Design
Valet Chair
See how Hans J. Wegner’s 1953 Valet Chair turns a hanger, trouser support, seat and pocket-sized compartment into one remarkably composed object.
Objects · people · ideas
Browse the Library
Discover the objects, people and ideas that shaped furniture, from historic pieces to modern designs.
381 entries
Page 16 of 16
Historic object
Vanderbilt Library Table 1972.47
Look across Herter Brothers' monumental Vanderbilt library table: a birthday sky, shell-inlaid globes and imperial references turn furniture into portraiture.
Design
Verona Pendant
See how Sven Middelboe’s 1968 Verona pendant uses nested aluminium shades to conceal the bulb, soften glare and make the fitting itself glow.
Technique
Verre églomisé
See how verre églomisé puts decoration behind glass, why its making works in reverse, and how a chair or cabinet can turn that surface into a personal statement.
Historic object
Vichr metal-furniture catalogue, Cooper Hewitt copy, c 1937
Read a Czech metal-furniture catalogue as a proposal for domestic life, from beds and chairs to plant stands and coordinated interiors.
Design
Vico Magistretti Selene chair
Selene’s smooth seat gives little away. Look at the legs instead: their folded section is the clever part. Vico Magistretti used shape to give a slender plastic chair the presence of an ordinary dining chair.
Design
Vision storage system
Vision turns storage into a composition of planes and volumes. Pierre Mazairac and Karel Boonzaaijer designed the system for Pastoe in 1985.
Design
Visiona II
Enter the idea behind Verner Panton’s 1970 Visiona 2: a temporary interior where colour, upholstery and changing levels shaped ways to rest.
Historic object
Walnut chest from the Mary Rose carpenter’s cabin
Look inside the Mary Rose carpenter’s cabin, where three different chests held tools, clothing traces and a small collection of personal possessions.
Historic object
Warren Centripetal Spring Chair 147:1965
Look beneath the velvet and fringe of Warren’s Centripetal Spring Chair 147:1965 to see how crossed leaf springs, a central support and casters made furniture move.
Design
Well Proven Chair
Marjan van Aubel and James Shaw’s Well Proven Chair brings workshop shavings into a shaped seating material, in contrast with its recognisable timber support.
Technique
Wicker weaving
Learn to distinguish wicker weaving from its materials, then follow woven furniture through household catalogues, the Dryad business and a global craft collection.
Person
Wieki Somers
Wieki Somers and Dylan van den Berg’s collaborative studio reconsiders everyday objects through material and use. A museum cloakroom shows how a small ritual can organise a room.
Person
Willem Hendrik Gispen
Willem Hendrik Gispen’s career connected a metalworking business, individual commissions and serial furniture without reducing them to one style.
Person
Wim Rietveld
Wim Rietveld brought drawing-office experience to furniture, transport and machinery. Follow a career shaped by production and collaboration.
Design
Wim Rietveld Pyramid tables
A Pyramid table can look like something remembered from school. Wim Rietveld’s spare steel base belongs to furniture made for repeated daily use, and that useful simplicity travels easily into a home.
Design
Wood Ring bench
Chris Kabel’s Wood Ring uses a circular timber seat to create an inward shared space. Its grain and retaining metal belt make the material arrangement visible.
Design
Wooton Patent Secretary
Open William S. Wooton’s 1874 patent secretary to see how hinged filing wings, a writing leaf, grades and locks compressed a Victorian office into one cabinet.
Design
You Can’t Lay Down Your Memory chest of drawers
New maple housings give old drawers somewhere to work again. Tejo Remy’s chest reverses the usual relationship between a cabinet and its contents.
Design
Zig-Zag Chair
Four wooden planes give Rietveld’s Zig-Zag Chair its outline. The corners explain why a simple silhouette can conceal demanding work.
Design
Zzzidt
Richard Hutten’s Zzzidt gives a hard sphere flat faces and a handle. A small change in form makes carrying, sitting and placing things part of one object’s story.