Curator's Eye

We asked custodians of leading twentieth-century decorative arts collections to discuss one object they feel is particularly noteworthy. Here is a gallery of their choices.


Ron Arad
Rover chair
Designed 1981























“The Rover represents so much about both Ron Arad and the spirit of design in the early 80s. It is a key piece in MoMA’s current exhibition about his work—the first museum retrospective on Ron’s career.We titled the show “No Discipline” in reference to a remark he once made about his creations:‘It’s not design, it’s not art. I’m just doing what comes to me.” The legend is that Arad found some seats from a Rover 200 car in a scrapyard, picked them up, and attached tubular steel legs. They are a beautiful example of a kind of individualistic, post-punk view on design. Designers like Tom Dixon—making striking objects from junk—are part of the same gestalt.The Rover chairs are a perfect emblem of the renegade spirit of the 80s—when objects were produced from outside the mainstream of art and design.”

Paola Antonelli, Senior curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

Donald Deskey
Table lamp
Designed circa 1927























“Strikingly modern in its zigzag design and use of aluminum, this outstanding table lamp designed by Donald Deskey is a recent gift to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from the noted collector John P. Axelrod, whose generosity has transformed the MFA's ability to display and interpret this ‘machine age’ era in American art and design. The lamp, along with a rare related ashtray also given by John, was featured in Deskey's ‘Man's Smoking Room’ installed at the American Designers' Gallery in New York in October 1928. That smoking room will be evoked in a gallery setting in the museum's new American Wing, scheduled to open in late 2010.”

Gerald Ward, Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Art of the Americas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston


Joe Colombo,
Tube chair
Designed 1969



“Colombo’s Tube chair is a revolutionary piece of furniture. It is made of four PVC cylinders of varying sizes—which were surrounded in polyurethane foamed that was covered in either fabric or a plastic coating in bold colors, such as red or yellow.The tubes fit into one another, like Russian nesting dolls, and the lightweight chair came packaged in a drawstring burlap bag. It makes things so easy:You went to the store, picked up the bag, and assembled the chair yourself at home using padded clips that came with the tubes.There are many combinations possible when putting the cylinders together. What is truly remarkable about this design is that it embodies an ideal of mobile furniture, which corresponds to the relaxed lifestyle of the late 1960s.You could set up the Tube chair to watch television, or take it out into the backyard.”

Dominique Forest, Curator, Department of Modern/Contemporary Art,
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
Photo: Courtesy of Wright


Greg Lynn,
Sterling Silver Flatware
Designed 2007























“Through digital literacy and enhanced fabrication techniques, contemporary architects and designers have recently returned to the use of figurative characteristics in the design arts. Flatware has traditionally been a design object that employs floral motifs. Greg Lynn’s prototype flatware is a brilliant example of this reinterpretation of this tradition. Produced with a three-dimensional digital printing method that employed liquid metal, each piece was created by layering liquid forms atop one another. This flatware is also the first example of liquid metal to be used in rapid prototyping. The cutlery was conceived as a system of stem, leaf, and flowers that forms a single setting. Formally, the flatware reflects Lynn’s ongoing interest in Art Nouveau and the craft-laden designs of Victor Horta. Each piece is figuratively articulated and differentiated from the others to reflect its function. Collectively, the flatware presents itself as a bouquet of flowers.”

Joseph Rosa, John H. Bryan Curatorial Chair of Architecture and Design,
the Art Institute of Chicago

Design Maps

View and download a copy of the Fall 2010 MODERN New York City Design Map here.

