Postmodern design was a short-lived movement that manifested itself chiefly in Italy and the United States in the early 1980s. The characteristics of vintage postmodern furniture and other postmodern objects and decor for the home included loud-patterned, usually plastic surfaces; strange proportions, vibrant colors and weird angles; and a vague-at-best relationship between form and function.
ORIGINS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
CHARACTERISTICS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW
VINTAGE POSTMODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS
Critics derided postmodern design as a grandstanding bid for attention and nothing of consequence. Decades later, the fact that postmodernism still has the power to provoke thoughts, along with other reactions, proves they were not entirely correct.
Postmodern design began as an architectural critique. Starting in the 1960s, a small cadre of mainly American architects began to argue that modernism, once high-minded and even noble in its goals, had become stale, stagnant and blandly corporate. Later, in Milan, a cohort of creators led by Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini — a onetime mentor to Sottsass and a key figure in the Italian Radical movement — brought the discussion to bear on design.
Sottsass, an industrial designer, philosopher and provocateur, gathered a core group of young designers into a collective in 1980 they called Memphis. Members of the Memphis Group, which would come to include Martine Bedin, Michael Graves, Marco Zanini, Shiro Kuramata, Michele de Lucchi and Matteo Thun, saw design as a means of communication, and they wanted it to shout. That it did: The first Memphis collection appeared in 1981 in Milan and broke all the modernist taboos, embracing irony, kitsch, wild ornamentation and bad taste.
Memphis works remain icons of postmodernism: the Sottsass Casablanca bookcase, with its leopard-print plastic veneer; de Lucchi’s First chair, which has been described as having the look of an electronics component; Martine Bedin’s Super lamp: a pull-toy puppy on a power-cord leash. Even though it preceded the Memphis Group’s formal launch, Sottsass’s iconic Ultrafragola mirror — in its conspicuously curved plastic shell with radical pops of pink neon — proves striking in any space and embodies many of the collective’s postmodern ideals.
After the initial Memphis show caused an uproar, the postmodern movement within furniture and interior design quickly took off in America. (Memphis fell out of fashion when the Reagan era gave way to cool 1990’s minimalism.) The architect Robert Venturi had by then already begun a series of plywood chairs for Knoll Inc., with beefy, exaggerated silhouettes of traditional styles such as Queen Anne and Chippendale. In 1982, the new firm Swid Powell enlisted a group of top American architects, including Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Stanley Tigerman and Venturi to create postmodern tableware in silver, ceramic and glass.
On 1stDibs, the vintage postmodern furniture collection includes chairs, coffee tables, sofas, decorative objects, table lamps and more.
Slate Grey Metal Gabin High Sideboard Natural Walnut by HARTO
Located in Geneve, CH
Slate Grey Metal Gabin High Sideboard Natural Walnut by HARTO Dimensions: W 122 x D 45 x H 80 cm. Materials: Solid wood, Wood veneered MDF, Painted metal. Weight: 57.0 kg Modest in...
Metal
Slate Grey Metal Gabin Sideboard 122 cm Natural Walnut by HARTO
Located in Geneve, CH
Slate Grey Metal Gabin Sideboard 122 cm Natural Walnut by HARTO Dimensions: W 122 x D 45 x H 49 cm. Materials: Solid wood, Wood veneered MDF, Painted metal. Weight: 37.0 kg Modest ...
Metal
$20,774 / item
Bosque Sideboard by Ginger & Jagger
Located in Geneve, CH
Bosque Sideboard by Ginger & Jagger Dimensions: D 62 x W 220 x H 80 cm. Materials: Wood and brass. Finish: Body, Interior & Exterior: Night Jungle wood veneer with gloss fini...
Brass
$35,148 / item
Rubik Container by Somaschini
Located in Geneve, CH
Rubik Container by Somaschini Dimensions: W 150 x D 50 x H 180 cm Materials: Plywood structure and door with workmanship at 45 degrees. Doors with push-pull system opening. Internal ...
Plywood
$5,234 / item
Rubik Container by Somaschini
Located in Geneve, CH
Rubik Container by Somaschini Dimensions: W 50 x D 50 x H 60 cm Materials: Plywood structure and door with workmanship at 45 degrees. Doors with push-pull system opening. Internal co...
