Hans Jørgensen Wegner was a Danish furniture designer. His work, along with a concerted effort from several of his manufacturers, contributed to the international popularity of mid-century Danish design. His style is often described as Organic Functionality, a modernist school with emphasis on functionality. This school of thought arose primarily in Scandinavian countries with contributions by Poul Henningsen, Alvar Aalto, and Arne Jacobsen.
The Wassily Chair, also known as the Model B3 chair, was designed by Marcel Breuer in 1925–1926 while he was the head of the cabinet-making workshop at the Bauhaus, in Dessau, Germany.
Ready-to-assemble furniture (RTA), also known as knock-down furniture (KD), flat-pack furniture, or kit furniture, is a form of furniture that requires customer assembly. The separate components are packed for sale in cartons which also contain assembly instructions and sometimes hardware. The furniture is generally simple to assemble with basic tools such as hex keys, which are also sometimes included. Ready-to-assemble furniture is popular with consumers who wish to save money by assembling the product themselves.
A rocking chair or rocker is a type of chair with two curved bands attached to the bottom of the legs, connecting the legs on each side to each other. The rockers contact the floor at only two points, giving the occupant the ability to rock back and forth by shifting their weight or pushing lightly with their feet. Rocking chairs are most commonly made of wood. Some rocking chairs can fold.
Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd., or Muji is a Japanese retailer which sells a wide variety of household and consumer goods. Muji's design philosophy is minimalist, and it places an emphasis on recycling, reducing production and packaging waste, and a no-logo or "no-brand" policy. The name Muji is derived from the first part of Mujirushi Ryōhin, translated as No-Brand Quality Goods on Muji's European website.
Wicker is a method of weaving used to make products such as furniture and baskets, as well as a descriptor to classify such products. It is the oldest furniture making method known to history, dating as far back as c. 3000 BC. Wicker was first documented in ancient Egypt, then having been made from pliable plant material, but in modern times it is made from any pliable, easily woven material. The word wicker or "wisker" is believed to be of Scandinavian origin: vika, which means "to fold" in Swedish. Wicker is traditionally made of material of plant origin, such as willow, rattan, reed, and bamboo, though the term also applies to products woven from synthetic fibers. Wicker is light yet sturdy, making it suitable for items that will be moved often like porch and patio furniture. Rushwork and wickerwork are terms used in England. A typical braiding pattern is called Wiener Geflecht, Viennese Braiding, as it was invented in 18th century Vienna and later most prominently used with the Thonet coffeehouse chair.
Gebrüder Thonet or the Thonet Brothers was a European furniture manufacturer. It continues as a German company, Austrian and Czech (TON).
Bentwood objects are those made by wetting wood, then bending it and letting it harden into curved shapes and patterns.
A Windsor chair is a chair built with a solid wooden seat into which the chair-back and legs are round-tenoned, or pushed into drilled holes, in contrast to other styles of chairs whose back legs and back uprights are continuous. The seats of Windsor chairs are often carved into a shallow dish or saddle shape for comfort. Traditionally, the legs, stretchers, and uprights were usually turned on a pole lathe. Spindles may also be carved, using drawknives and spokeshaves. The back and sometimes the arm pieces are formed from steam bent pieces of wood. Traditional Windsors are typically painted, primarily to hide the different types of wood used in construction, based on their characteristics.
Artek is a Finnish furniture company. It was founded in December 1935 by architect Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino Aalto, visual arts promoter Maire Gullichsen and art historian Nils-Gustav Hahl. The founders chose a non-Finnish name: the neologism Artek was meant to manifest the desire to combine art and technology. This echoed a main idea of the International Style movement, especially the Bauhaus, to emphasize the technical expertise in production and quality of materials, instead of historical-based, eclectic or frivolous ornamentation.
The "REX" Chair is a Slovenian wood chair in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, designed in 1952 by Slovene architect and designer Niko Kralj (1920–2013). In 2012 it was given a permanent place in the Designmuseum, Denmark, the largest museum of design in Scandinavia. The chair is renowned for its contemporary elegance and the sensation of lightness it imparts. The REX Chair is the most internationally recognized Slovenian design item and was ranked as the second most significant Slovenian product of the 20th century by the "Finance" newspaper in 1999. In 2004 at its 50th anniversary there was an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana devoted to the REX chair.
Michael Thonet was a German-Austrian cabinet maker, known for the invention of bentwood furniture.
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.
Steam bending is a woodworking technique where wood is exposed to steam to make it pliable. Heat and moisture from steam can soften wood fibres enough so they can be bent and stretched, and when cooled down they will hold their new shape.
Jacob & Josef Kohn, also known as J. & J. Kohn, was an Austrian furniture maker and interior designer in Vienna.
The Rococo Revival style emerged in Britain and France in the 19th century. Revival of the rococo style was seen all throughout Europe during the 19th century within a variety of artistic modes and expression including decorative objects of art, paintings, art prints, furniture, and interior design. In much of Europe and particularly in France, the original rococo was regarded as a national style, and to many, its reemergence recalled national tradition. Rococo revival epitomized grandeur and luxury in European style and was another expression of 19th century romanticism and the growing interest and fascination with natural landscape.
Furniture created in the Art Nouveau style was prominent from the beginning of the 1890s to the beginning of the First World War in 1914. It characteristically used forms based on nature, such as vines, flowers and water lilies, and featured curving and undulating lines, sometimes known as the whiplash line, both in the form and the decoration. Other common characteristics were asymmetry and polychromy, achieved by inlaying different colored woods.
Molded plywood is the term for two- or three-dimensionally shaped products from multiple veneer layers that are glued together through heat and pressure in a pressing tool. The veneer layers are arranged crosswise at an angle of 90 degrees. Molded wood is used for flat furniture components such as seats, backrests and seat shells. When the veneer layers are arranged in the same direction, it is called laminated wood. It is used for armrests and chair frames. After pressing, the blanks are processed mechanically. A particular feature is the ability to produce different variations of shapes from the blanks. Due to its immense strength and low weight, molded wood is particularly suitable for interior decoration, seating furniture, bed slats, skateboards and vehicle construction.
Bruno Rey (1935–2019) was a Swiss industrial designer, best known for the Rey chair model 3300, one of the most successful Swiss chairs of all time. Over the course of his career, Rey built and rebuilt many other diverse projects. He designed rooms and exhibitions, like the control room at the Mühleberg Nuclear Power Plant in the Canton of Berne; designed gardens and plant containers made from fiber cement for the company Eternit AG.
