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It is one of the dreams of the modern designer to invent a product so radically new, effective, and efficient compared to anything which came before that it will change the way people think about objects of that sort. In furniture design, a market saturated by designers aiming for the pinnacle of efficiency and beauty in supporting the human form for more than a century, it seems questionable whether there are any new ideas left at all. However, we see new materials, new technologies, and new ways about thinking what furniture should accomplish every year. Why haven’t we seen revolutionary idea – big enough to change the whole field – in almost 80 years?

At the beginning of the twentieth century, most Western furniture was made from wood. Chairs, dressers, armoires, tables, and desks had been designed to mimic the form and ornamentation of well-established European ideals for previous two centuries, with a few notable exceptions such as the Thonet chair breaking with tradition at the end of the 19th century. However with the social and economic shifts that eventually spurred World War I, there was a dramatic shift towards abstraction, new materials, and letting go of tradition in every form of artistic expression – this trend did not fail to influence furniture design. Often closely associated with particular movements in architecture, furniture designers began to value function, economy, and innovation as highly as their predecessors had valued ostentatious craftsmanship and decoration.

By the 1960s this process had reached its zenith and all relationship with traditional forms had been cast aside by the most progressive designers. It became possible to build objects to support bodies and carry out work without the constraints of thinking of them as chairs, tables, sofas, etc. This trend started in Italy and is perhaps best represented by the bean-bag chair (created by Piero Gatti; 1969). Inflatable furniture, made from thin PVC plastic, is another example of this trend toward what seem to be absurd designs produced merely to be contrary, but are functional, cheap, light, and versatile furniture solutions.

The innovations of the early 20th century quickly caught on and became the new standards of furniture making: tubular and wire frames; light, stacking, and easily moveable forms; and an undecorated Modern aesthetic. The innovations of the mid-century quickly came into widespread use, but they do not convey the same sense of wonder and experimentation as the previous era because they mostly consisted of treating the already identified functionalist principles with newly available materials: bent plywood, plastics, and composites. By the ‘60s, an active design culture in Italy began to try to spark a new rethinking of the purpose of furniture by creating whimsical, colorful, and highly stylized furnishing solutions. But rather than revitalizing the field to its Bauhaus-era, revolutionary successes, these new experiments did not sell well and mostly became collectors’ objects. A few designers chose to spurn the unguided pursuit of radical new forms and, instead, to follow the path of their predecessors towards function. Though many of them produced other work, the designers of the 60s and 70s developed a thread of designs which refined the proven principles of Functionalism into a single, ultimate, ideal. But in the end, their over-rationalization of the search for versatility, comfort, and style gave way to an incremental march toward cold, calculable efficiency.

Part I: Functional Furniture

To understand how the furniture design from mid-century to the ‘70s continued to be defined and limited by the Functionalist perspective, we must look more closely at some particular examples from the period. For the purposes of this argument I will leave out consideration of the “anti-object” movement, whose only consistent element is its contradiction of the Functionalist movement. Instead, I wish to focus on the increasingly efficient and adaptable vein of furniture design. It led, first, into modular concepts: the smallest useful pieces of a cabinet or table, repeated indefinitely, with standard connections between them. The best modular designs shared a common connection between storage, workspace, and seating elements. Later designers began to break the furniture into sub-useful components, a number of which could be assembled to arrive at a fixture which is, for example, part table and part shelf or part cabinet and part countertop. This method gives the user complete control over the placement and availability of any particular element down to every shelf, drawer, and leg.

Charles Eames is, perhaps, the best known furniture designer in the United States. His dozens of classic designs range from bent-plywood chairs to one of the first modular office systems ever conceived. He pursued the idea, along with George Nelson, of making office furniture into discrete, stackable, and connecting sections - one of the major turning points in 20th century design and the direct precursor to the furnishings now found in almost every office in the world.

The Action Office consisted of common legs to hold up either desks or shelving units. These elements could be combined or stacked in many ways, replaced or upgraded module by module, and came with a range of peripheral add-ons. Stacking shelves of regular dimensions had been explored to some degree, but in this line of furniture Eames and Nelson developed new ways to divide individual units and connect them together interchangeably. The standard, interlocking, piece-wise construction of this office system allowed such flexibility that the basic concept is still in use, though improvements are being sought and applied every day.

Another of Eames’ almost visionary inventions was his 1949 storage unit. The storage unit came as a flat-pack including the frame and a variety of panels which the user would assemble into any combination of modular drawers, cabinets, or shelves, each made from plastic, metal, or wood. This design was copied and reinvented by dozens of designers and even by Eames himself because of its fabulous simplicity and flexibility – its influence can still be seen in “assembly required” shelving units sold today. The same concept and parts can be sized at the factory to make a desk just as easily as a dorm room storage system, and within the general framework of the upright elements it can be reconfigured by end-user with little trouble and no new or wasted parts. However it seems that Eames’ particular incarnation of the idea was not sufficiently easy to assemble and, though many imitations became popular, the product was discontinued.

