Category archive: furniture

May 7, 2013

OG French School Desk At Kinder Modern

It is Design Week Mayhem in New York this week. As I was looking through the exhibitors at the Collective .1 Design Fair, I noticed that in addition to my kid-savvy buddy Patrick from Mondo Cane, there is both...
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April 27, 2013

Cardboard Survivors: Vintage Papp Kids Furniture By Peter Raacke

It really is amazing that this exists. Peter Raacke designed the Papp collection of cardboard kids furniture in 1967. By any reasonable expectation, it should all have been destroyed and recycled a dozen times by now. But someone apparently...
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April 17, 2013

'Il Buon Mobile Per Bambini': Enzo Mari Kids Shelf

It's not that Enzo Mari has never designed kids' furniture. It's just that he hasn't designed nearly enough of it. Of course, there's the Play Wall, the beautiful corrugated cardboard folding screen from 1967. And there is the Seggiolina...
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April 9, 2013

You Cannot Buy This Helge Sibast Child's Chair

Unless, of course, you're the person who already bought it from etsy seller Blueflowervintage. Sibast's No. 8 chair was first designed in 1953, but I don't know when the kid-size versions were made. If missing the chance to buy...
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April 5, 2013

Kids Cardboard Lifestyle: The Cardboard Collective

Seriously, kids go through so much stuff, so quickly, it really all should be made of cardboard. And then it's like, seriously, just make that yourself. Which is a severe underselling of the awesomeness of Tokyo expat Amber's kids...
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March 11, 2013

Robert Bliss's Cradle For A Young Viking Or Viqueen

Except for some chairs he made while studying at Black Mountain College, modernist architect Robert Bliss, didn't really get into designing furniture until after he retired as dean of the University of Utah's architecture school, in 1986. In 1990...
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March 4, 2013

The Radiant High Chair

Wow, kudos to architectural historian/mom Victoria Solan for working Le Corbusier into this helluva thinkpiece about of one of the world's greatest high chairs, the Ikea Antilop:As a formal composition, IKEA's $25 Antilop high chair hews to a Corbusian...
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It's My Kind In A Box: Babyhok, The Dutch Baby Hutch

So that BBC story that DT reader Helena pointed us to the other day about Scandinavians kids being totally awesome and pink-cheeked and healthy all the time because their parents are parking them outside to sleep all winter elicited all...
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February 22, 2013

Not Enough Kids Are Named Ib

Am I just not hearing about it, or are more people really somehow not naming their kids Ib? Previously: mid-century rocker by Ib Kofod-Larsen Related: Steve Zuckerman's OG Sesame Street songs...
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December 21, 2012

Snap-Together Foam Alligator By Horst Diener

I'm not finding a lot of info--actually none--about this online, so I'll just float it out there. It's a covered foam alligator pillow/toy from 1968 by the German product designer Horst Diener. The six segments snap together in various...
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December 15, 2012

Child-Sized Orkney Chairs

The International Herald Tribune has a little feature on Orkney Chairs, a type of make-do, homemade chairs built by residents of the Orkney Islands, originally from carved driftwood and woven straw, because trees on the islands were so scarce....
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November 26, 2012

Reclaimed Wood Nursery Furniture By Jocelyn Costis

Creme Anglaise is the atelier of Toulouse-based ebeniste Jocelyn Costis, who specializes in making kids' furniture, often from upcycled, slightly overworked salvage wood. This rocking chicken, for example, or my personal favorite, the crescent-shaped cradle that perhaps was once...
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November 25, 2012

Modernists' Kids Had The Best Nurseries

In the wake of MoMA's Century Of the Child exhibition, Paul Makovsky at Metropolis Magazine has assembled an awesome collection of images and childhood stories from the offspring of mid-century modernist designers. There's György & Juliet Kepes' daughter Julie,...
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November 20, 2012

Turniture II: Rocking Plywood Playhouse/Bar By Lester Walker

Speaking of plans for cutting circles out of plywood in 1970, this popped up a few weeks ago on retronaut, and then I lost track of it. It's called Turniture II, a 4-in-1 convertible outdoor furniture project by architect...
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Vintage Plywood Rocker Surfaces In Microsoft Ad

As his mind was lost in thought, calculating how much toner the kid in this Microsoft Windows * commercial is burning through, eagle-eyed DT reader Erik was snapped back to reality by this nice, vintage-looking, kid-sized plywood rocking chair....
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November 13, 2012

Alison's High Chair, By Wendell Castle

You know, these are the kind of things that make the blogging worthwhile. Studio furniture pioneer Wendell Castle is having four shows at the moment. He talked to Artforum today about his retrospective at the Aldrich Museum in Connecticut. And...
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November 7, 2012

Pheasant-Covered Eames Rocker By Meredyth Sparks

It's been a while since we've seen a sweet, reasonable, practical, no-nonsense rocker around here. And guess what, the wait's not over. Artist/explorer of the domestic form Meredyth Sparks has donated her 2011 sculpture, Feather-Covered Eames Rocker with La...
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October 10, 2012

It's My Kid In A Norwegian Wood Box, Baby

Here is some Norwegian kid's Norse pine ply toddler bed-in-a-box--that, let's get real, has Kai Bojesen and other tchotchkes perched on top and is not rolling anywhere--shot by Danish photographer Kira Brandt, via a Swedish design blog, which got...
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October 7, 2012

Here Is A Silicone Chair By Alessandro Ciffo.

