If your passion is classic modern furniture, these are good days. Very good days.
You now can walk into two Chicago furniture stores, see some of the best modern furniture designs of the 20th Century-the same pieces that are in museum collections around the world-place an order, and have the furniture delivered to your home, usually, in two to four weeks.
You can buy a molded plywood lounge chair, which has not been manufactured for 37 years, by American architect/designers Charles and Ray Eames; a maple bench, not produced for 27 years, by another American architect, George Nelson; a chrome and leather armchair by Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier; a metal and cherrywood desk designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1936 for the S.C. Johnson Wax company, among a vast assortment of other authentic designs.
We’re talking about furniture produced according to the creator’s original specifications-not the knockoffs that have flooded the market.
In some cases, you don’t even need to leave your home to shop; the furniture can be ordered over the telephone.
You no longer have to go through an architect or interior designer.
You don’t have to be lucky enough to stumble upon a vintage (and often costly) find at an auction, estate sale or flea market.
You don’t have to know about that one furniture store in Chicagoland that could possibly pull some strings and get you the furniture you want.
In January, the rigmarole and mystery that have long stymied consumers searching for high-design furniture were eliminated.
Taking a stand
In bold defiance of industry protocol that makes architects and designers the only viable link to this caliber of furniture, three manufacturers of historically significant modern designs took big steps to ensure that the public can get their furniture-easily and with a sense of timeliness.
They are Herman Miller Inc., Cassina USA Inc. and the Knoll Group.
Herman Miller, based in Zeeland, Mich., collaborated from the 1940s through the ’70s with Nelson, the American architect; American sculptor Isamu Noguchi; and the Eameses, the husband-and-wife design team.
Cassina, an Italian firm, holds the license to produce furniture designed by five celebrated deceased architects: Le Corbusier, Wright, Charles Mackintosh of Scotland, Dutch-born Gerrit Rietveld and E. Gunnar Asplund of Sweden.
The New York-based Knoll Group has alliances with scores of renowned architects and designers. Among them: Mies van der Rohe, Eero Saarinen, Marcel Breuer and contemporary American architect Frank Gehry.
These companies were the original manufacturers of, or worked with architects and designers in developing, the furniture that now is historically significant. Some of the rights to produce the designs were acquired later.
Herman Miller’s ammunition
In January, Herman Miller unveiled a 46-piece collection targeted directly at the public. It’s a carefully edited yet exciting assortment of modern furniture from the company’s archives. It includes classics from Noguchi, Nelson and the Eameses, plus modern designs from contemporary practitioners.
The collection, named Herman Miller for the Home, is available in specialty furniture stores across the country or by phone order (800-646-4400).
Manifesto in River North is the only Chicago area store carrying the line. Six or seven pieces will be on the sales floor by the end of February, although any of the 46 pieces can be ordered.
The store is already getting phone calls, according to Dick Gorman, Manifesto’s owner.
“People are interested,” says Gorman. “They know the (Herman Miller) name.”
Gorman should know.
In his own words, Manifesto is a “mutant.” It is one of a relatively rare breed of high-end furniture stores that have cropped up across the country, usually near major design centers such as the Merchandise Mart, which is blocks away from Manifesto. Stores like Manifesto sell to architects and interior designers as well as consumers.
For eight years, Manifesto, which focuses on classic modern designs, has carried Herman Miller furniture “in a pretty informal kind of way,” says Gorman. Translation: One or two pieces on the sales floor, but with no regularity.
Now, Gorman and Herman Miller want to display more Herman Miller designs more frequently.
“One of the things we are trying to accomplish is to reach a broader audience. We’re adding additional distribution channels to make it as easy as possible for consumers to buy these products,” says Vicki TenHaken, vice president of new business development at Herman Miller, which started in the 1920s as a manufacturer of home furnishings. By the 1970s, the company switched to office furniture.
