Some people, when refer to a particular piece of design, tend to use the terms “Modern”, “Mid Century Modern” and “Contemporary” indistinctly. This is not the best practice, since there are different movements that shared some principles, there still had differences you might not know.

Modernism: The Beginnings. 

By “Modern” we refer to pieces of furniture developed in the first half of XX Century by the founders of Modernism, a revolutionary movement in Design, Architecture, and Arts. Le Corbusier, Charles and Ray Eames, The Bauhaus movement, and even the first period of L. Mies van der Rohe can be labeled as Modernism. In this period were established the principles of all renovation movements that came later in the s XX. Remarkable products of this period: the LC5 Sofa Bed (Le Corbusier, the Eames Office Chair (Charles and Ray Eames). Another remarkable set of pieces of the period is the Barcelona Collection. 

Mid Century Modern: The Golden Age of Design

Mid Century Modern is the moment in the XXth century when several great designers collide in the creation of a solid creative collective. The principles of Modernism of 30 and 40 years ago were taken and updated with the new developments and findings of engineering, architecture and scientific progress. In furniture we can mention remarkable products of this period, such as the Noguchi Table (Isamu Noguchi), the Tulip Table (Eero Sarinen), or the  Freedom Chair (Neils Diffrient)

Contemporary Design

More than a homogenous category, Contemporary encloses the works of any remarkable live creator, so there aren’t any fixed set of rules or principles. Some names of living and remarkable designers are Stefan Diez or Sato Oki.

In Barcelona Design you can give yourself the opportunity to enjoy many of these classic and timeless pieces of furniture, like the Barcelona Collection, for a fraction of the price of one original one.