Each week there’s a new comprehensive biographical post featuring a single designer from the mid-century modernist period. Stay tuned!
Last week we featured Grant Featherston. Happy new year to everyone! If Charles and Ray Eames can be considered the authority when it comes to plastic in America, then Verner Panton is the authority when it comes to plastic in Europe. Born a little later than the Eameses, the legacy of his work has experienced …
Last week we featured Gerrit Rietveld. Happy New Year from everyone at Manhattan Home Design! It’s been a while since we talked about a designer that wasn’t entirely American or European. The mid-century modernist movement spanned the entire world in many different ways, as we have mentioned before. In Australia, particularly, there were a lot …
Last week we featured George Nelson. Happy Holidays from everyone at Manhattan Home Design! The Dutch were always a very influential part of the Scandinavian Modern movement, if not the most important, as many would argue. From those influential designers, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld stands for his mastery, and for his simplicity. He’s primarily remembered for …
Last week we profiled Alvar Aalto. Remember that you can get a free George Nelson Ball Clock with any purchase of an Eames Office Chair replica on the Manhattan Home Design website. If you type “George Nelson” into a search engine, odds are you’re going to get the profile of a prolific bank robber, also …
Last week we featured Frank Lloyd Wright. After more than 20 DOTW articles, we were looking to do a little of a return to form. The more recent articles were longer, wordier, and featured both big and not-so-big names in the mid-century furniture industry. Today we’re going to talk about Mr. Aalto. He was a …
Last week we featured Arne Jacobsen. Furniture was an essential part of Frank Lloyd Wright’s philosophy and upbringing as a designer, even though most people know him as the creator of organic architecture. His most famous work, the Fallingwater house, sits atop a small waterfall in Pennsylvania, deep into the Laurel Highlands. Frank Lincoln Wright …
Last week we featured Achille Castiglioni, creator of the Arco Lamp! Copenhagen, 1902. Danish merchant Johan Jacobsen and his wife Pouline, a bank clerk, have just given birth to a son that they named Arne. The child’s restlessness and artistic prowess both flourish at the same time on his early school years, setting the stage …
Last week we featured Finn Juhl. In a couple of weeks, art and design enthusiasts around the world will commemorate the passing of Achille Castiglioni, one of the foremost Italian designers of the mid-century modernist period, and co-creator of the inimitable, unparalleled Arco lamp. Born in Milan in 1918, Achille showed an early passion for …
Last week we profiled Hans Wegner! New designers every Tuesday! Born in 1912, Finn Juhl is one of the lesser known figures of the mid-century modernist movement, though for real fans, he’s actually the very first. Primarily an architect and interior designer, Juhl not only contributed to the Danish modern design trend, he actually introduced …
Last week we featured Marcel Breuer. Creator of the iconic, and weird, Flag Halyard chair, the Peacock chair, and a 1949 design that’s just called “The Chair”, we present to you Hans Jorgensen Wegner: Danish furniture designer, pioneer, iconoclast, and artist. Born in Tønder, south Denmark, in 1914, Wegner was the son of a cobbler, …