Another designer occasionally interested in the highly functional was Verner Panton. Most of his designs were brightly colored, organic, and focused more on form than on function, however his “Studioline” system makes it obvious that he was able to take efficiency and adaptability into consideration. The moveable chests, like a stacking-box shelf turned on end, can be covered with cushions to make a sitting space or left uncovered and used as a table. Together with attachable armrests, the wheeled modules can be arranged into couches, beds, and tables of many shapes and dimensions. Though surprisingly simple, easily convertible, and with extra space for storage, these modules would be about half as comfortable as a standard sofa and not especially more useful.

Many other designers conceived of more atomized, adaptable, and efficient forms for seating and storage, but most proved to be more theoretically interesting than usable. Few went into production besides shelving units – and those mostly for business use, where style and comfort hold a distant second place compared to efficiency.

The designer most strongly focused on efficiency and adaptability in his designs was Joe Colombo. Born Cesare Colombo in Italy, he set up a studio in Milan in 1961 which he operated until his death at 40 years old in 1971. He is best known for the first all-plastic chair, the 4867, though his broad range of works puts him in the running for the most generally innovative designer of his generation. His willingness to part with tradition, along with the pleasant, playful character of his designs, won him numerous international design awards as well as a loyal fan base – bordering on a cult following - beginning around 1960.

An invention which shows the general tone of Colombo’s work is the Mini-Kitchen (1963). A self-contained cart, it provides everything necessary to cook a simple meal in a volume of about half a cubic meter. It is designed to allow someone living in a small apartment to cook without taking up the relatively large amount of space which a standard kitchen requires – in fact, the footprint of this cart is even smaller than it seems as it could be rolled under a counter or into a closet when not in use. This tour-de-force in the efficient use of space includes a stove, a refrigerator, and all necessary utensils on a single cart – ideal for a single-room apartment or an office. Colombo’s attempts to fit every necessary function into a small, self-contained, wheeled box would continue throughout his career.

Along with Angelo Mangiarotti, Colombo started the experiments with plastics as a medium for making furniture which brought Italian design to international attention. Many of their first inventions, such as cylindrical cabinets with sliding doors, were intended merely as eye-catchers to bring attention to what could be done with plastics, but soon these designs were being copied by furniture companies around the globe. Easy to make into any shape, readily available in any color, and cheap to mass produce, plastics were subject to few limitations and gave designers a new palette of options to work with.

Colombo used this new freedom to give the user freedom. He invented a number of re-configurable shelving systems such as the Square Plastic System. This shelf concept was a step beyond Eames’ Storage Unit in that it atomized the structure into such small parts that the user could control the height, width, and depth, as well as the configuration of modules within those parameters. From six simple elements the user could create any arrangement of shelves, cupboards, stands, chests, racks, or desks in an indefinitely-extendable and completely arbitrary fashion. The only limitations were the square format, the number of ways the connections fit together, and the range of pieces provided by the manufacturer. This flexibility allows the user to become the designer – to arrange the storage unit to meet the needs of his particular space and application. Compared to the conventional limitations of mass-produced objects, which must be designed and configured by someone who has no knowledge of the end-user’s space or functional requirements, this system allows for a huge increase in the effectiveness of utilized space and materials.

This particular system is only one of hundreds of similar modular shelving solutions which have been in production until the present. Everything from most of the shelving sold by IKEA to the milk-crate-like plastic boxes now sold as “container systems” at most big-box retail stores are evolutions of this format of giving buyers control over the final shape of their storage units. If anything, Colombo went too far by integrating the possibility of re-configuring the storage units into different structures after the first set-up – a capability which is seldom available today and which presumably calls for more effort than it is worth on the part of the consumer.

Along the same lines of giving the user complete freedom is the Additional System, a series of rectangular cushions put face to face on a rail to create chairs and couches. With 6 different heights of cushions, a wide range of horizontal undulations could be achieved, from a flat sofa to a recessed chair with a back. This system is one of the few atomized seating designs ever produced. Chairs are so unitary that it is unnecessary to break them down any further, and to make an arrangement of more than one it is simply necessary to connect them as in airport seating. On the other hand, couches and chaise-lounges are intended to be profoundly comfortable, and it is difficult to achieve deep cushioning without a box-spring base. In order to atomize seating, Colombo basically made a way to tie cushions together. In doing so, he made an adaptable system, however the Additional System hardly gives the range of freedom which would make its expense and unconventionality worthwhile. Better solutions to this problem were developed later, including inflatable canvas cushions.

