FURNISHING THE 20TH CENTURY

Eero Saarinen designed furniture throughout his entire career, applying the same keen interest in exploring new materials, innovative construction techniques, and sculptural forms that he demonstrated in his buildings. While still in his teens, Saarinen designed furnishings for buildings at Cranbrook. His breakthrough, however, came in 1940, when he and Charles Eames won first prizes in the Museum of Modern Art’s Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition. Although their molded plywood chairs for the competition were not mass-produced, their designs laid the groundwork for Saarinen’s postwar furniture for Knoll Associates. His designs, from the Womb chair to the Pedestal series of sculptural chairs and tables, have become icons of postwar design, representing what Playboy magazine called the “exuberance, finesse, and high imagination” of American furniture design at mid-century.