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CategoriesDesign Movements

Contemporary Furniture and Design

Furniture and objects from the 1990s to today, shaped by digital fabrication, material research, renewed craft and concern about waste.

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No open-access works for Contemporary Furniture and Design are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.

About Contemporary Furniture and Design

Design since the 1990s has no single look, but several strands run through it. One is digital: software lets designers generate forms by algorithm and send them straight to milling machines and 3D printers. Joris Laarman's Bone Chair (2006) took its branching structure from a program that mimics how bone grows. Conceptual design is another: the Dutch collective Droog made objects that carried ideas or jokes, and Philippe Starck's spidery Juicy Salif lemon squeezer (1990) turned a kitchen tool into a small sculpture.

A third returns to the hand, with makers weaving, carving and casting in small editions, and a fourth turns to sustainability, from recycled plastics to mycelium composites. Architects stay involved: Zaha Hadid carried her flowing buildings into tables and seating, and Thomas Heatherwick's rotation-moulded Spun chair rocks like a spinning top. Traces of process, such as printed layers or visible toolpaths, often carry a piece's meaning.

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