Another attempt at a modular chair is the Tube Chair. Four nesting pieces of plastic tubing, covered with a foam cushion, can be attached to form a sitting device. While strikingly simple and visually pleasing, this design does not really allow for a great amount of different combinations, unless you can afford several copies to string together – altogether unlikely, as the latest price on ebay was $8,000 for a set (March, 2005). However, this certainly confirms that Colombo was trying to find a cheap, simple way to fit a lot of utility into a small space (1/2 meter on a side, when the tubes are nested).

As he saw it, “The problem today is to offer furnishings that are basically autonomous, that is, independent of their architectonic housing and so coordinatable and programmable that they can be adapted to every present and future space situation.” (Mang, 170) Colombo’s vision was to reinvent the human habitat to fit the ‘60s lifestyle: “Traditional families are tending to give way to small groups created on the basis of affinity. We will have, in short, the natural tribal society ... These groups living and working in common will require a new type of habitat: spaces that can be transformed, spaces conducive to meditation and experimentation, to intimacy and to interpersonal exchanges." (6)

In order to facilitate this new social style, he invented units such as the Man-Woman Containers, which included rails, shelves, and drawers to store all of each sex’s daily needs in a single chest. Colombo also created the Box 1, "night and day facility" in which the contents of a bedroom were contained in a series of interlocking boxes which could be unfolded into a bed, wardrobe and shelves. This allowed for the bedroom to be packed away so the space could be used for something else during the day. He continued in this vein to create the “Habitat of the Future,” in which a series of large mobile units contain the spaces and accoutrements of an entire house. In 1971 he further developed this concept in the Total Furnishing Unit in which a kitchen, cupboard, bedroom/privacy, and bathroom are all contained within a single unit. This was shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1972, after the designer’s death.

More recently, many designers and firms have continued to search for the ultimate in adaptability and efficiency. In office, warehouse, and laboratory furnishings, dozens of manufacturers have produced hundreds of styles of piece-together wall panels, desks, and shelving – the breadth of development in this field is too vast to fully document, and too repetitive to want to.

Along with the environmental movement of the late sixties and seventies, perhaps inspired by the ideas and experiments of Colombo, many individuals began to seek more individualistic solutions to creating similarly flexible products for personal use. These designs can often be so simple that it would be pointless to mass produce them for the retail market, though there are publications which give guidance on how to construct them for the best results. Materials as cheap and ubiquitous as cardboard, plywood, and canvas can - with little more than a saw and a hammer - furnish a home in a comfortable and mobile fashion.

Carrying on the naturalistic and individualistic search for the most efficient use of space is the California artist Andrea Zittel. When living in a tiny room behind her miniscule New York gallery space, she created a plywood framework of shelves and drawers to keep her possessions in check. Echoing the tone of Colombo’s living units, the large box and clean, simple lifestyle it represents become melded and tend to impose a sense of efficiency and order on the inhabitant. Pursuing efficiency also in clothing design, she managed to fit her wardrobe into the tiny space by using only four copies of a single outfit for an entire season. Zittel’s later experiments with furniture and space design have focused on creating small, comforting, and mobile environments.

But perhaps the most widely effective development of efficient furniture lies in atomized modular systems. The “Dado e Vite” system is an early and straightforward path to universal adaptability and great efficiency: plywood planks of several sizes connect via plastic blocks to make chairs, tables, shelves, and cabinets. However, it displays a blatant and profound lack of style.

Style is precisely the strength of the German manufacturer USM Mobelbausysteme. Their signature piece, the Haller system, is based on a ball-joint which serves as the connection point between up to six perpendicular, stainless steel rods to form a framework for shelving. Panels, cabinet doors, display racks, and drawers made from black or clear glass, hardwoods, and chrome-plated metals clip onto the frame to form stately and robust office furniture. USM’s newest innovation is the “eleven22,” a system based on uprights which can support tables, desks, shelving (including drawers and cabinets), computer equipment, angled display panels, wall panels, and lighting, with an integrated channel for communications and electrical wiring – every imaginable necessity except seating.

Part II: Adaptive Furniture

In order to get to the basis of what Colombo was trying to do and hopefully to dig a little deeper, we must start with the environmentally-conscious viewpoint that inspired his agenda of social reform through furniture. Contemporary society has serious problems with consumption. We consume as much as we can afford to, taking no thought of the things we must exploit, trample on, and throw away in order to constantly produce and own more new stuff. Manufacturers strive to increase sales of all types of mass-produced goods by decreasing the lifespan of their products and by producing many different styles and encouraging consumers to own them all. Because people have limited space in their homes, a constant influx of new items requires that other items be removed - possibly to a second-hand store, but more likely to the landfill.

