Cool furniture, design objects and desiderata

The guy who runs the local mi-century vintage furniture shop was the one who told me that they use the same molds. Regardless, they look like faithful repros.

Original:

[VIDEO][/VIDEO]

Modernica:

[VIDEO][/VIDEO]

SkinnyGoomba said:

Everyone puts them around a saarinen table. I might be tempted to put them around a small round nakashima table.

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Hmm, I'm not sure a saarinen table would be a good fit in my home. I have mostly Danish teak furniture, and it might stick out like a sore thumb. I was thinking of having some custom hairpin legs made, and then putting them on a maple top.



mordecai said:

Zissou, I don't think Modernica uses "the same" molds. The designs simply aren't patent protected anymore (and the patents explain how to produce the furniture), and Modernica makes more faithful knockoffs than other places. I believe the Miller ones were/are hand finished and might use slightly different wood and other materials than the Modernica ones as well. The Modernica Noguchi table definitely looks different to me when compared to an original.

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The word on the street, is that they have, whether or not its true?

HM stopped making the fiberglass chair back in the day, was that they didn't have a sustainable way to deal with the fiberglass, and that was when they started using plastic instead.



zissou said:

The guy who runs the local mi-century vintage furniture shop was the one who told me that they use the same molds. Regardless, they look like faithful repros.
Original:
[VIDEO][/VIDEO]
Modernica:
[VIDEO][/VIDEO]
Hmm, I'm not sure a saarinen table would be a good fit in my home. I have mostly Danish teak furniture, and it might stick out like a sore thumb. I was thinking of having some custom hairpin legs made, and then putting them on a maple top.

Click to expand...

In that case it sounds like a small super elliptical table would be cool. They make open claim to using the same molds that the originals were made in.



Medwed said:

I think I am getting sick of mid-century ubiquitous furniture. It is made well but it is furniture from the "wrong" era. It is an era when craftsmanship was replaced with mass-produced design pieces made with a lot of plastic. If you appreciate 'design' and good taste but also want craftsmanship and texture of the material the only way to go is backward , way way back into 19 and 18 century. There you can find a real hand-made personal & beautiful designs. Of course personal education and development of taste is paramount to the task of decorating your home. Sadly most people are idiots and want to surround Saarinen tables with Saarinen chairs or close reproductions and thus keep the mid century ****-wave circling the globe. I am not bashing Saarinen mind you , i think he was one of the last good men but unfortunately his designs are mass-produced and do not require any level of craftsmanship , which makes them paradoxically; ugly pieces. Once you take something beautiful and reproduce it zillion times you render it ubiquitous, predictable, less-special. That is how modern middle-class society destroys everything it touch and renders everything land-fill.

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The original intention of mid century furniture, at least in America, was that it was supposed to be obtainable.

That being said, most of the authentic versions maintain a very high level of craftsmanship.

Once you take something beautiful and reproduce it zillion times you render it ubiquitous, predictable, less-special. That is how modern middle-class society destroys everything it touch and renders everything land-fill.

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This well states a certain POV.

Medwed said:

I think I am getting sick of mid-century ubiquitous furniture. It is made well but it is furniture from the "wrong" era. It is an era when craftsmanship was replaced with mass-produced design pieces made with a lot of plastic. If you appreciate 'design' and good taste but also want craftsmanship and texture of the material the only way to go is backward , way way back into 19 and 18 century. There you can find a real hand-made personal & beautiful designs. Of course personal education and development of taste is paramount to the task of decorating your home. Sadly most people are idiots and want to surround Saarinen tables with Saarinen chairs or close reproductions and thus keep the mid century ****-wave circling the globe. I am not bashing Saarinen mind you , i think he was one of the last good men but unfortunately his designs are mass-produced and do not require any level of craftsmanship , which makes them paradoxically; ugly pieces. Once you take something beautiful and reproduce it zillion times you render it ubiquitous, predictable, less-special. That is how modern middle-class society destroys everything it touch and renders everything land-fill.

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There's Mid-Century Modern which was, as SkinnyGoomba pointed out, to be obtainable. It was supposed to be more like fashion, buy a set of Mid-Century Modern stuff from mass produced man made materials, when the next thing comes along throw all that stuff out and get the new 'thing'. The Scandinavian region had furniture makers who used similar ideas of shapes and forms but wanted things that would last. Solid, useful, and beautiful. They were still in the Mid-Century Modern vain but instead of using man made materials they used woods and then the PP501 happened. Really, I just wanted to put this here.

That Wegner chair may be the most beautiful chair ever made.



gdl203 said:

That Wegner chair may be the most beautiful chair ever made.

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I've got 2 although they have a padded/upholstered type seat (although you can see the woven supports underneath) and part of the back is wrapped.

Not sure if they are original (the seat is most likely recovered from what it used to be) but they were left behind in an apartment I sublet after my second year of college and I made sure to take them with me.

They need some refurbishing--don't really like the upholstered seat, and the woven part on one of them has blown out--but otherwise they are such a lovely design. Unfortunately they are sitting in my parents basement until I figure out if I want to have this guy restore them ($$$) or if I want to sell them to fund some furniture that better fits my current living space.

edit: and if you guys are interested, the guy I linked to above has some pretty sweet pieces for sale and the pricing isn't terrible.

If you have originals they're worth quite a bit!

Honestly you take wishbone chair and have a good look at the craftsmanship, it's inspirational. It's certainly not what I would consider mass produced junk. Most of the top Danish makers are putting out a quality product, One of my coworkers has a Finn Juhl model 45 chair, I've had the opportunity to appreciate it, it's nice!

I own an eames lounge + ottoman, but I can't say I'm signed on to the Eames 'everyman' way of living.



SkinnyGoomba said:

If you have originals they're worth quite a bit!

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Yeah...my friends used to make fun of me when we had them in our college apartment (the one with the blown out woven seat support was deemed the "ass-bucket" for the way you sank into it) but I knew what they were and how many undergrads get to have such a thing of beauty in their apartments? The joinery work on the back rest is something else...

I think they are likely to be real (or at least a very good reproduction). The neighborhood my school was in used to have a nice high end Scandinavian furniture store in the 60s-70s and so my guess was that they came from a yard sale or something and after passing between groups of students, all of their heritage (and knowledge of their value) was lost down to the point where some students just left them behind when moving out.

Found a sweet made in denmark teak dining table (with leaves!) in the place my ex moved into a couple years after that. They had agreed with the previous tennant to buy some of their furniture and that was left behind. I saw it and immediately was like "holy **** where did that come from"...with a little love, that thing was probably worth a year's rent in that place. Unfortunately someone else may have known what that piece was worth (although clearly didn't treat it that way judging by all of the water rings) and they got an email a couple months later with some story about how it was someone's grandmother's and they really wanted it back etc. I figured at that point, either it was included in the sale of property or it was abandoned after vacating the unit...either way, no right to reclaim it, but the girls were nicer than I am and let them come take it back.



gdl203 said:

That Wegner chair may be the most beautiful chair ever made.

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Really ? It's up there.



gdl203 said:

That Wegner chair may be the most beautiful chair ever made.

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Interiors magazine said:

'the most beautiful chair in the world'

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OTC,

Great story, and here I am buying all of my furniture. Lol.

Stephenhero, I feel you may dislike it simply because others like it, but if that isn't a gorgeous chair show us what is.

Geez, are my jokes that bad?