You probably didn't wake up this morning thinking it, but you may now go to bed tonight, wondering to yourself, if what that corner really needs, isn't a prototype chair and tuffett molded from a grid of silicone. This...
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Carlo Mollino Chalet Bedroom

They're no Carlo Mollino bunk beds, but they're close. Christie's in London has a sweet suite of vintage Carlo Mollino furniture coming up this month that includes a pair of single beds, a wardrobe or two, and nightstands in...
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September 3, 2012

George Nakashima And His Family Moved To New Hope In 1943.

You'd think that as a parent, I'd be less surprised by now at the constant discoveries of the extent of my own ignorance. And yet. Last night, while surfing through the archive of the War Relocation Authority's nearly 7,000 photos...
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August 15, 2012

Bumbocalypse! All 4 Million Bumbo Seats Recalled Because Skull Fractures

image via: the internet, identities of the innocent have been obscured The CPSC has announced a recall of all 4 million Bumbo foam infant seats sold in the US, because kids keep on popping out of those things and...
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July 31, 2012

100 Objects I'm Totally Gonna Reblog From 100 Objects From Century Of The Child

Oh well, there goes my next big idea. I was thinking I'd just blog the bejeebees out of MoMA's incredible Century of the Child exhibition by, you know, maybe posting an object a day or something. And here, MoMA's...
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July 24, 2012

At Home With WHOA WTF!? Modernism

For someone who's been wading through the history of kids' design in the modern age for several years now, some of the stuff in MoMA's Century of the Child is immediately familiar. [Some of it is very familiar, but...
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July 21, 2012

The Stokke Of The Century Of The Child

I will have much more to say on the topic later, but MoMA's Century of the Child exhibition is amazing. Utterly amazing. I'm taking my catalogue with us to the Outer Banks this week, so I'll be posting from...
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July 19, 2012

Gicha Molded Ply Train Stools By Kamkam

There's a pretty nice-looking, little kid bed in the shape of a Korean bootie. But this molded ply chair/train, Gicha, is the sweetest piece in Seoul design studio KamKam's Protection collection, which debuted in 2011 at the Arumjigi Culture...
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July 16, 2012

Crib-Hack: A Chalkboardtop Desk

I don't know exactly which number it is, but "And it converts to a daybed!" has to be one of the biggest lies in the entire Crib Industrial Complex. Because the reality is, you either keep that crib out, and...
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July 6, 2012

The Tule Lake Collection

homemade scrapwood wagon at Tule Lake Relocation Center, img: Nat'l Archives rec. no 210-G-D32 07/01/1942, 70 years ago this week. That's when this photo was taken. I've been taking these things as I stumbled across them, one, two, or...
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June 17, 2012

Windsor X Williamsburg: Hand-Whittled Crib By Aaron Scaturro

Fear not, people who think $25,000 is too much to pay for a piece of kid furniture with a highly constrained useful life! Because self-taught Williamsburg woodworker Aaron Scaturro and his shavehorse will whittle you one of these sweet little,...
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June 16, 2012

Zounds. Gerrit Rietveld Zig Zig Kinderstoel For The 1%

Maybe it was less noticeable in the oak finish, but there sure is a lot of hardware in Gerrit Rietveld's Zig Zig high chair. I hope it came already assembled. This white painted version of the 1940 design was...
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June 15, 2012

Ba-Bum! David Netto Sues Farzad Rastegar For Fraud

Law & Order, baby, and this time it's personal. I was doing my periodic check of the docket on the Maclaren bankruptcy case, when, whaddya know, a new lawsuit showed up under Farzad Rastegar's name: he's being sued by pioneering...
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June 13, 2012

Limited Edition Crib Sheet By Camilla Engman

Third Drawer Down is apparently one of the global leaders in the museum shop industry. Which does not quite go far enough in explaining how it came about that the Australian souvenir company ended up producing a limited edition...
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June 5, 2012

Ausgezeichnet! Thost House Crib & Changing Table By Marcel Breuer

One of Marcel Breuer's earliest residential commissions came in 1926, while he was teaching in Gropius' Bauhaus in Dessau. It was an interior and furniture project in Hamburg for Eberhard Thost, and Breuer did at least a living room--and...
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May 31, 2012

