Furniture and Interiors
Undecorated furniture arrived twice for unrelated reasons, once out of religious discipline and once out of an industrial process, and the results look remarkably alike.
Dictionary entry
- Shaker Design 1780s–1900s / Style
Plainness practiced as an article of faith by the Shaker communities of the United States. With ornament refused, their furniture and rooms were arrived at through use and honest workmanship alone, anticipating functionalism and Scandinavian design.
- Bentwood (Thonet) 1859– / Technique
Thonet's chair No. 14 reduced steam-bent beech to a handful of parts, the first industrial furniture to ship knocked-down and be made in quantity. Rational components and an elegant curve arrived together, which is why it is called the origin of modern design.
- Biedermeier 1820s–1850s / Style
Biedermeier is a satirical label pinned on Central European art and interiors of the 1820s to the 1850s, which then stuck as the name of the style. The Getty vocabulary ties it to middle class taste, to uncomplicated and modest forms, and to emotional depictions of people and nature. The name came from those mocking the taste rather than from anyone who made the work.
- Chippendale 1750s–1760s / Style
English furniture of the 1750s and 1760s, made to the designs of the cabinetmaker Thomas Chippendale, whose name then became the name of the style. Getty also records it as the Director Style. The framework stays largely Rococo, and what identifies a piece is openwork and ornamental carving gathered into the chair back and the legs.
- Empire Style 1804–1814 / Style
Empire is the style of interiors, furniture and dress that spread out of France during and after Napoleon's empire of 1804 to 1814. Large plain veneered surfaces carry gilt metal mounts placed as isolated points rather than as continuous carving. Lions' paws, winged sphinx heads, lotus and round rosettes arrive in symmetrical pairs, which is what makes it read heavier than the neoclassicism before it.
- Aesthetic Movement 1870s–1880s / Style
A British and American movement of the 1870s and 1880s that ran through painting, furniture, textiles and architecture alike. Following art for art's sake, it put beauty and the independent value of art above didactic purpose, narrative content or weighty subject matter. Ornament therefore says nothing, and every decision is settled on the harmony of the surface.
- Craftsman Style 1870s–1920s / Style
A style of architecture, interior design and decorative arts that prevailed in the United States from about 1870 to about 1925. It follows the English Arts and Crafts movement in rejecting historical styles for plain simplicity, but its carriers included social reformers, educators and women's organisations as well as architects. It appears most often in modest houses such as bungalows, where materials are treated simply and left visible.
- Eastlake 19th century– / Style
Eastlake is the name given to a decorative and architectural style in nineteenth century America, tied to the furniture designs of Charles Locke Eastlake. Its architecture borrows the vocabulary of furniture directly, with columns that resemble table legs, curved brackets, spindles, and knobs of various shapes made of circular perforations.
- Gustavian Style 1770s–1790s / Style
Swedish neoclassicism as it took shape under Gustav III, who reigned from 1771 to 1792. Its model was the formal classicism of the Louis XVI style, and the king visited Versailles and then brought French craftspeople in to work at the Swedish royal palace. What makes it a style of its own is substitution, since domestically produced glass stood in for costly materials, and small clear glass beads did the work that carved rock crystal did in France.
- Droog 1990s– / Style
Droog is the shared manner of a Dutch designers' cooperative that formed in the 1990s, and droog is the Dutch word for dry. Familiar things, a salvaged drawer or a knot, are kept as the structure of the object instead of being hidden by finishing. The group made simplicity and wit into a common type, which set it against the slicker industrial design of the same years.
- Eco-Beige late 1980s–mid-1990s / Style
An early-1990s consumer aesthetic that turns away from 1980s gloss through unbleached cloth, branches, pale wood, earth walls, and natural color. It is less raw nature than a staged appearance of restraint and environmental virtue.
- Whimsigothic late 1980s–late 1990s / Style
A late-1980s and 1990s consumer aesthetic that adds moons, stars, suns, curved furniture, and jewel color to Gothic darkness, turning mystery into intimate fantasy rather than horror.
- Industrial Gothic late 1970s–late 1990s / Style
A dark industrial language that sinks factories, pipes, cables, and machine rooms into low light, black surfaces, peeling paint, and damp reflection. Its sublime unease comes from enormous unexplained machinery and human smallness, not historical Gothic ornament.
- Nouveau Organic late 1980s–mid-1990s / Style
A late-1980s and 1990s revival of Art Nouveau, Catalan Modernisme, and organic architecture in restaurants, furniture, and lighting. Plant lines become bone-, shell-, cave-, and sea-creature-like structure rather than applied surface decoration.
- Whimsicraft mid-1980s–mid-1990s / Style
A handmade style gathering the 1980s folk revival, collage, visual puns, and found objects into intimate art-fair fantasy. It exposes unlike materials and slightly strange stories instead of hiding craft in a uniform finish.
- Ultramodern Revival late 1990s–mid-2000s / Style
A late-1990s and early-2000s revival of 1970s supergraphics, white molded furniture, and Space Age curves in clubs, retail, and advertising. It adds digital finish and Millennium Disco gloss to Gen-X nostalgia.
- Pastel Southwestern early 1980s–mid-1990s / Style
A consumer-interior style replacing dark 1970s Southwestern and Mission revival with 1980s–90s peach, pale blue, lilac, mint, and light wood. It translated desert light, adobe curves, heavy upholstery, and geometry into soft suburban homes and hospitality.
- Avant Basic late 2010s–early 2020s / Style
An Instagram-born postmodern interior aesthetic of wavy mirrors, blob furniture, checks, curves, flower-shaped objects, and strong pastel-primary color, often using one sculptural commodity to make a basic room appear instantly avant-garde.