Twentieth
Century
furniture.
Steven Braggs
looks at G-Plan
and other
prolific sixties
furniture
manufacturers .
'Retro is the
new collecting
craze. Anything
from the 60s is
cool again -
furniture,
decoration and
design. Most
people have some
idea of what 60s
furniture was
about, yet the
story is an
extremely
complex one. The
decade produced
such a diverse
range of ideas,
encompassing
both country
cottage pine and
blow-up chairs,
yet to my mind
neither were
typical of what
the majority of
people had in
their homes.
Before
researching this
article, I had a
clear idea of
how sixties
furniture
looked: long,
low, teak
sideboards and
coffee tables.
This was a style
epitomised by
the firm E Gomme,
or “G-Plan”, as
the range was
known...'
One of the most symbolic designs of the 1950s,
Homemaker has continued to attract devotees for
the last half century. By Chris Marks .
The inspiration
for Homemaker
Pottery came
from the United
States where
radical new
shapes and
designs were
sending
shockwaves
through the
British pottery
industry in the
1950s and the
task of creating
an all over
contemporary
design,
exclusively for
the Woolworth
chain, was given
to Enid Seeney
of Ridgway
Potteries,
Stoke-On-Trent...'
How are the icons getting on? John Andrews looks
at the top-rated designers of the 20th century.
'Media pressure
over modern
design has been
relentless in
recent years.
Traditional
mahogany
furniture is
said by
reporters to be
‘out’ and clean
modern lines to
be ‘in’. What do
they mean by
this? It has
come to be
accepted that
certain
designers and
their work form
the core of
top-rated 20th
century
furniture
collecting. Most
of these
designers are
international
celebrities with
but few national
ones, so the
market is
correspondingly
international...'
Fat Lava; West German Ceramics
of the 1960s and 70s.
'Increasingly
frequently I’m
hearing shocked
cries of “Isn’t
that just
dreadful!”
turning to
quiet, covert
whispers of
“Well spotted.
I’d snap that up
if I were you, I
hear it’s the
next big thing”.
None more so
than over West
German ceramics
of the
1950s-70s. You
know the ones I
mean. Maybe you
even lived with
them the first
time they were
fashionable.
Garish oranges,
reds and greens
that speak so
much of the age
vie against more
muted, but
certainly no
less typical,
chocolate
browns, beiges
and fawns...'
