INDUSTRIAL FURNITURE – Prototypes of the Modern Era

Published by MAK Vienna, with text contributions by Sebastian Hackenschmidt, Martina Kandeler-Fritsch and Monika Wagner.
MAK Studies 20

To this day, factories and industrial plants often use furniture that has been made by workers and mechanics themselves for specific purposes and activities and adapted to very specific production processes. In their strict functionality, these simple and functional "industrial furniture", usually made of iron plates, metal sheets, steel pipes and wooden boards, are clearly different from the uniform, smooth aesthetics of contemporary designer furniture. Since the 1970s - since the end of the classic industrial and machine age - industrial furniture has also been increasingly used in private homes, especially in the furnishing of lofts and big city apartments. But although this furniture has long been appreciated and collected by enthusiasts - often artists, designers and architects - and sometimes achieves high prices, it represents a previously completely neglected phenomenon in the history of art and design. Using work tables, industrial stools, lockers and tool cabinets from Austrian factories as well as some international comparative examples, the exhibition presents for the first time furniture objects that not only show the traces of work and patina of the bygone industrial age, but can also be considered the epitome of functional design.

German/English, 128 pages
MAK Vienna/Publisher for Modern Art Nuremberg 2011