Famous Designers & Icons
Influential interior designers, architects, and design visionaries who shaped modern aesthetics and design movements.
50 terms in this category
A
Acapulco Chair
A woven outdoor lounge chair originating from 1950s Mexico, featuring a colorful PVC cord or vinyl weave stretched over a rounded powder-coated steel frame.
Achille Castiglioni
Italian industrial designer celebrated for witty, inventive lighting and furniture designs including the Arco Lamp, which brought showroom-quality lighting to domestic spaces.
Albert Hadley
American interior designer known as the dean of American decorating, who blended classical elegance with modern simplicity in high-end residential interiors.
Alvar Aalto
Finnish architect and designer whose humanistic approach to modernism produced bent-plywood furniture and organic architectural forms that defined Nordic design.
Arco Lamp
A floor lamp designed by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni in 1962, featuring a sweeping stainless steel arc that extends from a heavy Carrara marble base to deliver overhead light.
Arne Jacobsen
Danish architect and designer celebrated for the Egg Chair and Swan Chair, whose organic, sculptural furniture epitomizes Scandinavian modernism.
B
Ball Clock
A playful wall clock designed by George Nelson in 1948 for Howard Miller, featuring colorful spheres on radiating brass spokes instead of traditional hour markers.
Barcelona Chair
A modernist masterpiece designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich in 1929 for the Barcelona Pavilion, featuring an X-shaped chrome frame and tufted leather cushions.
Bertoia Side Chair
A wire-frame dining chair designed by Harry Bertoia in 1952 for Knoll, featuring a welded steel wire shell on slim rod legs that creates a transparent, delicate appearance.
C
Charles Eames
American designer and architect who, alongside his wife Ray, revolutionized furniture design with innovative uses of molded plywood, fiberglass, and plastic.
Charlotte Perriand
French architect and designer who collaborated with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, championing functional yet beautiful living spaces through innovative furniture and interior concepts.
D
David Hicks
British interior designer who revolutionized postwar decorating with bold geometric patterns, unexpected color combinations, and a mix of antique and modern furnishings.
Diamond Chair
A wire mesh lounge chair designed by Harry Bertoia in 1952 for Knoll, featuring a welded steel rod construction that creates a transparent, airy form he described as mainly made of air.
Dorothy Draper
American interior designer considered the founder of the modern interior design profession, famous for bold color combinations, oversized baroque florals, and dramatic black-and-white floors.
E
Eames Lounge Chair
An iconic mid-century modern lounge chair and ottoman designed by Charles and Ray Eames in 1956, featuring molded plywood shells, leather upholstery, and a timeless silhouette.
Eero Saarinen
Finnish-American architect and designer known for the Tulip Table and Womb Chair, whose sweeping, organic forms challenged the rectilinear norms of modernism.
Egg Chair
A cocoon-shaped lounge chair designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958 for the SAS Royal Hotel, featuring a tilted, enveloping shell on a swivel pedestal base.
Eileen Gray
Irish-born architect and furniture designer known for the E-1027 table and lacquer work, whose modernist contributions were recognized as groundbreaking decades after their creation.
Elsie de Wolfe
American actress turned decorator widely regarded as the first professional interior decorator, who replaced heavy Victorian interiors with light, airy, and livable spaces.
Ettore Sottsass
Italian architect and designer who founded the Memphis Group, challenging functionalism with bold colors, geometric patterns, and unconventional materials in postmodern design.
F
Florence Knoll
American architect and furniture designer who shaped modern corporate interiors through the Knoll Planning Unit and created refined, geometric furniture that defined office aesthetics.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Pioneering American architect whose organic architecture philosophy seamlessly integrated buildings with their natural surroundings, influencing generations of interior and architectural design.
G
George Nelson
American industrial designer and design director at Herman Miller who created the Ball Clock, Marshmallow Sofa, and platform bench, shaping mid-century modern aesthetics.
Ghost Chair
A transparent polycarbonate chair designed by Philippe Starck in 2002 for Kartell, reinterpreting the classic Louis XVI armchair silhouette in a single piece of clear plastic.
Gio Ponti
Italian architect, designer, and founder of Domus magazine whose Superleggera chair and colorful ceramics defined Italian design's blend of craft and modernism.
L
LC4 Chaise Longue
A reclining chaise longue designed by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, and Charlotte Perriand in 1928, known as the "relaxing machine" for its adjustable ergonomic form on a tubular steel frame.
Le Corbusier
Swiss-French architect and designer whose modernist vision and furniture designs, including the LC series, helped define twentieth-century architecture and interior design.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
German-American architect and furniture designer famous for the Barcelona Chair and the philosophy of "less is more," a cornerstone of modernist design.
N
Nelson Bench
A slatted wood platform bench designed by George Nelson in 1946 for Herman Miller, serving as a versatile piece that functions as seating, a coffee table, or a display surface.
Noguchi Coffee Table
A sculptural glass-topped coffee table designed by Isamu Noguchi in 1947, featuring two interlocking wood base pieces that support a freeform glass surface.
P
Panton Chair
The first single-piece injection-molded plastic chair, designed by Verner Panton in 1967, featuring a dramatic S-curve cantilevered form that became a pop-art design icon.
Patricia Urquiola
Spanish designer known for her warm, tactile approach to contemporary furniture and her innovative use of textiles, color, and mixed materials for brands like B&B Italia and Moroso.
PH Lamp
A series of layered-shade lamps designed by Poul Henningsen for Louis Poulsen, engineered to produce warm, glare-free light through multiple overlapping reflective shades.
Philippe Starck
French designer known for democratizing design through mass-produced yet stylish products like the Ghost Chair and his transformative hotel and restaurant interiors.
Platner Table
A sculptural side or dining table designed by Warren Platner in 1966 for Knoll, featuring hundreds of curved nickel-plated steel rods welded to a circular frame, topped with glass.
S
Saarinen Tulip Chair
A pedestal dining chair designed by Eero Saarinen in 1956 as part of his Pedestal Collection, featuring a molded fiberglass seat on a single aluminum stem base to eliminate leg clutter.
Swan Chair
A sculptural lounge chair designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958 for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen, featuring smooth, organic curves with no straight lines.
T
Tolix Chair
A galvanized steel stacking chair designed by Xavier Pauchard in 1934, originally created for industrial use but now a beloved fixture in cafes, kitchens, and modern dining rooms.
Tom Dixon
British self-taught designer known for his bold, sculptural lighting and furniture, including the iconic copper Melt Pendant and Mirror Ball, blending industrial craft with contemporary aesthetics.
Tulip Table
A pedestal dining table designed by Eero Saarinen in 1956 to eliminate the cluttered look of traditional table legs, featuring a smooth white top on a single sculptural base.
W
Wassily Chair
A groundbreaking tubular steel and leather club chair designed by Marcel Breuer in 1925 at the Bauhaus, named after artist Wassily Kandinsky who admired its innovative construction.
William Morris
English textile designer, artist, and writer who founded the Arts and Crafts movement, championing handcrafted beauty and nature-inspired patterns over industrial mass production.
Wishbone Chair
A dining chair designed by Hans Wegner in 1949, named for its distinctive Y-shaped back splat, featuring a steam-bent wood frame and hand-woven paper cord seat.
Womb Chair
An enveloping lounge chair designed by Eero Saarinen in 1948 at Florence Knoll's request for a chair you could curl up in, featuring a deep, molded fiberglass shell on steel legs.
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