Contemporary Style
Does the luster of innovation make you drool? Or maybe you like sleek, sexy silhouettes setting the scene for your quick-paced life of urban sophistication and adventure. Perhaps you enjoy relaxing in funky retro style as you squish your toes into a black shag rug. The wonderful thing about contemporary furniture is that it encompasses all these things and more. Your living space is a blank canvas no longer bound by traditional ideas of what a room should look like. Ever-evolving, contemporary styles buck tradition and revere the modern materials and technology that makes such continuing evolution possible.
Simple designs exquisitely executed. Modern furniture is traditional furniture's foil, a cutting edge flipside awash in geometric precision and straightforward presentation. Colors range from neutral to bold, and the inclusion of glistening metal adds contemporary flair to many pieces. Other examples of modern materials include vinyl, plywood and iron.
Art Deco furniture is a celebration of elegant line and curves sans the elaborate scroll work and ostentatious carvings of traditional furniture. With the advent of modern travel and technology, materials that were once hard to procure became readily available. The Art Deco movement in furniture took full advantage of this and created a unique style using exotic leathers, silver and gold leaf, mother-of-pearl, ivory and lacquers mixed with relatively cheap contemporary metals, glass, synthetic plastics and resins like bakelite. As a result of this mixed media, Art Deco does not present itself as overly formal. (Due to GREENCulture's respect of all living things, our Art Deco designs are free of animal product like leather and ivory and feature quality alternatives.)
This contemporary style gives a wink and a nod to recently bygone eras, spanning from the 1950's to the 1980's. A retro look can be created from acquiring original pieces of furniture from these decades, but retro style furniture today is usually a reproduction of past designs. In some ways, dubbing items like the chrome dinette set 'retro' undermines the vision designers of the past were striving toward. In their time, these retro items were fashionably modern, a calculated exercise in embracing a lighter, contemporary look far removed from the traditional, bulkier furnishings of their parents' homes.
Popular retro staples include one-piece modular chairs and tables cast in plastic, chrome bar stools that remind you of your favorite diner and Formica-topped tables. With the advent of television came furniture designed to make viewing a more enjoyable experience. Recliners and ottomans allowed a person to kick back and watch the tube in plushy comfort. The convenient, mass-produced furniture collections that we take for granted today allowed consumers to perfectly coordinate their furniture throughout one room or all their living spaces. And that last home frontier, the backyard, was the inspiration for rugged Adirondack and other lawn chairs, as well as tables and benches.
Jazzy, sophisticated and spare—urban furniture is designed with the city-dweller in mind. Pieces tend to range on the smaller size, meant to furnish apartments with up-to-the-minute style. Black is a predominant color in design, but also expect to find furniture constructed of powder coated metal, blonder woods and glass. Platform beds, upholstered sofas with a slim profile and deep or bright colors round out a look for the furniture fashionista.
