Modern classic furniture design in the 20th century has been known for its innovative use of new materials and mechanical processes to create new forms and line.  New technological breakthroughs, as well as a willingness to experiment with more traditional furniture design concepts brought an entirely different aesthetic into mid-century homes and offices.  Modern furniture designers worked hard to offer a new look that was clean, sleek and even futuristic.  Perhaps one of the most famous modern classic furniture designers was Sori Yanagi.  Born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1915 Yanagi is the designer who inspired EZ Mod Furniture’s Butterfly Bentwood Stool. 

The Butterfly stool is at once an elegant, innovative and functional stool.  Created by using two identical molded plywood pieces shaped in a gentle “L” fashion, EZ Mod Furniture offers this modern classic reproduction in a beautiful rosewood finish, with each piece forming one half of the seat and one half of the base.  The two pieces are connected by a brass metal rod halfway up the base for a sturdy piece of furniture that will stand the tests of time and usage.  The stool is made possible through some technical innovations pioneered by modern classic furniture design giants Charles and Ray Eames and Finnish furniture designer Eero Saarinen.  Wood does not traditionally lend itself well to forms that curve.  Typically, to get anything other than a right angle, the wood must be either cut or sanded down to a rounded or curved form.  But methods developed by modern furniture designers towards the middle of the 20th century allowed for wood splints to be molded into softer contours, allowing for more delicate designs such as the Butterfly stool. 

EZ Mod Furniture is known not only for offering high quality reproductions of modern classic furniture designs, but also for offering them at just a fraction of the cost that other modern furniture retailers do.  The delicate and beautiful Yanagi Butterfly stool would be sold for over $600 at other stores, but at EZ  Mod Furniture, we offer this popular modern classic furniture piece for just $95.99—a savings of nearly $500.  EZ Mod Furniture saves you even more money than other modern classic furniture retailers by offering free shipping on any order within the continental United States—with no minimum purchase requirement.  When you want quality modern classic furniture for your home or office, visit EZ Mod Furniture’s website for the best deals.

While furniture for the home or office must be comfortable and practical, it can also be whimsical and playful.  Chairs do not always have to have the same visual vocabulary, and nobody demonstrates that better than French modern classic furniture designer Pierre Paulin.  Paulin’s “Orange Slice” chair is playful, light, astonishingly simple and even graceful in design –a stark contrast to most accent chairs that come across as heavy and boxy.  Set on a sturdy yet slender polished stainless steel tube frame, the Orange Slice chair is composed of two identically curved, elliptically-shaped halves, one forming the seat and one forming the back rest.  Each half is composed of high density foam and upholstered in any number of colors.  When viewed from the side, the Orange Slice chair almost looks like a tulip opening up from the center with the cushions as its petals and the steel tube frame standing in for a stem.  Each cushion is shaped in a way that resembles an orange slice, giving the chair its rather unusual name. 

Paulin has a strong background in sculpture, having studied stone carving and clay modeling in Paris before turning to furniture design in 1958.  Paulin’s sculptural vocabulary is fully evident in the Orange Slice chair, which turns out to be more of a sculpture that is suitable for sitting in than a simple, functional chair.  Paulin’s influence on modern classic furniture design continued to grow and develop with the designs of several different chairs and sofas during the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st, including such innovations as the “Tongue” chair, a low-lying, gently curving lounge chair designed in 1966 and the “Pumpkin” sofa, a solid, three-seat sofa made of one continuous block of fabric and padding, shaped somewhat like a pumpkin, designed in 2007. 

EZ Mod Furniture is proud to feature reproductions of Paulin’s modern classic furniture designs, especially the Orange Slice chair.  The simplicity and playfulness of the Orange Slice chair is sure to bring a splash of fun to any home or office.  EZ Mod feature’s this unique chair in either red, yellow or green fabric, as well as off-white or gray microfiber to suit any color scheme.  And where other modern classic furniture stores sell Paulin’s iconic chair for nearly $600, EZ Mod features the Orange Slice chair at just $249.  If you’re looking for something interesting to liven up your home or office furniture, come to EZ Mod today. 

Some of the most memorable pieces of modern furniture to emerge from the 20th century were designed by Finnish designer Eero Aarnio.  When one thinks of the space-age styles and ideas of the 1950s and 60s, Aarnio’s “Ball” and “Bubble” chairs immediately come to mind.  Their round, pod-like structure and use of new and unfamiliar materials lend the Bubble and Ball chairs a very futuristic feel that is delightful for the modern furniture enthusiast.

Innovative for their use of both fiberglass and plastic, as well as a nearly completely spherical shape that was new in modern furniture designs, the Bubble and Ball chairs were not only popular with the public but frequently used on the sets of television shows and films because of their futuristic look.  Aarnio’s Ball chairs consisted of a hollow sphere of plastic or fiberglass with one side open for someone to sit in.  The Ball chair, which was designed in 1963, was often made of white fiberglass and stood on a matching stand with a round base with padded interior walls and a matching seat.  The hanging version of the chair, called the Bubble chair was designed by Aarnio in 1968 and featured the innovative use of a clear acrylic sphere with a steel frame around the opening.  Unlike the stand version of the chair, the hanging version did not have padded interior walls, but did feature padded back and seat cushions and was suspended by a long chain from the ceiling.  In spite of the clear walls, the Bubble chair provides a closed-off, more private space from the rest of the room, enclosing anyone seated within it in a sphere of relative silence and welcomed solitude. 

