The New Furniture

trends+traditions

Everyone uses furniture, and most people have an opinion about it. Contemporary furniture invites response: it is excitingly declamatory, and indi- viduals, companies and institutions, as well as de- signers and makers, use it to say something about themselves. In this study, Peter Dormer not only brings together several hundred international de- signs in both domestic and contract furniture, but also takes key pieces and examines their history. the briels to which the designer had to work, the expectations of the client and the hopes of the consumer. The extent to which furniture has be- come a fashion industry is itself a revealing sign of the interest in recent designs throughout the world: a wide and exciting repertoire of ideas is playing out a dual role furniture as day-to-day theatre, and furniture as work servant.

Peter Dormer examines the historical roots of contemporary issues in furniture design and di- vides his critical survey into three: lactory produc- tion for the home; contract furniture for the work place, responding to the changing needs of late 20th-century offices through flexibility and adap- tability; and unique pieces-often (in the USA and UK) craft-based, usually (in Continental Europe) with separate designer and maker, and sometimes the work of sculptors and architects who have continued their formal interests in surface, mass, structure, light and shade to create pieces for a nascent art furniture market.

Complete with a comprehensive information section on designers, manufacturers, show- rooms, galleries and publications, and based on the author’s original research in the USA and Europe, this is an indispensable book on today’s furniture.

With 252 illustrations, 96 in colour