THE MOST ICONIC

PIECES OF INTERIOR
DESIGN
Chronology
Model: F 51 Armchair and Sofa Suite
Designer: Walter Gropius
Year: 1920
He designed the F 51 Armchair and Sofa in specifically for the director’s office at the Bauhaus.
The features:
cantilevered frame,
armrests float above the cushions
and the bottom of the sofa doesn’t touch the ground. This is making this object appear to be levitating.
Gropius while designing F51 suite was influenced
by the cantilevered chair designs of Mies van der Rohe
Model: Model B3 Chair
Designer: Marcel Breuer
Year: 1925

The B3 is commonly known as the Wassily Chair, after designer

Marcel Brueur made a duplicate of the original for Wassily
Kandinsky.
Breuer was a tutor at the Bauhaus – and frequently rode a
bicycle there. He realized that tubular steel bent and used for
bike handlebars, could also be used to create furniture.

The result is a frame that’s like the skeleton, without all the
unnecessary padding/upholstering.
Model: Bauhaus Nesting Side Tables
Designer: Josef Albers
Year: 1926

Some Bauhaus designers created furniture that acted as 3D

representations of their work with paint and canvas. Josef
Albers was experimenting with geometry and colour in two-
dimensional artworks Homage[s] to the Square and these
nesting tables literally added another dimension to
those works.
Each was crafted from acrylic-layered glass and solid oak, and
used the three key Bauhaus colours: red, yellow, and blue.
Designed to work “independently and interdependently” of
each other.
 Model: E1027 Side Table
Designer: Eileen Gray
Year: 1927
Probably the most important table design of the
20th century, this popular height-adjustable
design has been a permanent collection of MoMa
in New York since 1977.

The code-name comes from the designer herself,

and her collaborator, Jean Badovici: E is for
Eileen, 10 for Jean (J is the 10th letter of the
alphabet), 2 for B(adovici) and 7 for G(ray).

Gray designed the table to be entirely multi-

functional,
so you can adjust the table top to the height of
your sitting position.
Model: LC3 Grand Confort Grand Sofa
Designer: Le Corbiseur
Year: 1928

It features a chrome tubular steel frame with

black leather cushions.
Le Corbusier believed a home was a
"machine for living in and thus the machine
needed appropriately functional furniture or
"équipement de l'habitation".
Perfectly formed, the aesthetically pure and
simple still remains the powerful example of
timeless design
Model: LC4 Chaise Longue
Designer: Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeannerret, Charlotte
Perriand
Year: 1928
■ The LC4 Chaise Longue was dubbed
the "relaxing machine" because of
the way it reflects the body's natural
curves while appearing to float above
its supports.
■ An infinite number of sitting angles
are achievable, as the moveable
frame adjusts along the base, from
upright to full recline.
Model: Barcelona Chair
Designer: Mies Van Der Rohe
Year: 1929

Mies van der Rohe designed his leather

lounge chair for his German Pavilion at
the Barcelona Exposition of 1929.

Only two Barcelona chairs were made

for the event, but the design was put
into production and became so popular
that, with the exception of one 16-year
period, it has been manufactured since
its inception 1929.
Model: Anglepoise lamp 1227
Designer: George Carwardine
Year: 1932

A key feature of the Anglepoise

design and patent is the placement of
all springs (either three or four) near
the base.

The design was extensively copied by

other companies, usually in simplified
form, and is still in use.

It was forbidden to use by the BBC

employees☺
Model: Stool 60
Designer: Alvar Aalto
Year: 1933
It is made from just three legs and one round
seat connecting them all together.

Aalto once said “the chair leg is the little sister of

the architectural column.” He realized that it
would be very easy to mass-produce these
“columns” if you could only avoid the lengthy
process of right-angled joints in wood.

The model is made of bent wood itself, with

Finnish birch proving to be the best choice.
Model: Noguchi Table
Designer: Isamu Noguchi
Year: 1944

At its launch, it was described as

‘sculpture for use’, a table that could
look like a piece of art but still play a
functional part in the home.

The simple design of biomorphic

style consists of two curving wooden
supports which provide a base for a
heavy plate glass top, without the
use of connectors.
 Model: LCW Plywood Chair
Designer: Charles and Ray Eames
Year: 1946

Time magazine Time called the

LCW “the chair of the century"
with it’s gentle curves of its
plywood frame .
Model: Nelson Platform Bench
Designer: George Nelson
Year: 1946

Designed in 1946, and at the time, its clean, rectilinear

lines were shockingly new.