MOD ARAD

Designer Ron Arad holding the recently released second issue of MODERN after his discussion at the 92nd Street Y last Thursday. The talk was the first in a series, “Dialogues with Design Legends,” which will be held at the Y this fall. Arad—whose Rover Chair is featured in the issue— is known for his unconventional designs, innovative use of materials, and advanced manufacturing techniques. http://www.92y.org/

Cachaça and Cachet

Espasso, a gallery in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood that specializes in modernist Brazilian design, was the scene of a party on September 15th, held to celebrate the arrival of newly re-issued pieces by Sergio Rodrigues, at 87, the grand old man of modern Brazilian furniture. Though the event drew a huge cohort of the South American design community—including designers Carlos Motta, Fernando Mendes, Roberto Hirth, the couturier Carlos Miele, and the Uruguay-born architect Rafael Viñoly and his wife, Diana—the vibe was more bossa nova than samba. Carlos Junqueira, Espasso’s owner, has devised a tranquil and elegant white envelope of a gallery, more conducive to conversation than dancing. (The dramatic—if slightly vertigo inducing—central stairwell that leads to Espasso’s lower floor also discourages one’s inner Girl or Boy from Ipanema.) Designed by architect Matthew Bremer, the space, Junqueira says, showcases Brazilian designs—which are by turn voluptuous and sculptural—in an “American” atmosphere. (Richard Meier fans will understand.)

But before we get too deeply into design, let’s talk about drinks. The libation of the evening was, of course, cachaça—Brazil’s answer to tequila. Even though it is made from fermented sugarcane, on its own cachaça tastes like some sort of industrial solvent, which is why we know it best as the main ingredient, muddled with loads of lime and sugar, in the caipirinha cocktail. Those of us who don’t like our spirits terribly sweet were introduced to a new cachaça induction method: knock back a chilled shot of the liquor, then bite into a wedge of orange dipped in cinnamon-sugar. Enjoy responsibly, as they say.



You’d think that poor Rodrigues would have needed a couple drinks to soothe a hand cramp caused by droves of fans who lined up to have him sign copies of the Adélia Borges monograph “Sergio Rodrigues,” but the designer was clearly in his element. Sociability, humor, and playfulness have always informed his work. Even his business card demonstrates that he is a man who loves fun: it features a self-drawn cartoon of Rodrigues snoozing in his best-known design, the 1957 “Poltrona Mole,” or “Floppy Chair” and ottoman. The piece is kind of a lazy throne. A wooden frame and webbing support thick leather pads that flap over the armrests and chair back. “I am my own client,” Rodrigues says. “I can follow my heart.”

Not all Rodrigues designs are as sybaritic as the Mole chair. But the hallmark of his career as an architect and designer has been the deep consideration he has shown for the well-being and good spirits of the people who would live in, or with, his designs. Rodrigues graduated from architecture school in 1952, just as modernists such as Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer were coming to the fore in Brazil. What led Rodrigues to furniture design, he says, was the realization that “everyone was paying attention to the outside of buildings, but not to what went on inside.”


Four lamps by Rodrigues were on display at Espasso, three of which were designed in the mid-‘60s. The crowd favorite was the newest piece, a cute table lamp designed in 2004 called the Xibô. the lighting post, topped by a conical shade, is set off center in a block of peroba de campo wood, through which Rodrigues cut a round hole. But the showstopper was the designer’s Chifruda (or “Horned”) Chair. First presented in 1962 but never produced in bulk—only two were originally produced and Espasso will offer the piece in a limited edition—the Chifruda is mammoth in scale. It is composed of an imbuia wood frame, a deeply padded black leather seat and armrests, a sling back, and an enormous arced headrest (hence the name). The chair would be the aesthetic centerpiece of any décor, but that is of secondary interest to Rodrigues. “I want to make a chair attractive, but most of all I want it to be comfortable,” he says. “I want a human being to be happy sitting in it—and for a long time. Brazilians love to talk. We enjoy nothing for than sitting around for hours joking and making conversation.”

Three hours into the Espasso party (which began at the typically late Brazilian hour of 9 p.m.), Rodrigues was still chatting away, and posing for pictures. He seemed very content. “My designs are my children,” he says. “So I’m always pleased and excited when they are celebrated.”

- Greg Cerio