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.
Objects · people · ideas
Browse the Library
Discover the objects, people and ideas that shaped furniture, from historic pieces to modern designs.
151 entries
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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.
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.
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
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
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.