Baby Party Ball: Baby Bubble Bed By Lana Agiyan

No one dares challenge my undying love for the plexiglass bassinet. As long as it has a plausible afterlife. Because seriously, people, there is nothing more pointless than a bassinet. Except an expensive, designy bassinet. So really, you need...
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May 29, 2012

Moep With A Rope: Ply Nanny Rocker/Cradle By DvanDirk

They have advanced CNC skillz in Holland, and they like to show them off. Or as designer Dirk Ploos van Amstel puts it, "This work is about demystification. The most striking of this designs is that the most important...
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May 21, 2012

Endless Extruded Plastic Kids Rocker By Dirk Vander Kooij

Amsterdam designer Dirk Vander Kooij developed his Endless Flow Process for his 2010 Eindhoven thesis project. Since then, he's refined it to the point where his repurposed industrial robot extruder can print a plastic chair out of recycled refrigerator...
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May 13, 2012

Um, YEAH! Mondo Cane Kid Chairs At Partners & Spade

Oh Partners & Spade, I can't stay mad at you. Let's never speak of Dan Colen again. Instead, let's just do high fives and brohugs about the awesome kids chair exhibit you are putting on in collaboration with the...
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May 11, 2012

Woohoo, Wary Meyers Kids Shop Is AMAZING

The kids vintage world has definitely changed since the day when, as an idealistic new dad, I walked into Allan & Suzi on the UWS, asked if they had or knew of any kids clothes, and was told, "There...
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May 9, 2012

Misaki Kawai World At Children's Museum Of The Arts

Alright, I know: it's hard not to stare at the Bazoombas Bench. But artist Misaki Kawai's also made all kinds of other hipster-whimsical, kid-size furniture for her current exhibition at the Children's Museum of the Arts in NYC. Like...
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May 2, 2012

Gilty! Maclaren Is Definitely Not Dumping Netto Furniture On Gilt.com

Yes, it's Netto Furniture By Maclaren for sale at around 50% off at Gilt, but the question is, which of Farzad Rastegar's Maclaren shell companies is behind it? And will these Louis cribs and changers and Cub cribs and...
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April 16, 2012

8x65: Aalto Kid Chairs & Table At LA Modern

Sure, it was designed in 1935, but these eight Alvar Aalto kids chairs, #65, could really be from almost anytime. So check with the auction house, or just accept that at around half the current retail cost, the $2-3,000...
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April 9, 2012

On Reinventing The Wheel

After 20 yrs of new dad rockers making kids records because they can't find any good kids music, you'd think they'd be able to find some.— Kevin Guilfoile (@kevinguilfoile) April 9, 2012 The more forgotten kid-related goodness I discover from...
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March 21, 2012

Kenno Cardboard Kids Chair By Heikki Ruoho

The Helsinki design duo Heikki Ruoho and Teemu Järvi have been working with a recycled cardboard laminate called Re-board since at least 2008, but they only launched actual product earlier this year. Showroom Finland has apparently put the Kenno...
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March 15, 2012

Antwerp Central Youth Hostel Bunk Beds By Vincent Van Duysen

You might think that, whether it's the kids or the dads, the Daddy Types demographic would be as far away from the subject of youth hostels as it's possible to get. I thought that, too, and no amount of...
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March 11, 2012

こどもの椅子展, Chairs For Children Exhibition

I knew it'd be hard to top the one South Willard and Reference Library already flagged, Yasufumi Nakamura's Seven Chairs, kid-size riffs on iconic modernist chair silhouettes. But I really wanted to see what kind of kid-size chairs the...
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March 3, 2012

Transformer-Style: Changing Table In Disguise

I lose track of the awesome tiny space design blog Shoebox Dwelling for a couple of months, and it fills up with interesting kid-related posts. Like this "Swiss Army-style" studio apartment in Gramercy, which has a murphy bed and...
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March 1, 2012

Brandchannel Nabs Netto For Macopalypse 2012 Story

Nice get, Abe. In his extensive report on Maclaren USA's Ch. 7 liquidation mystery, Brandchannel's Abe Sauer scored some quotes from "ex-Creative Director of Maclaren Nursery," David Netto. And it sounds like the $1.1 million owed to Netto in the...
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February 29, 2012

Just Some Good Old Boys, Never Meanin' No Harm

Do you know there's a channel that shows all old dukes of hazzard episodes? It's keeping me up very late— David Netto (@DavidNettoSays) February 29, 2012 Looks like David Netto is adjusting well to life not designing cribs for Maclaren...
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February 27, 2012

Whoa. David Netto Tweet-Resigns From Maclaren

I have resigned as creative director of maclaren nursery today and am disassociating myself from the company.— David Netto (@DavidNettoSays) February 27, 2012 Guess that answers the question of which side of the bankruptcy table David Netto is sitting...
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February 22, 2012

What Do You Make Of This?

David John just tweeted it in passing, but suddenly, I look at Alvar Aalto's classic 1937 Tea Trolley, and I want to see it in kid gear. What could you make of this molded birch strip, tray, solid wheel,...
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