Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto was a Finnish architect and designer. His work includes architecture, furniture, textiles and glassware, as well as sculptures and paintings. He never regarded himself as an artist, seeing painting and sculpture as "branches of the tree whose trunk is architecture." Aalto's early career ran in parallel with the rapid economic growth and industrialization of Finland during the first half of the 20th century. Many of his clients were industrialists, among them the Ahlström-Gullichsen family, who became his patrons. The span of his career, from the 1920s to the 1970s, is reflected in the styles of his work, ranging from Nordic Classicism of the early work, to a rational International Style Modernism during the 1930s to a more organic modernist style from the 1940s onwards.
Arne Emil Jacobsen, Hon. FAIA 11 February 1902 – 24 March 1971) was a Danish architect and furniture designer. He is remembered for his contribution to architectural functionalism and for the worldwide success he enjoyed with simple well-designed chairs.
Poul Kjærholm (1929–1980) was a Danish designer. Born in Østervrå, Denmark, Kjærholm began his career as a cabinetmaker's apprentice with Gronbech in 1948, attending the Danish School of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen in 1952. In 1953, he married Hanne Kjærholm who became a successful architect. While working as a designer, he also became an educator continuing studies with Prof. Erik Herløw and Prof. Palle Suenson.
Konstfack, or University of Arts, Crafts and Design, is a university college for higher education in the area of art, crafts and design in Stockholm, Sweden.
Florence Marguerite Knoll Bassett was an American architect, interior designer, furniture designer, and entrepreneur who has been credited with revolutionizing office design and bringing modernist design to office interiors. Knoll and her husband, Hans Knoll, built Knoll Associates into a leader in the fields of furniture and interior design. She worked to professionalize the field of interior design, fighting against gendered stereotypes of the decorator. She is known for her open office designs, populated with modernist furniture and organized rationally for the needs of office workers. Her modernist aesthetic was known for clean lines and clear geometries that were humanized with textures, organic shapes, and colour.
Mario Bellini is an Italian architect and designer. After graduating from the Polytechnic University of Milan in 1959, Bellini pursued a career as an architect, exhibition designer, product designer, and furniture designer, during the Italian economic boom of the late 20th century. Bellini has received several accolades in a variety of design fields, including eight Compasso d'Oro awards, and the Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Triennale di Milano. In 2019, the Italian President of the Chamber of Deputies, Roberto Fico, awarded Bellini a career medal, in recognition of his contributions to Italian architecture and design.
Kaare Klint was a Danish architect and furniture designer, known as the father of modern Danish furniture design. Style was epitomized by clean, pure lines, use of the best materials of his time and superb craftsmanship.
Vitra is a Swiss family-owned furniture company with headquarters in Birsfelden, Switzerland. It is the manufacturer of the works of many furniture designers. Vitra is also known for the works of notable architects that make up its premises in Weil am Rhein, Germany, in particular the Vitra Design Museum.
Richard Sapper was a German industrial designer based in Milan, Italy. He is considered one of the most important designers of his generation, his products typically featuring a combination of technical innovation, simplicity of form and an element of wit and surprise. He received numerous international design awards, including 11 Compasso d'Oro awards and the Raymond Loewy Foundation's Lucky Strike Designer Award. His designs are held in many museums around the world including the Victoria and Albert (V&A) and Design Museum in London, the Pompidou Center in Paris, the ADI Design Museum in Milan, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, which counts over 17 of Sapper's designs in its collection.
Niels Diffrient was an American industrial designer. Diffrient focused mainly on ergonomic seating, and his most well known designs are the Freedom and Liberty chairs, manufactured by Humanscale.
Finn Juhl was a Danish architect, interior and industrial designer, most known for his furniture design. He was one of the leading figures in the creation of Danish design in the 1940s and he was the designer who introduced Danish modern to America.
Claesson Koivisto Rune is a Swedish architectural partnership, founded in 1995 by Mårten Claesson, Eero Koivisto and Ola Rune. It started as an architectural firm, but has since become a multi-disciplinary office with an equal emphasis on both architecture and design.
Danish modern is a style of minimalist furniture and housewares from Denmark associated with the Danish design movement. In the 1920s, Kaare Klint embraced the principles of Bauhaus modernism in furniture design, creating clean, pure lines based on an understanding of classical furniture craftsmanship coupled with careful research into materials, proportions, and the requirements of the human body.
Carl Gustav Magnusson is an industrial designer, inventor, design juror and lecturer.
Børge Mogensen, was a Danish furniture designer.
Mogens Koch was a Danish architect and furniture designer and, from 1950 to 1968, a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.
Greta Magnusson-Grossman was a Swedish furniture designer, interior designer, and architect. She was one of the few female designers to gain prominence during the mid-20th century architectural scene in Los Angeles. Her early exposure to European Modernism deeply influenced her later architectural work, seen as a synthesis of European ideals and the culture and lifestyle of Southern California.
Hille ( HIL-ee} is a British Modern furniture manufacturer which is especially noted for its range of Modernist chairs. Its products have been influential in the history of interior design and the company has been engaged internationally in a number of major design projects, including furnishings for the Royal Festival Hall and Gatwick Airport. A number of prominent furniture designers have worked for Hille, including Robin Day and Fred Scott.
Rosamind Julius was an English entrepreneur and furniture manufacturer. Together with her husband and her mother-in-law, they built up the Hille furniture company which used new British designers to create modernist furniture.
Konstantin Grcic, born 1965, is a German industrial designer known for creating mass-manufactured items, such as furniture and household products. He has participated in leading design shows and his work can be seen in major museums. Described as having a pared down aesthetic, his functional designs are characterized by geometric shapes and unexpected angles.