George Nelson had the philosophy of “honest” design

and didn’t require the bench to be anything more than it
was – no ornamentation, no frills, only function,
flexibility and practicality.
Model: The Ball Clock
Designer: George Nelson
Year: 1949

The Ball Clock (1949) was the first of more than

150 clocks designed by George Nelson
Associates for the Howard Miller Clock Company,
which sold them from 1949 into the 1980s.
Model: Florence Knoll Sofa
Designer: Florence Knoll
Year: 1954
Florence Knoll is best known as the design
director of the Knoll furniture company. She
persuaded architects like Mies van der Rohe
and Eero Saarinen to contribute furniture
designs to .

Florence Knoll’s major contribution to

furniture design was as a kind of creative
director for the entire industry.

Her sofa is an iconic piece in its own right,

and sums up her attitude to aesthetics:
square geometry, a mix of textiles and steel,
and a clean form that still looks fresh today.
Model: Marshmallow Love Seat #5670(Marshmallow sofa)
Designer: Irving Harper
Year: 1954
Marshmallow sofa consists of a
metal frame with round discs of
covered foam, or "marshmallows",
spread across the seat and back in a
lattice(rack) arrangement.
The design was created in 1954
when a salesman for a Long
Island plastics company presented
to George Nelson's New York City
studio 12-inch foam discs. Designer
Irving Harper was asked to design a
piece of furniture around the discs.
Over a weekend Harper designed a
sofa, incorporating 18 of the discs
arranged over a metal frame.
Model: Tulip chair and dining table
Designer: Eero Saarinen
Year: 1956
■ The Tulip chair was designed for the Knoll company of New York
City.
■ It was designed primarily as a chair to match the complementary
dining table. The chair has the smooth lines of modernism and
was experimental with materials for its time. The chair is
considered a classic of industrial design.
■ Saarinen said: "The undercarriage of chairs and tables in a typical
interior makes an ugly, confusing, unrestful world. I wanted to clear
up the slum of legs. I wanted to make the chair all one thing again."
■ The upper shell is molded fiberglass, with a reinforced, plastic
bonded finish.
■ Saarinen was awarded a patent for the Tulip chair in 1960.
Model: Eames Lounge Chair
Designer: Charles and Ray Eames
Year: 1956
Made of wooden veneer and leather , the designers said they wanted their
recliner to have the “warm receptive look of a first-baseman’s mitt/glove.”
The chair is Eameses’ modern take on a 19th century club chair has become
one of the most significant furniture designs of the 20th century.
 Model: Mezzadro (Ploughman) stool
Designer: Achille and Pier Giacomo
Castiglioni
Year: 1957

Stool. Chromium-plated steel stem. Seat lacquered in

the colours: orange, red, yellow, white or black. Footrest
in steam-treated beech, natural colour.
 Model: Egg Chair
Designer: Arne Jacobsen
Year: 1958

The idea behind the Egg’s form is that it should give its user
some privacy while in public spaces.

The Egg was originally purpose-designed by Arne Jacobsen for

the Radisson SAS hotel in Copenhagen in 1958.

It became one of the best-known chair designs around and is

still one of the most instantly recognizable pieces from the
period.
Model: 606 Universal Shelving System
Designer: Dieter Rams
Year: 1960

Dieter Rams’ concept for the 606 shelving system

started with the thought that
„a bookcase should be neutral,
its life comes from the books it contains.”
He created neutral, fully modular shelving system
that is custom built for every house it exists in.
Its value is mainly in its modular flexibility.
Model: Panton Chair
Designer: Verner Panton
Year: 1960

The Panton Chair is an S-shaped plastic chair created by the

Danish designer Verner Panton in the 1960s.
The world's first moulded plastic chair,
The chair was included in the 2006 Danish Culture Canon.
 Model: Artemide Alfa
Designer: Sergio Mazza
Year: 1960

Metal structure in opaque nickel-plate;

diffuser in crystal glass; base in marble.
The metal parts are hand turned.
 Model: Arco Floor Lamp
Designer: Achille and Pier Castiglioni
Year: 1962

Designed to look like an urban streetlight.

Introduced in 1962 by Achille Castiglioni, it was created to

answer a tricky interior design problem – how do you create
overhead light from a floor lamp?