Money matters
Although the Eameses and George Nelson originally designed their clean-lined furniture for the home-not the office-these pieces were absorbed into Herman Miller’s commercial line of furniture when the company decided to pursue the office front. These classic pieces were buried. But they were not forgotten.
Throughout the years, consumers have contacted Herman Miller about designs from the Eameses, Nelson and Noguchi, says TenHaken. In the last 10 years, the inquiries have increased, she says.
“The investment value of these products has been proven,” says TenHaken, noting skyrocketing prices at auctions and other sales. “They not only last in terms of quality but in terms of design.”
The collection offers sofas, lounge chairs, desk chairs, accent chairs, chaises and ottomans, barstools, bookcases that double as china cabinets, credenzas and end tables, coffee tables and dining tables.
The highlight is the reintroduction of six Eames and two Nelson pieces, some of which have not been produced by Herman Miller for nearly 40 years.
All are original designs. Any modifications that were made were done for “performance” reasons and do not effect the original design intent, according to TenHaken, who notes that this could mean more durable hinges on a folding screen and a better way of attaching rubber shock mounts to the legs of a chair.
Brought back by popular demand, according to TenHaken, the reintroductions include two of the Eameses’ famous molded plywood chairs, a molded plywood folding screen, a molded plywood round coffee table, the famous surfboard-like Elliptical table of wood and wire, and the Hang-It-All steel and wood hanging system originally designed for the Eameses’ grandchildren.
The reintroduced Nelson pieces are a six-drawer teak storage chest and a maple platform bench.
TenHaken doesn’t believe the reintroductions will depress prices of the earlier pieces that rolled off the production line from the 1940s to the ’60s. She thinks the reintroductions, which are identified as the 1994 edition with a medallion on the furniture, will spur interest and prices in the vintage market.
David Pinson, an independent Chicago antiques dealer who works with Eames and Nelson furniture, agrees. “If anything I think what it will do is expose more people to the design,” says Pinson. “As more people become familiar with it and addicted to it, they’ll want the original pieces.”
And, Pinson believes people will be more inclined now to actually use their new Eames and Nelson furniture, something they wouldn’t do with a mega-expensive vintage piece.
Herman Miller researched the vintage market and priced the 1994 edition furniture well below the going prices for vintage Eames and Nelson pieces.
Take, for instance, the Eameses’ molded plywood folding screen. Depending on its condition, a screen manufactured in the 1940s or early ’50s has sold for $2,500 to $10,000 at auction, according to Ray Kennedy, manager of new business development at Herman Miller. Suggested retail price on the 1994 screen is $1,300.
Consumers, though, should not expect to realize a huge, if any, savings now that they can order Herman Miller furniture themselves, without the services of an architect or designer, according to Mark Schurman, a Herman Miller spokesman. Accessiblity is the improvement, he says.
The collection will be updated and expanded according to consumer feedback, says TenHaken, noting that more reintroduced Eames and Nelson pieces are “very probable.”
Down the street
One block west of Manifesto is another stash of classic modern furniture previously unavailable to retail shoppers.
Luminaire is the store. Cassina is the manufacturer.
The 67-year-old Italian firm acquired the rights in 1964 to produce four pieces of furniture designed by Le Corbusier, who was living at the time. Subsequently, the foundations and heirs of four other acclaimed architects, including Wright and Mackintosh, sold reproduction rights to Cassina.
In January, Cassina decided to start building relationships with retail stores such as Luminaire across the country.
“The response has been truly amazing,” says Dorothea Brandt, Luminaire’s operations manager, noting that Cassina products won’t be on the sales floor until March but that people are calling about them.
Ten pieces of Cassina furniture will be shown here, many of them designed by Le Corbusier in collaboration with his brother, Pierre Jeanneret, and French furniture designer Charlotte Perriand. Luminaire plans on showing Le Corbusier’s famous chaise lounge and club chair.
