GRETA MAGNUSSON GROSSMAN, DESIGNER
ILMARI TAPIOVAARA, INTERIOR ARCHITECT
MADE TO MEASURE: UMS PASTOE AND
CEES BRAAKMAN: 1949-68
3 volumes in publishers acrylic slipcase
R 20th Century Design
Evan Snyderman, R 20th Century Design, Lily Kane [essay]: GRETA MAGNUSSON GROSSMAN, DESIGNER. New York: R Gallery, 2000. First edition. Octavo. Thick photographically printed wrappers. 48 pp. Color and black and white illustrations. Cover photograph by Julius Shulman. A fine copy, housed in a publishers clear acrylic slipcase that has a small crack.
8.5 x 8.5 softcover book with 48 pages and heavily illustrated in color and black and white original artwork, photography, plans and diagrams. Includes lamps designed for the Ralph O. Smith Company; furniture designs for Glenn of California, Barker Brothers, and the G.T. line; as well as archival photographs of manufactured works from Grossman's office that were used for client presentations. Catalog published to accompany an exhibition of the same name at the R Gallery on September 26, 2000.
R 20th Century Design, Pekoe Korvenmaa [essay]: ILMARI TAPIOVAARA, INTERIOR ARCHITECT. New York: R Gallery, 2001. First edition. Octavo. Thick photographically printed wrappers. 48 pp. Color and black and white illustrations. A fine copy housed in publishers slipcase.
8.5 x 8.5 softcover book with 48 pages and heavily illustrated in color and black and white original artwork, photography, plans and diagrams. Includes unique, never-before-seen pieces such as a table designed and crafted by Tapiovaara during WWII. Made from fir and pine planks and roots while he was stationed in Karelia in eastern Finland, the table is a triumph of design by hand made from available natural resources. Other highlights from the exhibition include a bedroom suite designed for the Domus Academy, Helsinki, 1946-47 as well as a chair and stool designed for the MoMA Low-Cost competition in 1947-48. Catalog published to accompany an exhibition of the same name at the R Gallery from March 27 - July 31, 2001.
R 20th Century Design, Daan de Kuyper [essay]: MADE TO MEASURE: UMS PASTOE AND CEES BRAAKMAN: 1949-68. New York: R Gallery, 2001. First edition. Octavo. Thick photographically printed wrappers. 48 pp. Color and black and white illustrations. A fine copy housed in publishers slipcase.
8.5 x 8.5 softcover book with 40 pages and heavily illustrated in color and black and white original artwork, photography, plans and diagrams. Includes a comprehensive look at Cees Braakman's career in this pioneering company, and features rare archival material, a full line of furniture and more. Catalog published to accompany an exhibition of the same name at the R Gallery from May 21 - August 30, 2000.
Greta Magnusson Grossman (1906 – 1999) is today still an under- recognized figure in the Southern California design movement of the 1950s – 60s. Grossman was twice the recipient of the Museum of Modern Art's Good Design award in 1950 and 1952. She was featured more than 14 times in John Entenza's Arts & Architecture magazine between 1947 and 1960, and the houses, interiors, and objects she designed influenced a number of her better-known contemporaries, including Charles and Ray Eames, Richard Neutra, John Lautner, Irving Gill, and Pierre Koenig.
Grossman was born in Sweden in 1906 and graduated from the School of Industrial Design in Stockholm in 1931. In 1933, she became the first woman to receive a prize for furniture design from the Swedish Society of Industrial Design. Grossman moved to Beverly Hills in 1941 and established her architecture, interior and industrial design practice there. Her designs have been exhibited at museums around the world including the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden; de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; and the Walker Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN.
After WWII many furniture companies throughout Europe were forced to rebuild their destroyed facilities. Often, they embraced the opportunity to restructure their manufacturing and design processes as well. In the Netherlands, Cees Braakman (1917-1995) led this shift for the UMS-Pastoe Company. As manager and head of the design team from 1945-1978, Braakman developed several lines of popular furniture, perfect for the growing export market, and helped to initiate a new company approach to product identity and catalog design.
Braakman began working at Pastoe when he was 17, and his father was the manager and head draftsman. During this period he learned the trade and helped produce the classical designs that were the staple of the company at that time. After WWII they were able to salvage enough of their machinery to start production again, and in 1947 Braakman was sent to the United States to study other manufacturer's designs and processes. He traveled to twelve companies, but was most inspired by the Herman Miller Company and the work of Charles & Ray Eames. When he returned to the Netherlands he began experimenting with bending plywood and created the first modern line of furniture for Pastoe.
