Italian designer born in San Lorenze (1915-1978). He studied drawing in Italy and later immigrated to USA, where he lived in Detroit, Michigan. He worked with that other famous American designer, Eames, and from this collaboration emerged the famous Diamond Chair in 1952. It was very difficult to produce in series, and until today is reputed to be “mostly made up of air” as Bertoia used to say.

 

(1902-1981) Born in Pécs, Hungary, and his interest led him to study in the Bauhaus until 1928, where he explored the principles of unit construction (Combining standard units into a complex whole). In 1925, Breuer was highly recognized for his design of the first tubular steel and laminated plywood chair. He later designed many significant buildings in Europe and America.

 

American designer (1907-1978), that was very innovative in creating molded plywood furniture shaped to the contours of the human body. His work was in collaboration with his wife Ray, numerous products were developed by their studio.

 

Born in Ireland to an aristocratic family (1878-1976), she originally studied lacquer. In the early 1920s she designed a house for herself, called E-1027, in collaboration with her lover architect Jean Badovici. She also designed its furniture for “comfort and joie de vivre”, including the Bibendum chair inspired by the Michelin man.

 

(1870-1956). Although educated at the Viennese Academy, Hoffman gained much of his inspiration from the stark, cubic Italian country house where he spent most of his life. He held a strong belief in designing the inside of the house coupled to the outside. Many projects he completed encompassed this total design concept. Hoffman was committed to the improvement of materials, and to keep the look of simplicity ever present. His geometric use of ornamentation and cubist forms remain classic principles in modern design.

 

Danish architect, born in Copenhagen (1902-1971), was a perfectionist modernist in one hand and a lover of nature on the other that he combined with a broad sense of humor. He was a big force in the Danish school of design but with an international scope. His furniture designs are only a part of his achievements his efforts in other fields that included silverware, textiles, wallpaper and, of course, buildings.

 

Swiss architect, born Charles Jeanerette (1887-1965), one of the leading forces in modern design. His ideas of considering the house as a “living machine” and of furniture as “equipment for living” had a revolutionary effect on the international development of modern architecture. His more famous designs were in the Salon d’Automne in Paris (1929), in collaboration with architect Charlotte Perriand and his cousin Pierre Jeanerette.

 

This Scottish architect was born in Glasgow, in 1868. He was the advocate of simplicity, and his works featured geometric shapes and unadorned surfaces. His famous chair, with its tall shape, was actually designed for a bedroom in Hillhouse, and was not intended to be used as a seat, but for hanging a hat or gloves.

 

German architect, born in Aachen (1886-1969), one of the main figures in the Bauhaus school of design and it´s last director in 1933, when the Nazi forces closed it. His “less is more” philosophy became a milestone in modern design. He later immigrated to USA and worked in Chicago’s Armour Institute of Technology and designed many well known buildings there. His work in furniture dated from 1929, when he produced his famous Barcelona line for the German Pavilion in the Barcelona International Exposition, and also for the Tugendhat House in Brno, Czechoslovakia.

 

Born as Isamu Noguchi in Los Angeles (1904-1988), son of a Japanese father and an American mother, he combined the best of both cultures in his works. As a youth in Japan he had an apprenticeship with a traditional Japanese carpenter that enabled him to create his famous table for the home of A. Conger Goodyear, President of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He said “any material born into space is sculpture” and he combined materials of different kinds to create true works of art.

 

Dutch architect, born in Utrecht (1888-1964). He grew up in a joinery, owned by his father, which gave him his knowledge of wood. His designs always remained in Neo-plastic style. His famous Red Blue chair signaled a radical change in architectural history.