Construction: Carrara marble base, arch of a stainless steel

stem that delicately leans into living spaces.
Model: Ball chair
Designer: Eero Saarinen
Year: 1963
The idea of a‘room within a
room’ emerged after moving
house and realising that he had
no large chair. He therefore
decided to make one himself
and after much drawing he
came up with the simple, stylish
ball chair.
Model: Artemide
Eclisse
Designer:
Castiglioni
Brothers
Year: 1965
 Model:Up or Big Mama
Designer: Gaetano Pesce
Year: 1968
The bathroom sponge as an inspiration: “I had the sponge in
my hand,” explains the Italian designer. “When I pressed the
sponge, it shrank, and when I released it, it returned to its
original volume.”
An idea occurred: Couldn’t a chair behave the same way? At
his Paris atelier, Pesce began experimenting with vacuum-
packing the hippest material of the moment: polyurethane.
The form that emerged was no typical seat. Its bulbous
shape, inspired by silhouettes of ancient fertility goddesses
and accompanied by an affixed ottoman resembling a ball
and chain, was rife with meaning.
“It’s an image of a prisoner,” Pesce says. “Women suffer
because of the prejudice of men. The chair was supposed to
talk about this problem.”
 Model: Bocca sofa
Designer: Franco Audrito
Year: 1972
Early inspiration: the surrealist portrait of Mae West by
Salvador Dali that was adopted 1:1 by the surrealist mentor
Edward James who ordered 5 exempaires of Mae West lips’
shaped sofas to his mansion in Sussex.
Dali was personally engaged into forming and shaping the
furniture ( he has chosen Shocking Pink by Elsa Schiaparelli
colour for them).

In 1972 Franco Audrito created sofa named Bocca,

inspired by Marylin Monroe. Bocca can be found in
MoMA, Louvre, Design Museum in Milan a.o. The
same year Oskar Tusquets worked on the copy of
Dali’s sofa for the Museum of Dali works in Figueres.
They managed to perform the industrial prototype
– the only signed by Dali himself copy of the
furniture being in constant production.
 Model: Togo sofa
Designer: Michel Ducaroy
Year: 1973

The sofa as anti-bourgeois manifesto. It was

awarded the René-Gabriel prize, which
recognized “innovative and democratic
furniture”—pieces that offered a good price-
to-quality ratio.
It’s been described as having a “crumpled,
‘newborn’ appearance with Shar-Pei
wrinkles.”
The sofa to be known as the first module-
setting sofa
 Model: Proust armchair
Designer: Alessandro Mendini
Year: 1978
One of the most iconic chairs of the last century and a
precursor to Postmodern design
Mendini originally designed the Proust chair as a one-off piece
that he thought could have been used by French author Marcel
Proust, who died in 1922 and is considered the father of the
modern novel.
Its design combines a Baroque-style shape with a pattern of
tiny hand-painted Pointillist coloured dots across its wooden
frame and upholstery.
With this mash-up of historical styles, Mendini paved the way
for Postmodernism in design. The chair, which is
Mendini's best-known work, was the first in a series known as
Redesigns. The series brought together the designer's academic
theories on the importance of historical context for design and
the significance of appearance in a fast-moving world.
Model: Saliva Lemon
squeezer
Designer: Philippe Starck
Year: 1990
■ Designed for Alessi company
on Amalfi Coast as the
reaction to company’s order
to design the… tray
■ The prior inspiration was a
squid on a plate of teh
designer
■ Made of one moulded steel
it was also made in posh
versions of silver and gold
 Zettel,z 5 by Ingo Maurer
Year: 1997
The famous and popular Zettel'z 5 suspension lamp was
designed by Ingo Maurer himself in 1997.

The Zettel'z 5, with a diameter of Ø 120 cm, is a unique

lamp and a deluxe design object at the same time. 31
printed and 49 blank sheets of DIN A5 paper are
included in the deliver

The Zettel'z 5 suspension lamp's "notes" fastened by

clamps make for an interesting play of light and
shadow. An additional set of 80 sheets can be ordered
in the "accessories & spare parts".

This lamp is also available in other versions as

the Zettel'z 6 with DIN A6 sheets, the colourful Blushing
Zettel'z with imaginative Japanese prints, and the Bang
Boom Zettel'z with comic book images.
Model: La Marie chair
Designer: Philippe Starck
Year: 1998

La Marie Chair - The world’s first

completely transparent chair made from
a single polycarbonate mould.

Produced and sold in many colour

variants by Kartell company.
 Model: Mirror Glow
Designer: Tom Dixon
Year: 2003
The intended aim of the original Mirror Ball was to produce a
completely spherical, highly mirrored object. Instead it does the
opposite and is an ultravisible, highly reflective object that
mirrors its environment.
The perfect mirror finish of each pendant is created by the
process of vacuummetallisation.

Dixon himself said: "I thought that if I made the simplest shape I
could get away with in highly polished mirror, it would be
invisible because it would reflect its surroundings.
"In practice, it did the polar opposite," he explains. "It is very
much a focal point of a room, almost a blingy object in a way.
But it made it a more successful object commercially as a result.
"So that's a lesson for all designers," he adds. "Sometimes your
biggest failures could be your biggest successes."
 Model: Moon Sofa
Designer: Zaha Hadid
Year: 2007

MOON System the seating concept combining the

polypropylene manufacturing technologies and
complex curvilinear geometries.
Ergonomics and beauty are blended in a continuous
shape.
Launched into production by B&B Italia just after Zaha
Hadid’s death
Collection: 88 Secrets by Secret Splendour
Designer: Nica Zupanc
Year: 2017