No other American mid-century furniture line has become as synonymous with a certain type of curvilinear decoration as Broyhill’s Brasilia group. While its revered cabinets, dressers, dining chairs and more were made in the United States, the inspiration for the distinguishing characteristics of vintage Broyhill Brasilia furniture can actually be found in Latin American architecture.
Broyhill Furniture Industries was launched in Lenoir, North Carolina by brothers Thomas H. and James Edgar “Ed” Broyhill. Ed had been working for his brother’s furniture manufacturing company, the Lenoir Furniture Corporation, which produced bedroom furnishings in the 1920s, when a nearby supplier’s factory, Bernhardt Chair Company, burned in a fire.
Ed founded Lenoir Chair Company and expanded its operations while remaining an employee at Lenoir Furniture Corporation. He subsequently partnered with Thomas and together they purchased Harper Furniture Company, a local producer of Colonial Revival-style furniture, in 1929.
By the 1940s, Broyhill Furniture Industries had absorbed more factories and gained footing as a strong competitor of Lenoir’s Kent-Coffey Manufacturing Company and a rebuilt Bernhardt Furniture.
In the mid-1950s, responding to changing tastes and to an appetite for what is now universally known as mid-century modern furnishings, the firm launched its Broyhill Premier line with the Sculptra series. Sculptra pieces featured a square-within-a-square motif and horizontal cat’s-eye-shaped drawer pulls. Later, in 1962, the Broyhill Brasilia furniture group debuted at the Seattle World’s Fair. The collection was heavily inspired by Oscar Niemeyer’s modernist buildings for the eponymous Brazilian capital.
Designed and built by Niemeyer between 1956 and 1960, the modernist architecture of Brasília’s state capitol buildings has since taken on iconic status. The elegant curves of Niemeyer's works — those that characterize the white concrete structures that encase Palácio do Planalto in addition to the fluid inverted arches of the Supreme Federal Court Building — can be seen in the pronounced decorative elements that adorn the Broyhill Brasilia group’s sleek walnut highboy dressers, specifically in their striking brass drawer-pull arches and carved moldings. While considerably popular during the 1960s, the production of the Brasilia line — with its beloved two-tiered bedside tables and tasteful credenzas — was discontinued in 1970.
On 1stDibs, browse vintage mid-century Broyhill Brasilia furniture, such as its walnut dressers, dining chairs, case pieces and more.