As one of the best modern furniture retailers around, EZ Mod Furniture features detailed reproductions of Aarnio’s hanging Bubble chairs for your home or office.  With a sturdy ceiling mount and six feet of chain to hang from, the Bubble chair can support up to 300 lbs hanging from your ceiling.  The red fabric back and seat cushions are removable for cleaning.  EZ Mod Furniture prides itself not only on selling quality modern furniture reproductions, but also on having one of the most affordable furniture selections available.  While other modern furniture retailers sell Bubble chair-inspired reproductions for nearly $1,800, EZ Mod competitively prices their version at $899.99.  If you love the look and feel of modern furniture for your home or office, come in to EZ Mod Furniture today for quality, prices and selection you will love.

Markedly departing from prior furniture traditions, Charles and Ray Eames are two of the most well-known modern furniture designers in the United States.  Their contributions to furniture design and even architecture include some of the most iconic buildings and furniture pieces in history.  Like many modern furniture designers, the Eameses experimented with new materials in their work including molded plywood, wire mesh, metal, plastic resin and even fiberglass.  EZ Mod Furniture is proud to carry quality reproductions or many Eames-inspired modern furniture items. 

Charles Eames and Ray-Bernice Alexandra Kaiser met in 1940 at the Cranbrook Academy or Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan where Charles was a teacher and Ray was a student.  They were married in 1941 and subsequently settled in Los Angeles, California where they established a highly successful design and architecture.  They designed and built their own home overlooking the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades area.  The house, which they called “Case Study House No. 8,” was built from steel and glass parts almost exclusively available from various steel fabricators’ catalogues.  The entry way to the house is surrounded by either glass or painted steel squares and rectangles suspended within a framework of black steel. In 2006 was designated as a National Historic Landmark.

Some of their most memorable contributions to modern furniture design were several different styles of chairs.  Experimenting with fiberglass, the Eameses produced molded seats with steel legs (sometimes attached to wooden runners to create rocking chairs) in a variety of colors.  EZ Mod has taken the Eameses’ work one step farther by recreating these fiberglass chairs with molded recycled polypropylene plastic.  These chairs come as either stationary chairs or as rockers.  EZ Mod sells these modern classic rockers in a variety of colors to suit your home or office color scheme and at nearly half the price of other modern furniture stores.  The Eameses also helped develop the technology to create and work with molded plywood.  They molded plywood chairs remain a popular item for many offices or dining rooms.  At EZ Mod, these iconic chairs are available in either a plan cherry wood finish, or with pony hide upholstery. 

If you are searching for modern furniture classics from designers such as Charles and Ray Eames, the choice is clear:  EZ Mod Furniture offers high quality reproductions of all your favorite pieces at prices that you can afford. 

Few designers have had the lasting impact on modern furniture design that Harry Bertoia has had.  Born in Italy in 1915, Bertoia moved to the United States at the age of 15 to study art.  Principally interested in sculptural works using metal, Bertoia went on to study at the Detroit Society for Arts and Crafts, and, later, the Cranbrook Academy of Art.  While at Cranbrook, Bertoia met and eventually partnered with the likes of Walter Gropius, himself a master of modern furniture design and founder of the Bauhaus School, Charles and Ray Eames, who also made great contributions to modern furniture design and architecture, and Edmund N. Bacon, who went on to become a renowned architect. 

After a stint with jewelry making during World War II, Bertoia moved to California to work for the Evans Product Company, where he was principally hired to illustrate training manuals.  While at Evans, however, he began experimenting, along with the Eameses, with plywood, eventually developing molded plywood splints that would eventually be frequently used in modern furniture design. 

In 1950 Bertoia, preferring to get back to working with metal, moved to Pennsylvania to work with Hans and Florence Knoll, designing several pieces for their furniture company.  It was during this time that Bertoia designed his most iconic piece, the diamond-shaped wire chair.  This masterpiece of modern furniture design remains a classic in its simplicity, yet stunningly modern and innovative.  Essentially a diamond-shaped steel wire grid, the metal is raised on steel legs and is molded and padded to provide a comfortable seat.  With a single, thick wire to frame the diamond and smooth out its rougher edges, Bertoia’s diamond chair remains popular even six decades later and has spawned countless copies and spin-offs.  Modern furniture stores such as EZ Mod Furniture sell not only the diamond chair, but at least three “Bertoia-style” wire chairs in varying colors and shapes, and even have child-sized versions available.  Most Bertoia “Diamond” chairs are still made by hand as effective mass production methods have proved difficult to find. 

Bertoia’s modern furniture designs were so popular and sold so well that he was soon able to devote himself to sculptural work full time.  His sculptures can still be seen, and in some cases heard, in art museums in Brooklyn, Cleveland and Philadelphia and even the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.  Bertoia also experimented with metal sculpture that made sounds, a concept similar to wind chimes, which he called “Sounding Sculpture.” 

With an undeniable artistry and mastery of metals, Harry Bertoia’s contributions to modern furniture design and art cannot and will not be forgotten.  His designs, especially the diamond chairs, remain a popular and stylish choice for many people looking to furnish and decorate their homes or offices.