Plywood
$3,753 / item
Rubik Container by Somaschini
Located in Geneve, CH
Rubik Container by Somaschini Dimensions: W 50 x D 50 x H 60 cm Materials: Plywood structure and door with workmanship at 45 degrees. Doors with push-pull system opening. Internal co...
Plywood
$12,077 / item
Toros Black & Black Oak Eterno Sideboard by Studio Mohs
Located in Geneve, CH
Toros Black & Black Oak Eterno Sideboard by Studio Mohs Dimensions: W 74 x D 30 x H 90 cm Materials: Marble, Diabase, Black Wood Veneer. The Toros Black marble, which is extract...
Marble
$3,625 / item
Stella Large Sideboard by Pastform
Located in Geneve, CH
Stella Large Sideboard by Pastform Dimensions: D 40 x W 120 x H 90 cm. Materials: Stained and varnished wood. Available in different wood color finishes: Whiskey, Rum, BPA, Nobel, B...
Wood
$3,275 / item
Lana Large Sideboard by Pastform
Located in Geneve, CH
Lana Large Sideboard by Pastform Dimensions: D 40 x W 175 x H 65 cm. Materials: Stained and varnished wood. Available in different wood color finishes: Whiskey, Rum, BPA, Nobel, Bra...
Wood
$3,275 / item
Classy Slide High Medium Sideboard by Pastform
Located in Geneve, CH
Classy Slide High Medium Sideboard by Pastform Dimensions: D 40 x W 170 x H 85 cm. Materials: Stained and varnished wood. Available in different wood color finishes: Whiskey, Rum, B...
Wood
$3,450 / item
Noto Medium Sideboard by Pastform
Located in Geneve, CH
Noto Medium Sideboard by Pastform Dimensions: D 40 x W 170 x H 75 cm. Materials: Stained and varnished wood. Available in different wood color finishes: Whiskey, Rum, BPA, Nobel, Br...
Wood
$2,168 / item
Mid Slide Large Sideboard by Pastform
Located in Geneve, CH
Mid Slide Large Sideboard by Pastform Dimensions: D 40 x W 120 x H 85 cm. Materials: Stained and varnished wood. Available in different wood color finishes: BPA, Nobel, Brandy, Whis...
Wood
$9,431 / item
Vertigo Console Table by Memoir Essence
Located in Geneve, CH
Vertigo Console Table by Memoir Essence Dimensions: D 50 x W 150 x H 90 cm. Materials: Brushed brass and lacquer. Vertigo console presents a com...
Brass
$24,318 / item
The Special Tree Sideboard by InsidherLand
Located in Geneve, CH
The Special Tree Sideboard by InsidherLand Dimensions: D 53 x W 200 x H 95 cm. Materials: Wooden structure: Ebony Macassar. Shelves: glass. Base, tubes, and shelf supports: polished...
Stainless Steel
White Oak Virka Low Sideboard by Ropke Design and Moaak
Located in Geneve, CH
White oak virka low sideboard by Ropke Design and Moaak Materials: oak, metal. Dimensions: D 40 x W 120 x H 47 cm Also available in different colours and materials. The founder...
Metal
$6,539 / item
Virka High Sideboard by Ropke Design and Moaak
Located in Geneve, CH
Virka high sideboard by Ropke Design and Moaak Materials: walnut, metal. Dimensions: D 40 x W 120 x H 82 cm Also available in different colours and materials. The founders, Mia...
Metal
$5,012 / item
White Oak Array Sideboard 120 by Says Who
Located in Geneve, CH
White Oak Array sideboard 120 by Says Who Materials: Oak, Metal Dimensions: D 44 x W 120 x H 97 cm Also available in different colors and materials. Th...
Metal
$6,365 / item
Black Oak Array Highboard 80 by Says Who
Located in Geneve, CH
Black Oak Array highboard 80 by Says Who Materials: Oak, Metal Dimensions: D 44 x W 80 x H 160 cm Also available in different colors and materials. The ...
Metal
$44,882 / item
9 Rectangles Cabinet by John Eric Byers
Located in Geneve, CH
9 Rectangles cabinet by John Eric Byers Dimensions: D115 x W38 x H165 cm Materials: sawn + blackened + maple + ash All works are individually handmade to order. John Eric Bye...
Other
1980’s Travertine And Pencil Reed Sideboard
Located in Chicago, IL
1980’s two doors sideboard made of travertine and pencil reed.
Travertine