PLANNER GROUP DESIGNED BY PAUL McCOBB
Paul McCobb
Pittsburgh: Kaufmann’s, c. 1950. Original edition. 16-panel sales brochure folded as issued. Line art of Groups A – F with materials and dimensions. Expected wear to folds, but a very good or better copy.
18 x 16.25-inch, 16-panel sales brochure for Paul McCobb's outstanding Planner Group, first released to retailers in 1949 and then to consumers in 1950, and manufactured by Winchendon Furniture Company in Massachusetts. This original sales brochure features enough curatorial information to settle any dispute with any MCM know-it-all.
This copy credited to Kaufmann's department store on a [presumably] customized rear panel with “Leon Spiegel’ and ‘Modern Furniture’ added via inkstamp.
Kaufmann's originated in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was owned in the early 20th century by Edgar J. Kaufmann, patron of Fallingwater. The Kaufmann's flagship store was built in 1887 at 400 Fifth Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. In the late 1920s, Edgar G. Kaufmann commissioned a redesign of the main floor of the department store. Local architect Benno Janssen and his partner William Cocken rose to the challenge to complete the project. At one point, the building was the largest department store in Pittsburgh with twelve retail floors, and spanning an entire downtown city block. It eventually reached 13 floors and covered 1.2 million square feet. Kaufman commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design his executive offices on the top floor of The Big Store, as well as his country house 'Fallingwater' (1934) at the company's Bear Run retreat in Pennsylvania. The office interior was saved and reinstalled in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He also commissioned architect Richard Neutra to design the desert Kaufmann House (1946) in Palm Springs, California.
The Planner Group had a definitive American style from the start. With an all-wood construction, McCobb quoted past Americana styles of Windsor or Shaker detailing in the dining chairs—giving the line an instant familiarity. This was combined with a “sleek and low” linear design of the thin edged table sets—which gave a clear modernity. These qualities were designed around a central set of modular benches and cabinet pieces that were additionally complimented by coordinated tables, headboards, shelves, and dining sets—giving the entire group a contemporary design approach.
This combination of familiar forms and modern aesthetic, combined into a contemporary structure added up to something new and unique in itself. But innovating this further was how the line was marketed. Working with Winchendon’s production capability, associate B. G. Mesberg conceived that new additions and updates to the Planner Group line were released on a seasonal basis, more akin to the fashion industry. Planner Group was specifically promoted to “young moderns,” new families, and new home builders, and always made available at entry level price-points.
Another shift embraced a growth-minded approach - the line was designed and promoted to be acquired piece by piece, or room-by-room, as families or budgets grew over time—this implied an ongoing relationship with the line. To facilitate this, Planner Group was available in “open-stock.” So too, it’s key “versatility” was that the entire line could be used in any room of the house — pieces and combinations fit as well in the living room as they did in the bedroom, or dining room. Planner Group was presented as a “solution” to the problems of the newly emerging way of living, in a rapidly expanding post-war America.
In June 1950, Better Homes & Gardens described McCobb’s Planner Group as the “new contemporary.” Grappling with the then nascent concept of modular furniture, they described the line as “arrange-it-yourself furniture.” They noted its “main advantages” was its “remarkable flexibility,” its scale “for small rooms and modest budgets,” and its suitability “for any room in the house.” (Better Homes & Gardens, June 1950)
The McCobb-Mesberg partnership was a huge success. In its first year, “Planner Group was bought by 250 stores throughout the United States.” (Current Biography 1958). Chon Gregory, McCobb’s chief associate for 17 years, said, “The Planner Group was the furniture of the people. It was basic, easy to understand and easy to use.” (New York Times, August 6th, 1996). By the mid-fifties, Planner Group had moved beyond the home per se, and into contract furniture for large institutional and office orders. By 1957 Bloomingdale’s in New York City established a Paul McCobb shop on its fifth floor, “that featured fifteen different room arrangements.” (Current Biography 1958). Planner Group also grew beyond the U.S. “It retailed throughout North and South America, while also being manufactured in Sweden for distribution in Europe.” (Current Biography 1958). All-in-all, “Planner Group was the best-selling collection of modern furniture for the 1950s decade.” (New York Times, March 12, 1969)
Playing off of what Planner Group had established, McCobb would go on to design numerous new groups of furniture. His other lines included Directional, Predictor, Linear, Perimeter, and Delineator groups, among others. Each new line would be an expansion of the template that McCobb had introduced through his Planner Group. With a continued focus on design and marketing combined, these collections would cater to a different market segment or price point, or introduce a new material fabrication, such as aluminum, into the home.
Just shy of forty years of age, McCobb’s early vision of establishing a definitive American design was in full bloom. He did this by making the strategic shift from a European inspired modernism to a new Contemporary America.
In 1953, he became Director of the Industrial and Interior Design Departments at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, where he was involved as faculty and lecturer. Simultaneously, he was charged with a full renovation of the school’s building, its interior design and furnishings.
Meanwhile, Paul McCobb Design Associates were contracted to “consultant to many leading industrial concerns, including Columbia Records, the Singer Manufacturing Company, the Bell & Howell Company, Alcoa, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, the Philco Corporation. Remington Rand and others.” (New York Times, March 12, 1969).
McCobb however, would leave all this too early. On March 10, 1969, McCobb passed away in his home after a long illness. He was just fifty-one years old.
Some significant career highlights include — Winner of the Museum of Modern Art seminal Good Design award a total of four times from 1950 to 1954. Internationally, McCobb represented America as the designer of the U.S. pavilion at the 11th Triennale in Milan in 1957. The shows grand curatorial title was “Improving the quality of Expression in Todays Civilization.” Newspaper headlines in the US credited McCobb with making “Contemporary Design a World Force.”
In his time, McCobb’s name became “synonymous with sleek, uncluttered and modular design.” (New York Times, March 12, 1969). He created “some of the finest examples of contemporary furniture design.” (Current Biography 1958). More so, he achieved his early insight “that American furniture makers should develop a native style in contrast to European-influenced furnishings.” (New York Times, March 12, 1969). Principally, McCobb was credited as the “creator of the contemporary look for young moderns,” (Interiors, April 1969). And he did so while always maintaining his primary interest as an artist and painter.
Planner Group information and Paul McCobb biographical details courtesy of Yogi Proctor as found on the Paul McCobb Museum website.