, and products that chronicle the evolution of one of the most iconic names in contemporary American furniture. Illustrated with stunning photography that sets Blu Dot s best-known pieces in the context of contemporary American interiors, the book includes everything the brand has ever produced, from the very earliest designs for workmanlike benches to the ubiquitous and iconic Very Good Chair.

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.

By Western Hands: Decorative Art from the Heart of the West celebrates the history of rustic design - from the Adirondacks and National Park "parkitecture" style to the work of legendary western furnituremaker Thomas Molesworth - and describes its evolution to the art form it is today, one that is born of an individual artisan's creative process and uniquely inspired by place. The book includes leading voices in the movement, features original examples of bespoke mountain and rustic interiors, and showcases one-of-a-kind artworks from fifty of the best rustic and western decorative artisans working today. By Western Hands: Decorative Art from the Heart of the West is at once a history, a compendium and a curated showcase full of design inspiration, whether one owns a rustic, western or country home, or simply dreams of one.

By what means did so much beauty and ingenuity appears in articles of everyday rural life in Portugal? How did the shape of these objects balance necessity and formal perfection so skillfully? This book explores the effect that generations of trial and error, individual craftsmanship, and an instinct to carve out the essential with the slenderest of means brought to objects that made life both livable and meaningful to a pre-industrial society. The objects photographed and described by designer Jasper Morrison may be appreciated both for their beauty and for the example they set of design at its purest.

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.

Industrial-style furniture is in fashion - bistro tables and chairs, lockers, mail sorting racks and jointed lamps are all common elements in today's interior design. In this book, Brigitte Durieux, an authority on the style, tells us the story behind fifty European and American objects that have made the surprising transition from factories to our livings rooms and become cult furniture. Featuring more than 250 images, Industrial Chic is a beautifully illustrated showcase that reveals the incredible reach, versatility and long-lasting appeal of industrial design. The remarkable histories of these distinguished objects - including the Gras lamp, the Singer stool, the Holophane reflector, the Brillie clock and more - accompany brilliant photographs by Laziz Hamani.

Emille Galle was one of the leading figures of the Art Nouveau movement in France, and founder of the famous Ecole de Nancy. A polymath and committed social activist, he was best known for his glasswork and faience. Furniture became his third discipline after experimenting with the manufacture of wooden bases on which he could mount his glass vases. Galle ardently followed the French tradition of furniture decoration known as marqueterie. His work is characterized by its meticulous decorative veneers, stained with subtle organic dyes; its panels inlaid with stunningly intricate country scenes and flowers. This book outlines all of Galle's major works of furniture, from the unique pieces that were designed for an exclusive clientele, to those displayed between 1889 and 1904 at the annual Paris Salons and two World Expositions. The recent emergence of many of his objets de luxe enables the reader to understand many of his pieces for the first time. Written by Decorative Arts specialist Alastair Duncan, the book documents the history of Galle s furniture production from his favorite motifs to the ways in which he used furniture design to express his social and political ideals. Duncan includes an encyclopedic range of models created in the Galle Workshops both during and after his lifetime. Beautifully illustrated, and containing translations of Galle s Notes to the juries of the World Expositions, this stunning publication will leave the reader captivated by this decadent expression of the new art that changed the European aesthetic forever.

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.

Giorgetti is renowned for its unparalleled blend of tradition, innovation, and originality. Giorgetti s functional, contemporary pieces and their integration of the highest artisanship and woodworking tradition are presented in this volume through a rich collection of stunning photographs. The volume is organized as a cabinet of memories specially designed to commemorate the 120th anniversary of the founding of Giorgietti. Since 1898, the growth of Giorgetti from a wood workshop to a renowned international furniture brand has been a fascinating evolution driven by dedication, refinement, and reinvention. To capture this, the 120 precious compartments of the cabinet signify the 120 years of continuing pursuit of excellence. Also featured along with photographs of the iconic designs are sketches, drawings, and watercolours as well as some wood board models selected from the company s archive. The book is completed with a final glossary of the most important and emblematic words in Giorgetti s work.

The work of Kohn Pedersen Fox is international in scope, collaborative in design, and a product of individual voices focused on a single objective - making an architecture, of our time, which creates strong bonds with the the specific place it occupies. While William Pedersen founded the firm, with partners Gene Kohn and Shelley Fox, he never aspired to be a 'director of design.' They had the components with Gene's entrepreneurial drive, Shelley's management and Bill's design leadership - to be a large firm. 'Directing' the work of a large firm was not Bill's desire, instead he wanted to focus on a body of work which he could call his own. The example that work set would inspire others, and it did. Now there are several voices leading their design - all of them rose to their position within the office. The purpose of this book is to define the work of one of the voices - Bill Pedersen's. Pedersen has worked with many different designers, in close collaboration, throughout his career, though his work speaks with a singular voice. Here it is represented chronologically and concludes with the latest phase - furniture. Working from the largest scale to the smallest has always been a preoccupation of those who lead design in KPF. Many of Pedersen's architectural heroes designed chairs, and he strives to follow in their footsteps.

Visionary furniture design from Vienna In 1938, Vienna lost its best and most creative minds. This rupture was manifested in all of the arts and sciences and its mark is felt to this day - not least in the field of furniture design. With inexhaustible creativity the Jewish furniture designers who were forced to flee Vienna continued to work while in exile. They taught at the best universities and spread their ideas and vision throughout the entire world. Their creations became classics of twentieth-century furniture design, the epitome of mid-century modern style. This book honors the memory of the exiled designers with a thorough overview of their work. It details their life stories and their visionary designs, which remain as relevant and contemporary as ever, and brings to light new aspects of the history of Viennese furniture design. A new history of Viennese furniture design, with 27 detailed biographies Numerous previously unpublished photographs and sketches Including works by Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, Martin Eisler, Josef Frank, Friedrich Kiesler, Richard Neutra, Bruno Pollak, Margarete Schutte-Lihotzky, Franz Singer, Ernst Schwadron, among others