Atlas of Furniture Design

The Atlas of Furniture Design is the most comprehensive overview ever published on the history of interior design. The book documents 1,740 objects by 546 designers and 565 manufacturers and features more than 2,500 images, ranging from detailed photographs of objects to historical documentation such as interiors, patents, brochures, and reference works in art and architecture.

The basis for compiling the Atlas of Furniture Design is the furniture collection owned by the Vitra Design Museum, one of the largest of its kind in the world, with more than 7,000 pieces. The collection includes key pieces from significant periods in design history and from the most important designers and manufacturers of the last 200 years.

These include early industrial furniture in bent wood or metal, Art Nouveau and Secessionist objects, works by protagonists of classical modernism such as Le Corbusier, Gerrit Rietveld, Charlotte Perriand, and Marcel Breuer. The book continues with postwar figures like Finn Juhl, Eero Saarinen, and Achille Castiglioni, as well as postmodern and contemporary designers like Philippe Starck, Marcel Wanders, and Konstantin Grcic, along with the legacies of design legends like Charles and Ray Eames, Verner Panton, Alexander Girard, George Nelson, and others.

Produced in various editions, the Atlas of Furniture Design involved a team of 71 authors and features in-depth essays that provide sociocultural and historiographic context to the history of furniture design, along with 551 detailed texts that accompany key objects.

The book is enriched by a detailed appendix containing designer biographies, bibliographies, a glossary of manufacturers, and an index, along with informative charts that offer a complementary visual approach to the history of furniture design. The Atlas of Furniture Design is both an encyclopedic reference tool and an indispensable resource for collectors, scholars, and experts, as well as a beautifully designed object that speaks to design enthusiasts around the world (publisher’s description).