Luminaire will offer other Cassina modern pieces, including furniture from such current designers as Mario Bellini and Vico Magistretti, both Italians who have furniture in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
There’s more good news for consumers interested in Cassina: Furniture is cheaper now that the distribution system has been realigned, according to a spokesman for the company. Current retail prices run from $730 for Rietveld’s famous cherrywood Zig Zag chair to $6,535 for the large “Allen” dining table by Wright, also in cherry.
The more the merrier
The Knoll Group is the third company to reach out to the consumer.
In August 1993 Knoll, whose signature piece is Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair, turned its Soho showroom in New York into a retail store. In January, the Washington, D.C., showroom followed suit. Both spaces are street-level, attracting curious consumers.
“It’s an experiment to see if it can work,” says Elizabeth Needle, vice president and business manager of Knoll Studio in New York. The Studio division handles the company’s classic furniture from such renowned designers as Mies plus acclaimed current-day designers.
Going retail in New York and Washington was not easy, Needle says. Price tags had to be attached to every piece of furniture-something a wholesale showroom lacks. Cash registers and charge card machines had to be installed. Salespeople had to be hired and trained to work with the public.
Although Knoll’s long-term goal is to secure retail showrooms throughout North America, there are no immediate plans for Chicago, Needle says.
Logistics are the problem, she says. Chicago’s Knoll showroom is in the Merchandise Mart on the 11th floor; it’s not street-level.
Consumers are welcome to visit the showroom unaccompanied by an architect or designer, but they cannot buy furniture without a design professional, according to Needle.
Doing business creatively
While the manufacturers who have gone retail proclaim almost philanthropic reasons for making their high-design furniture more accessible to the public, profit motives cannot be overlooked.
Furniture manufacturers are hurting. The recession dealt a debilitating blow to architects and designers, who passed along the pain to manufacturers. Big corporations, restaurants, hotels and residential clients aren’t waving around the dollars they did in the 1980s.
“Manufacturers are looking for new ways to distribute their products as well as to tap new markets,” says Mel Schlitt, vice president of contract marketing and new development at Merchandise Mart Properties Inc., the Mart’s owner.
“They’ve identified a niche out there of new business that has not been served-the smaller-sized company and the consumer,” he says.
Not all architects and designers are horrified about being cut out of the loop.
“I think it’s great,” says Eva Maddox, a Chicago interior architect who has her own firm. “Usually, it’s the consumer who makes the demands on the manufacturer.”
Maddox mentioned the long delays in getting furniture from manufacturers, particularly for custom-made products. Now that those same manufacturers will have to answer directly to consumers, Maddox believes they’ll have to improve on their turnaround times.
For consumers, the new access to this furniture makes good design less sacred and a whole lot more familiar.
“It’s introduced a whole new element to collecting,” says Jason Pickleman, 28, referring to the new availablity of classic Eames and Nelson pieces previously out of production at Herman Miller. He and his wife, Leslie, have filled their Chicago apartment with furniture by these designers, plus Saarinen, Breuer and others.
“It’s going to allow younger collectors (who can’t afford the prices at auction of the original pieces) to participate in a level of design, to be able to live with a level of design that they couldn’t afford to before, which I think is marvelous.”
Buying the classics
Here are the places you can buy the classic modern pieces pictured on our cover:
Charles and Ray Eames’ elliptical table, $700 at Manifesto, 200 W. Superior St.
The Eameses molded plywood lounge chair, $680 at Manifesto.
George Nelson’s platform bench, $680, for the 48-inch- long model; $750, for the 60-inch-long version at Manifesto.
The Eameses walnut stool, $656 at Manifesto.
Le Corbusier’s chaise lounge, $1,449 in leather at Luminaire, 301 W. Superior St.
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The Chicago Athenaeum is staging “Eames/Nelson,” a retrospective of the three designers’ furniture, drawings and decorative arts. The exhibition runs Thursday through April 16 at the Athenaeum’s Daniel H. Burnham Center, 1165 N. Clark St. Suggested donation for non-members: $2.
