Modern Classic Designers

Achille Castiglioni was a famous designer that found inspiration in everyday things and used ordinary materials in his work. Castiglioni’s designs have been exhibited at the Milan Triennial since 1947 and he has received several Compasso d'Oro awards. Achille Castilglioni's products are considered classics and many are still in production.

Arne Jacobsen was among the first to introduce modernist ideas to Denmark and was famous for his elegant Swan and Egg chairs. Jacobsen began training as a mason before attending the Royal Danish Academy of Arts in Copenhagen where he won a silver medal for a chair that was then exhibited at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Art Decoratifs in Paris.

Charles Eames was an American designer, architect and filmmaker who is responsible for many classic designs of the 20th century. Together with his wife Ray, the Eameses created more than a "look" with their bent plywood chairs or molded fiberglass seating. The Eameses had ideas about making the world a better place, one in which things were designed to fulfill the practical needs of ordinary people and bring greater simplicity and pleasure to our lives.

Eero Saarinen's most famous furniture design was the "Tulip" collection, which featured side and arm chairs, dining, coffee and side tables, and a stool. Eero Saarinen is also considered one of the masters of American 20th Century architecture after building the corporate headquarters for General Motors Technical Center, John Deere, IBM, and CBS.

Irish designer and architect Eileen Gray originally designed geometric work that first appeared in the 1920s, with designs featuring multifunctional, collapsible furniture in tubular steel, glass, and painted wood. Eileen Gray's designs are renowned breakthroughs in the world of modern classic furniture design and include her famous adjustable table and comfortable Bibendum chair in Italian leather.

Florence Knoll was both an accomplished architect and furniture designer that is famous for starting a furntiture company along with her husband Hans Knoll. The company had a modernist, Scandinavian style. Florence Knoll's furniture designs mixed woods, metals, and laminates to create clean lines and square shapes. Florence Knoll designed corporate offices and would often feature her own furniture designs in those offices.

George Nelson's ultimate goal as a designer was "to do much more with much less." He was an American designer central to modern design. George Nelson developed many famous modern classic furniture designs, including the Marshmallow sofa, the Nelson platform bench and the first L-shaped desk, a precursor to the present-day workstation.

Harry Bertoia produced his immensely popular steel mesh series of furniture in the1950's, which included the "Diamond" chair, one of the most prevalent images of modern furniture design. The pieces grew out of a sculptural aesthetic, and Bertoia wrote that when looking at the chairs you could see that "space passes through them." His Bertoia Wire Chair series is highly regarded in the world of modern classic furniture to this day.

Isamu Noguchi was an extremely diverse and multi-faceted artists who saw no distinction between fine and applied arts. He successfully synthesized art and design, and East and West, with a passionately innovative vision. Noguchi's famous modern classic furniture creations reflect the rich cultural and philosophical influences he embraced throughout his prolific career.

Josef Hoffmann’s designs for the decorative arts were influenced by the British Arts & Craft movement. Hoffmann embraced the advent of the industrial age and concentrated on abstract and geometric shapes in his work. Hoffmann is well-known for the simple, restrained, yet visually interesting dining chairs, several intended for cafes, that he designed early in the 20th century.

French architect Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) is renowned as one of the great theoreticians of modern design and architecture. Le Corbusier's groundbreaking designs from the 1920s were the basis for the International Style. His famous Le Corbusier furniture is widely considered to be the pinnacle of modern classic furniture design. Most of his furniture designs were developed early in his career. The metal furniture he designed in 1928 quickly became successful worldwide.

German-American designer and architect, who was a leading pioneer of the glass and steel architecture and design of the 20th-century International style. His famous dictum "less is more" crystallized the basic philosophy of mid-20th-century architecture and design. Mies was famous the Barcelona chair and Barcelona furniture series, which is perhaps the most outstanding piece of modern classic furniture.

Marcel Breuer taught at the Bauhaus in the 1920's, stressing the combination of art and technology. Breuer may be best known for his design of the Wassily Chair, the first tubular bent-steel chair, designed in 1925 for Wassily Kandinsky . He also used tubular bent-steel for his Breuer Nesting Tables. These are two masterpieces of modern classic furniture.

Poul Kjaerholm created furniture that are sculptures in themselves, but with a subtle quality that makes them ideally suited for accompanying art. In his furniture, Kjaerholm emphasized use and wear, with a focus on materials that were durable and improved with age. He viewed each piece as an element to support an architectural space, and was equally interested in how a chair or lounge positioned the sitter in relation to the surrounding floors and walls.

Verner Panton was a famous and influential Danish furniture and interior designer. He combined his furniture designs, wall upholstery, textiles and lighting to achieve his psychedelic vision. Many of his designs have transcended time and remain in production today. Perhaps one of his most famous pieces is the Stacking chair or the S chair.