During the 1950s Braakman's designs were supported and promoted by the Stichting Goed Wonen (Good Living Foundation), a group devoted to bringing manufacturers, designers, consumers and store owners together to create a shared aesthetic and, they hoped, improve the standard of living. The Foundation published a magazine in which Pastoe furniture was lauded repeatedly for its stylish and efficient modern designs. Their bent plywood drawer interiors, for instance, were praised for the way they facilitated cleaning. This endorsement helped Pastoe increase its clientele, and create a reputation as purveyors of truly forward thinking furniture. Braakman also created a new naming system for the furniture, doing away with the informal names like 'Eric', previously given to the pieces, and instead creating a codename comprised of letters and numbers. Around the same time he helped graphic designer Harry Sierman change the focus of the catalogs from pamphlets into small, visually arresting books.
Starting in 1955, and continuing through the 1960s, Braakman devoted much of his attention to the design of modular cabinets. He created a product in which the customer could choose from a variety of woods and arrangements to create a system that was 'made to measure' for their specific needs. In the first series the customer assembled the pieces in their home, fitting each cabinet together with a patented corner molding. The series created in the later 1960s, the 'U+N Series' was more formal and was not meant to be taken apart. Both series were elegant solutions to storage problems, tailored to fit in a small living space. The 1959/60 Pastoe catalog outlined the "basic features of his [Braakman's] design" as "a sense of proportion, a taste for clean lines with an accent on first class materials."
Finnish designer Ilmari Tapiovaara (1914-1999) developed a unique aesthetic based on the remarkably international education he received from several of the masters of the mid-century style. While running his office in Helsinki, Tapiovaara went abroad to work for Alvar Aalto in Artek's London office in 1935, for Le Corbusier in Paris in 1937 and for Mies van der Rohe in Chicago in 1953. Tapiovaara received his formal education in Finland as a student of industrial and interior design at the Institute of Industrial Arts in Helsinki, and combined this background with his exposure to the different components of western design movements to create his furniture and textiles. He wrote that, "a designer can be compared with a surgeon. Once you know your trade, you can practice it anywhere.If your work is good, it will do everywhere."
Tapiovaara started out working on interior design for the Domus Academy in 1947 and for the Tech Student Village in 1951. Many of his early furniture and textile designs came from these commissions. For the Tech Student Village, for example, he created the successful "Lukki" or "Daddy Long Legs" chairs that were manufactured by Lukkiseppo, and his famous "Domus" chair was designed for the Academy. His textiles, often designed with his wife Annikki, were unique because he would enlarge the images to enjoy their expanded space rather than shrinking them down into the traditionally smaller, repetitive patterns. An example of a popular fabric executed in this style was the "2 & 3" wallpaper designed for a child's nursery and manufactured by Heal's. Around this period, the late 1940s to early 1950s, Tapiovaara also had an eye on the ever-expanding international export market and began designing his furniture as knockdowns. Each piece, like his entry to the 1948 Low Cost Furniture competition at the MoMA, was made to be completely taken apart to facilitate shipping and lower the costs.
Before branching out on his own, Tapiovaara worked for two of the major Finnish furniture companies. He served an Art Director for Asko from 1938-1941, and as Artistic and Commercial Director for the cabinetwork factory at Keravan Puuteolisuus from 1941-1951. His Helsinki office, opened around 1950, was involved in furniture and industrial design commissions for a number of different companies. He embraced the functionalist philosophy that a piece of furniture, both its use and structural conception should be understood at first sight. While his pieces retained a sense of innovation and character, this belief made him an ideal candidate for the design of public spaces like students housing, cinemas, the Leningrad Concert Hall, airplane interiors for Finnair and the Intercontinental Hotel in Helsinki which he finished in 1973. His industrial design projects included the Polar series of cutlery for the Hackman Company, radio equipment for Centrum, and color planning for the paint company Winter & Co.
Tapiovaara exhibited his work widely and with great success. He was awarded gold medals for his chairs at the Milan Triennials in 1951, 1954, 1957 and 1960 and received a Good Design award in Chicago in 1950. He also received the Finnish State Design award in 1971 and a prize from the Finnish Culture Foundation in 1986. He worked as a teacher of interior and industrial design at the Institute of Industrial Art in the 1950s and again from the late 1970s until the mid-1980s.