These Modern American Design Icons Pay Homage to the Old—and Make It New

Contemporary design takes its cues from the past and reinterprets the classics, from Shaker furniture to quilts to Tiffany glass.
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Some American contributions to the history of art and design were timeless in their perfection upon arrival. The first 501 jeans Levi Strauss & Co. fabricated around 1890 look fresh on the streets of today. DJ Kool Herc’s mechanical magic trick of connecting two turntables and a microphone some 50 years ago in the Bronx revolutionized how nightlife (and home listening) looks and sounds. Some American design movements coalesced around a few unimprovable objects such as Charles and Ray Eames’s charming chairs or Frank Lloyd Wright’s horizon-wide homes. Along the way they helped define what might be considered the better aspects of the nation’s character: industrious, thrifty, ambitious, and optimistic that, in fact, nothing is unimprovable. And so today’s designers are looking back at those objects, those local movements that hit the big time, to see what might be in store.

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Shaker

In the first half of the 19th century, the Protestant United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing formed communal, utopian societies in Ohio, Kentucky, and throughout America’s Northeast. Their adherents came to be known as Shakers for the trembling they experienced while in worship—and the furniture they often sat on while worshiping established a particular, rigorous form of American minimalism. "Shaker beliefs regarding utility and efficiency informed their design constraints," says Savannah College of Art and Design furniture design professor Sheila Edwards, noting the Shaker precept that "beauty rests on utility." "This led to specific and consistent design choices like reduced or eliminated embellishment, wood knobs, [and] thin or tapered elements."

Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, curator of contemporary design at the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, says Shaker style is "tied to a complete philosophy of living that seeks spiritual redemption in addition to aesthetical, environmental, and cultural redemption." With its reliance on warm wood and friendly lines—the gentle curve of a chair back, the smooth expanse of a bench seat that simply goes with the grain—Shaker style has perhaps never been more influential. But its ongoing appeal might lay in the dichotomy of its light appearance and heft of authenticity. "Although there is some European fetishization of Shaker design," Cunningham Cameron says, "I think it’s resonated most with American audiences looking for fastidious historical models." And, perhaps, a bit of redemption.

Some chairs of note

Athenaeum Settee
Athenaeum Settee
The Athenaeum Settee is elegantly suited for contemporary interiors; a statement piece often used at a dining table or as a focal point for the entryway. All angles reveal graphic detailing from the arched pattern of the comb to a beautiful moiré effect of the back when viewed obliquely.
Taverne Chair
Taverne Chair
The Taverne Chair is available in Claro Walnut, Black Walnut (oiled or oxidized), Cherry, and White Oak (oiled, white oil, library, fumed or oxidized).
Furniture Marolles the Chair
Furniture Marolles the Chair
The Marolles Collection is crafted using centuries-old methods that leave evidence of the makers hand. Yet, the proportions and the refinement of line and form identify a modern-era designer. Thus, the design will always be seen as current and historic and both. Truly timeless.
Sawkille Nomad Chair
Sawkille Nomad Chair
21”W x 18”D x 33”H / 18”H Seat Height AMERICAN BLACK WALNUT: bleached, oiled, ebonized HARD MAPLE: bleached, oiled WHITE OAK: bleached, oiled, fumed, ebonized SEAT: leather
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Patchwork

Artisans, and laypeople, have of course been sewing cloth on other bits of cloth since textiles were invented—but Americans made an art of it. In the 19th century, the enslaved women of Gee’s Bend in Alabama made themselves experts of the craft, along the way inventing an improvisational form of quilting that prefigured the Abstract Expressionist and Op art movements. "The country was in a different economic state. It was really a developing country," at the time, says Lauren Cross, The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens’ Gail-Oxford associate curator of American Decorative Arts. "People didn’t have money to buy a big, long, fancy piece of fabric. So you had a piecing together. That kind of instinct is, I think, an American invention." Ever since, bohemians have demonstrated their own creative freedom by picking up where the women of Gee’s Bend left off while giving credit where it’s due. Now, says Cross, "it’s about celebrating their community, that resilience that they had to just keep pushing, keep doing this thing that you love doing, despite what the world is not doing for you."

A quilt of note

Studio Ford Benita Quilt
Studio Ford Benita Quilt
Designed as a dedication to and in the spirit of the often overlooked women of the Bauhaus movement, our Benita Quilt is an ode to Benita Koch-Otte. Benita Koch-Otte attended the Bauhaus from 1920 to 1925.
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Teco Ceramics

As a material, terra-cotta, or baked clay, is as old as the day is long—it’s been used to create sculptures since before the Bronze Age, and architectural building tiles have been found throughout ancient Greece and beyond. Modern America offered the world a pair of innovations in this medium. First, we branded it: Illinoisan William D. Gates shortened the material’s name and took it for the identity of a new factory, Teco Pottery. In the early 20th century, Teco would produce hundreds of iterations of art pottery vases and vessels, in a distinctive matte green hue, becoming virtually synonymous with the form. Gates embraced Art Deco ornamentation, attaching stylized handles to vases and embedding floral decorative flourishes, thus abandoning the notion that form should follow function. And in the face of minimalism, Teco embraced the American maxim bigger is better, manufacturing vases some seven feet in height. Today, designers are finding beauty and mystery in Teco’s verdant tones, widening the colorways to give art pottery the blues and embracing whimsy in their geometric addenda—if still mostly keeping their handcrafted or small-batch vases and vessels resolutely table scaled.

