Designer’s Portfolio of Urethane Foam
Construction Techniques
Vladimir Kagan
[KAGAN, Vladimir]. UPHOLSTERED FURNITURE. Designer’s Portfolio of Urethane Foam Construction Techniques [cover title]. [New York, Vladimir Kagan Design Associates and Mobay Chemical Company, February 1, 1964]. First edition. Quarto extending to oblong folio, blueprint introductory leaf and 12 blueprints; clean and fresh in the original—probably polyurethane—flexible wallet folder, closeable with a metal rivet, the leaves hinged with metal brads, front cover lettered in gilt. Top of introductory leaf lightly scratched at fold, otherwise a fine copy of this elaborate production.
[13] 11 x 16.75 blueprint leaves printed recto only attached to a flexible polyurethane wallet with metal brads and rivets. The introductory leaf is titled “A functional approach to upholstered furniture design,” in which Kagan explains that ‘For a change… imagine yourself in a world without steel, wood, cotton… without any of the conventional materials a furniture designer usually works with, could you still create distinctive designs of beauty and comfort?’ This rare publication is the blueprint of the answer.
This publication was probably produced for manufacturers who worked with urethane, in order to convince them that branching out into furniture production was a viable option, and that urethane upholstery was a product of the future.
Vladimir Kagan (Germany, 1927 – 2016) was an American furniture designer. He was inducted in the Interior Designer Hall of Fame in 2009, 62 years after he started designing and producing furniture. His Midcentury modern furniture with “Sinuous wooden frame characteristics” has a modern feel. His style, inspired by everything from antiques and nature to the Bauhaus, emphasizes comfort and functionality.
Vladimir Kagan was born on 29 August 1927 in Worms, Germany. The son of a Russian Jewish cabinetmaker, Vladimir Kagan's childhood was cut short by the rise of the Nazis. He emigrated to the United States in 1938. His early focus was painting and sculpture but in the following years he became eagerly attracted to architecture and design. Graduated from the School of Industrial Art in 1946, where he was an architecture major and then went on to study architecture at Columbia University.
In 1947 he joined his father Illi Kagan, a master cabinetmaker to work in his woodworking shop and learn furniture making from the ground up. In an interview he recalls his “father saying ‘Measure three times and cut once;’ I would be of the school of cut three times and never measure.”
He opened his first personal shop in New York in 1949. In 1950 the Kagan-Dreyfus partnership began with a showroom/store on 125 East 57th Street in New York City. His early work included furniture for the Delegate's Cocktail Lounge at the United Nations and furniture for the "Monsanto House of the Future" at Disneyland.
Kagan developed a reputation that earned him numerous design projects as well as a celebrity clientele. Some of his early clients included Marilyn Monroe, Lily Pons, Xavier Cugat, Gary Cooper, and companies such as Walt Disney, General Electric, General Motors, Prudential Insurance, Monsanto, and Fairchild Aircraft.
Vladimir Kagan creates his designs with upholstery, wrought iron, cast aluminum and especially organically sculpted wood in works that became hallmarks of his career. Kagan introduces his first signature furniture collection called 'Tri-symmetric' in 1949. In 1958 Kagan designs "capricorn", an indoor-outdoor iron collection through W&J Sloan. After the partnership with Dreyfus dissolves in 1960, Kagan continued exploring fresh forms and materials. In 1964, Kagan redesigns the Monsanto House of the Future at Disneyland, in California. In 1970 the first Omnibus collection is introduced. His company continued to function under the new name Vladimir Kagan Designs.
On May 19, 1972 a fire destroyed Kagan's entire factory in New York. In 1974 Kagan designs the executive suite for Prudential Insurance Co. in Newark, New Jersey. In 1975 Kagan designs the office of Warner Communications' senior vice president In 1987 he closes the factory and showroom and starts his new consulting firm: The Vladimir Kagan Design Group. In 1997 Gucci uses his Omnibus collection for all its 360 stores around the world. In 2001 Kagan designs a Bombay Sapphire martini glass. In 2002 he designs the lobby for the Standard Hotel Downtown in Los Angeles.