The Most Influential Mid-Century Furniture Designs

The middle of the 20^th century was one of the most productive times in history for the design of innovative pieces of furniture. The revolutionary design was all the rage, and political views mixed with design came together in unexpected ways. Here are some of the most influential mid-century furniture designs.

Polar Bear Couch

Jean Royere produced what is arguably the most sought-after mid-century couch around in the form of ours polaire during the 1940s. Rounded and refined, this settee is undeniably beautiful. While the most famous examples of this design are in polar bear white, there are some more unusual colors available. You’ll need a specialist couch shipping company to help you if you want to move one of these rare and rather expensive pieces of furniture. Less than 200 of these beautiful couches were produced, which means that each one goes for almost 1 million dollars.

Wassily Chair

The Wassily chair is one of the most enduring and commercially successful designs ever to come out of the iconic Bauhaus. The Bauhaus movement was a design set based around the school of the same name operating out of Germany during the inter-war period. Marcel Breuer designed the Wassily chair in 1925, inspired by the incredible efficiency of a bicycle frame. Although he originally designed the chair for himself, he also built one for his friend Wassily Kandinsky. He named the chair after his friend when it was finally released to the public in 1960.

Saarinen Dining Table

Eero Saarinen designed his iconic table in 1957 – a design that encapsulated a broad attitude towards human interaction with space and which has been influential ever since. Saarinen wanted to eliminate the ‘slum of legs’ beneath kitchen tables and chairs. Slums – or the informal cityscape – were the target of a great deal of idealistic architectural revisionism in the 1950s and 60s during the modernist period. Eero Saarinen wanted to take that same top-down revisionist attitude towards furniture. He had more achievable aims than the urbanist modernist peers he hung with.

His dining table was a delight: a wine glass-shaped structure that eliminated the need for multiple legs and spawned a whole series of space-age copycats. Many other modernist furniture designers sought to simplify the underside of their creations using Eero’s ethos.

Florence Knoll Couch

Florence Knoll created her magnum opus in 1956 in the form of her eponymous sofa. The Florence Knoll couch is one of the most successful minimalist designs in furniture history. This is partially due to its sheer versatility. An extremely simple, metal-framed construction, the Florence Knoll couch can fit into the interior style of just about any home. Originally designed to passively compliment more eye-catching modernist furniture in corporate settings, this couch swiftly became a classic. Today, Florence Knoll couches are just as likely to be seen in the homes of the ultra-rich as they are in the halls of power, which makes them somewhat of a statement piece if you can afford to buy one.

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