High-Style Design, Mid-Style Price 

Furnishing a home has always been a daunting, but exciting, task. Modern furniture from the middle of the 20th century included unique pieces with clean lines and subtle curves that added emotion and interest to a room. America was a leader in midcentury design. A recent sale at Barton’s Auction in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, featured more […]

Radical Design

The radical design movement, which began in Italy in the early 1960s, can be said to be the “high-end Pop-hippie” style. Furniture designers experimented with new materials and designs. The movement lasted only until the middle of the 1970s. Some of the radical designers formed Studio Alchimia (1976) and then the Memphis design group (1981).

Herman Miller

Herman Miller Furniture Company made traditional residential furniture when it started in 1923. When Gilbert Rohde became design director of the Zeeland, Michigan, company in 1932, he realized there was a market for attractive modern furniture, and he completely changed the designs. After Rohde died in 1944, George Nelson became design director. He hired well-known […]

Droog Design

Droog Design is a group of Dutch designers founded in Amsterdam in 1993 by Renny Ramakers and Gijs Bakker. Droog designs furniture, art objects, graphics, interiors, and architectural projects. Its work is eye-catching and witty. The Droog philosophy is a reaction to the extreme ideas of the radical designers. Droog’s Chest of Drawers, designed by […]

Memphis

In 1981 Italian designer Ettore Sottsass Jr. organized an Italian design group with the surprising name Memphis to create products in “the new International style.” The furniture, lighting fixtures, jewelry, and ceramics designed by this group were very different from the pieces sold in stores. Memphis design was not understood nor accepted and was a […]