Some vases of note

BZippy Sm Oval Vase
BZippy Sm Oval Vase
Product Dimensions: 7.25" DIA x 10" H Approximate Weight: 15 lbs
Dumais Made Handle Vase
Dumais Made Handle Vase
Our stoneware Handle Vase is handcrafted using slab-construction techniques. Vase Height – 12” Vase Width – 4" diameter, 9" with handle
Rory Pots Venus Vessel
Rory Pots Venus Vessel
The Venus Vessel is part of an evolving group of pieces made by Vermont based small batch ceramic studio Rory Pots. This line looks to honor the ancient roots of ceramics, with a twist of the modern. Dimensions: 13”W x 14"H
Light & Ladder Rhea Cobalt Vase
Light & Ladder Rhea Cobalt Vase
Organic softness punctuates sharp, geometry. A favorite shape amongst florists, an angled opening supports the most dramatic of blooms. Graphic lines draw the eye upward, creating a sense of movement from porcelain vessel to flourishing arrangement. 
Beginner Ceramics Vase
Beginner Ceramics Vase
A satin seafoam vase with sweeping, proud handles that defy gravity. The upward motion of the handles lift the vase and hint at the wonders that can eventually fill this vessel. Dimensions: 7” tall x 9” wide (at the handles) x 5 1/2” diameter vase form


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Tiffany Glass

New York City’s Louis Comfort Tiffany took stained glass windows and domesticated their grandeur into blockbuster lamps. (He also took the credit for them though artists like Clara Driscoll and her team of "Tiffany girls" often designed the most popular styles.) Regardless of authorship, Tiffany lamps made Art Deco style accessible, illuminating living rooms across the country, at least until the middle of the 20th century. "Modernism and the move to democratize design through mass production," says Cunningham Cameron, "depleted interest in expensive hand-wrought decorative objects associated with bourgeoise lifestyles." Even if their multicolored figuration has now fallen out of fashion, evoking the interior of a TGI Friday’s, they’re still valuable—just watch what happens when one in good condition turns up on Antiques Roadshow. But contemporary lighting designers are seeing the light once again. "A movement back to handcrafted workmanship has fueled recent interest," she says, "and a millennial trend toward something that I’d call the Cheers aesthetic, equal parts irony, nostalgia, and mimesis."

Some lights of note

Sophie Lou Jacobsen x In Common With Fazzo Lamp
Sophie Lou Jacobsen x In Common With Fazzo Lamp
An alluring accent that brings Fazzo’s signature waves to the table. Made using the centuries-old fazzoletto technique, its hand-spun glass shade is paired with a hand-blown base, hand-finished brass details, a dim-to-warm bulb, and the option of individually crafted, decorative glass dots.
Blue Green Works Palm Table Lamp
Blue Green Works Palm Table Lamp
Drawing inspiration from the beach modernism of the Fire Island Pines, the Palm series combines hand rolled, kiln slumped glass and precision machined steel or brass elements. The subtle texture and soft edge of the glass provides a warm counterpoint to the metal’s strict lines.
Tracy Glover Barrel Pendant Lamp
Tracy Glover Barrel Pendant Lamp
8" high Barrel diffuser in Licorice Stick pattern, Coleus colorway, with Brushed Brass finish, and Gold Fabric cord.
Friend of All Greta Hanging Lamp
Friend of All Greta Hanging Lamp
Four-sided stained glass pendant lamp. Hangs "swag style" on a 15 foot cord with in-line switch. Includes 40W LED bulb.
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The Management Chair

Before Frank Lloyd Wright designed his epochal executive chair for the Larkin Office Building, he made an early three-legged iteration lambasted as "the suicide chair" for its propensity to tip over and propel its user toward the desk or floor. These days, standing-desk advocates sometimes deride spending time in any office chair as dangerous, but that hasn’t stopped designers from updating Wright’s iteration—not to mention Charles and Ray Eames’s aluminum icons and Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick’s mesh classic Aeron, both for Herman Miller. The concept of a chair built for office work, says Cunningham Cameron, might not "signify authority. But perhaps efficiency. To me, the form recalls therapeutic and assistive sitting." In the Eames’s era, she says, "the chairs were a product of experimentation with newly affordable, durable materials and the next decade’s effort to reshape corporate culture through design." Corporate culture continues to evolve: As it has spread into domestic spheres via home offices and work-from-home hybrids, the design of office chairs is morphing from easy-on-the-back toward easy-on-the-eyes. And as offices try to lure workers back into their cubicles and open-plan benching, better looking chairs might be better options. As Cunningham Camera notes, the old-school chairs "are so ubiquitous now that they are a nonchoice choice." Boring, if not deadly, but why not push further?

Some task chairs of note

Afternoon Light x Emeco Emerald Navy Chair
Afternoon Light x Emeco Emerald Navy Chair
An Emerald oasis. Perfect for the most elegant work from home situation, our exclusive Navy Officer Swivel Chair by Emeco has been powder coated in a deep green.
Asari Chair by Herman Miller
Asari Chair by Herman Miller
The Asari Chair (2023) gives you the best of all words: high performance, a clean aesthetic, and plush comfort. Inspired by organic forms found in nature, this chair has a sophisticated look that complements residential decor.
Steelcase Marien152 Conference Chair
Steelcase Marien152 Conference Chair
Marien152 is a richly tailored seating experience that's inspired by the home and designed for the workday. An innovative back cushion provides unexpected support with soft, residential style.  


Top photo illustration by Oscar Duarte; product photos courtesy respective artists, companies, and designers

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