Industrial Furniture

Prototypes of the Modern Era

MAK, Wien (Ed.)

Industrial furniture is a hitherto barely recognized phenomenon of design history although it is—in a way—“elementary design” in the best sense of the term: Created as devices to aid in specific work processes in factories these were designed “from actual practice for actual practice” with no regard for aesthetic aspects. Their designs, reduced to the bare essence and for the most part bereft of any ornamental accessories, have caused these pieces of workplace furniture to be viewed as representing the quintessence of functionalism.
Since the end of the industrial era, pieces of industrial furniture have increasingly come to be used in the private sphere as fashionable accessories—such as for furnishing urban loft apartments—where they emanate a certain bourgeois chic, signifying an original and individual lifestyle.
Published for the exhibition of the same title (25.05.-30.10.2011).