Objects · people · ideas

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Discover the objects, people and ideas that shaped furniture, from historic pieces to modern designs.

381 entries

Page 14 of 16

A small green shagreen-covered case lies above a folded ivory ruler, showing the difference between the textured covering and the smooth instrument.

Shagreen covering

Explore shagreen through a folding ruler’s case, Jean-Michel Frank’s desk and the distinction between artificially grained hide and ray or shark skin.

Three-quarter view of the 1843 Shaker sewing table with a broad lipped worktop, two shallow upper drawers and four wider drawers.

Historic object

Shaker Sewing Table 66.10.18

Read one exact 1843 Shaker sewing table from its lipped worktop to its varied drawers and six recorded woods—and see how usefulness creates visual order.

A broad silver mesh armchair retains a full club-chair silhouette while its perforations reveal the room behind it.

Shiro Kuramata

See Shiro Kuramata through How High the Moon and his curved drawer units: solid furniture whose outline seems unexpectedly uncertain.

Layered pale silk-like hanging form shown open, with a smaller closed form above and behind.

Shylight

DRIFT’s Shylight combines layered silk with controlled motion. Opening on descent and closing on retreat make a hanging light part of the room’s choreography.

Godwin’s walnut side table with slender posts, offset shelves and small gilt-brass braces.

Historic object

Side table 1991.87

Edward William Godwin’s walnut side table turns narrow rails, offset shelves and brass braces into an open composition. Explore an Aesthetic Movement design.

At left, a bentwood armchair has an adjustable back, round support knobs and a low open seat; another chair stands to its right.

Sitzmaschine, model 670

Understand Hoffmann’s Sitzmaschine through its visible adjustment, bentwood loops and the difference between museum examples and a miniature model.

A long rectangular wooden table with a very thin top and slender straight legs, viewed across one corner.

Slim table

Arco’s Slim table pairs a thin wooden appearance with a supporting composite structure, showing how a hidden material decision can keep a room visually open.

A black wire chair with an open seat and back, slender supporting legs and a separate small seat cushion.

SM05 wire chair

Pastoe’s SM05 wire chair lets the room show through its seating surface, with historical co-credit for Cees Braakman and Adriaan Dekker and a separate cushion.

Editorial reconstruction of a blackened traditional-looking armchair whose carved outlines remain visible across a dark textured surface.

Smoke furniture

Maarten Baas’s Smoke project made an altered furniture surface part of a new identity, preserving visible damage rather than concealing it.

Belter sofa with a pierced rosewood crest and red modern upholstery framed by elaborate carving.

Historic object

Sofa 1999.396

A rosewood sofa associated with John Henry Belter joins elaborate carving to laminated construction. Read its silhouette alongside his 1858 furniture patent.

A dark wood stool has two symmetrical curved plywood halves rising into wing-shaped seat edges, joined beneath by a slender horizontal metal connection.

Sori Yanagi

Read Sori Yanagi’s Butterfly stool through its two matching moulded halves, a metal connection and the difference between design, debut and manufacture dates.

A low olive-green upholstered seat has generous rounded cushions gathered by a bright metal brace.

Soriana seating

Look at Soriana through its soft upholstered body and visible metal brace, with the 1969 design distinguished from the 2021 material revision.

An interpretive Spanish Chair with broad wooden side frames, saddle-leather seat and back, and visible straps.

Spanish Chair

See how Børge Mogensen's 1958 Spanish Chair turns broad oak arms, saddle-leather planes and exposed buckles into one readable structure.

Natural oak table with a pale blue translucent acrylic half-sphere over one end, leaving the remainder of the tabletop exposed.

Sphere Table

Hella Jongerius’s Sphere Table puts a coloured half-sphere over one working place. The room stays continuous while the table gains a sheltered corner.

Reconstruction: A light-brown three-drawer chest with recessed horizontal handgrips, flat fronts and short tapered wooden legs.

Stag C Range chests

A Stag C Range chest asks you to notice something that is missing: the usual row of knobs. Its recessed handgrips leave the drawers almost uninterrupted, giving a modest bedroom chest a surprisingly composed face.

A schematic seven-drawer chest shows small knobs, hanging ring handles and a shaped bracket-style base on a plain rectangular cabinet.

Stag Minstrel chests

The story behind Stag Minstrel chests: why ring handles, a shaped base and coordinated bedroom storage gave modern furniture a traditional accent.

Editorial reconstruction of an asymmetric black timber chair with three floor supports, a cantilevered back plank and one arm.

Steltman Chair

Rietveld’s Steltman chair began as a mirrored pair for a jeweller. Its original upholstery and later wooden versions tell different stories.

Reconstruction: An empty wooden chair with two back slats, grooved angled side supports, an upper seat and a lower foot platform.

Stokke Tripp Trapp chair

Tripp Trapp looks unusual because it begins with the table rather than the chair. Peter Opsvik wanted a growing child to join the same surface as everyone else, with a seat and a little floor that could move to suit them.

Editorial reconstruction: A wall-mounted shelving bay with two slim ladder-like wire sides and four wooden shelves on a pale wall.

String shelving system

The history of String shelving, Kajsa and Nisse Strinning’s 1949 competition design, its open wire sides, adjustable storage and the separate later String Pocket.

A chair formed from broad pale bent wooden strips has open intervals and a readable route from seat towards the floor.

Strip chair

Gijs Bakker’s Strip chair turns laminated wooden strips into a readable furniture structure, with bent beech, ash veneer and a clear route through the object.

A largely peeled pale branch-like upright divides into three lower supports beneath a wound bark-like shade.

Stripped lamp

Floris Wubben’s Stripped lamp divides a branch into supports and turns its peeled bark into a shade, keeping the source material recognisable.

A closed red upholstered rectangular block has a single undulating seam dividing its long side into two fitted sections.

Superonda

Discover how Archizoom turned a cut block of foam into Superonda, a sofa whose two pieces invite different arrangements, postures and uses of a room.

Narrow dark timber arms sit beside broad pale upholstery within a square black frame.

SZ 63 armchair

Martin Visser’s SZ 63 gives timber, upholstery and a square metal frame different jobs. Its material variants reveal what keeps the chair recognisable.

A black-and-white photograph of a desk with two sliding tambour fronts above a broad chest of drawers.

Tambour doors

Understand tambour doors through narrow slats, flexible backing and curved tracks, with American desks showing how movement changes a cabinet.