Among the myriad ways to change this behavior of our society is making products which will retain their utility for long periods of time. (It might also be a good idea for those products to be wanted in the first place - which could be achieved through the use of style - however this aspect of the problem has been studied extensively so I will not address it here.) Of course this requires that objects be made with high-quality materials and labor-intensive workmanship, but these have been objectives of manufacturing for thousands of years and they do little to keep items such as clothing, automobiles, and furniture from going out of style on an accelerating schedule. To meet the needs of households and workplaces confronted with evolving technologies, lifestyles, and economic growth patterns, objects must not merely withstand constant use but also must periodically provide new functionality.

Instead of destroying or discarding the old one and replacing it whenever needs change, would it be possible to create devices which can be adapted to uses unforeseen by their original designers?

Imagine a house made from interconnecting panels: if you are going to have a party, take down all the inside walls to create a single large ballroom; if you are going to have a baby, purchase new panels and add a second story; if you want to move to a new city, take it all apart and put it in a truck. Imagine furniture made out of a futuristic, variable-hardness putty: if you need to keep warm, flatten it like a blanket and set the hardness to “low;” if you need to sit down, shape it into a chair and set the hardness to “medium”; if you need to climb up high, shape it into a ladder and set the hardness to “high.” Imagine a city center full of buildings on wheels: to lay down fiber-optics, revamp the sewers, or put in a subway, simply roll the buildings to the side and go to work; to insert a new stadium, remove an aging building, or widen the streets, it is a simple matter to remove one or more buildings to a new location where they can still be useful.

These inventions, though currently beyond our technical skill to produce, express a vision of articles which allow great flexibility and an unlimited number of possible uses and benefits. By following that vision, one can see that there are many objects which might be made differently to give them a greater range of applications and to keep them from becoming obsolete. In order to provide a clear and concrete example of this ideal, I have produced a furniture system capable of endless variations of constructions and applications.

To achieve this goal, I will attempt to bridge the gap between the adaptable furniture currently on the market and my vision of a furniture based on putty. Basically, today’s modular systems are inefficient to the extent that an entire object must be replaced when there is only one offending feature. If a table is too small or too big for a particular space or use, it is not possible merely to add or subtract the appropriate length; the entire table must be replaced with another. If an artist learns drafting and needs a tilt table, it is probably more trouble to sever the top and install adjustable supports on his modular office desk than to buy a whole new drafting table. If a company switches from dealing with mostly manufacturing to mostly paperwork, the inventory shelves and manufacturing stations must be traded in for computer desks and paper-sized drawers. In each of these cases, and many more, furniture based on a single, atomized element would eliminate the need to get rid of anything in any of these dilemmas. Furthermore, this type of system would provide the functionality of the aforementioned putty except without adjustable hardness and with a resolution only as small as the size of the modular element.

There are several factors to consider, most importantly the nature of the connection between the modular elements. Also: the size of the element, the shape thereof, and whether it is worthwhile to have more than one class of elements to facilitate specialized functions must be decided.

An ideal connection would be as strong as the substrate material, would allow 360º of freedom in all three dimensions, would allow multiple connections at any intersection, would be easy and quick to connect and disconnect with no extra pieces, would be simple to integrate into optional peripheral devices, and would be cheap to manufacture. Unfortunately such a perfect connection is impossible. In searching for it, I considered a threaded ball, such as is used by USM, except that I would include a locking hinge so that the elements could be attached at any angle. Such a locking hinge, even if it allowed rotation in only one dimension, would be unacceptably weak and expensive. I also considered steel pins threaded to screw into the atomized element on each side, but this option would require leaving a space between the elements which would not be acceptable for a tabletop or shelving surface. To correct this, I imagined a notch in the modular element where a nut could be screwed on to the end of an inserted screw, a technique used in many user-assembled furniture kits. However this solution would require cutting a notch into every element and fashioning a cover for it which could not then be used as a connection point. To avoid that obstacle, I decided to fashion the connection so that the screws stick out and are easily accessible: they are inserted diagonally in relation to the surface of the elements.

The rest of the factors involved would be most efficient and effective if they mirrored the ultimate precursor to all designs: that of matter itself. However, because of the great technical feats involved in recreating the atom, I decided to focus on something which would be most effective at making tables, chairs, and shelving, but not much else. The general shape of the elements is an easy choice, so obvious that I did cannot imagine another viable method – panels. Furthermore, the elements must tessellate, that is they must fit together with no empty spaces between them. While hexagons, triangles, and rectangles would work, I chose the square because it is familiar and it is a common basis for conventional furniture. The size of the panels would be most effective at as large as possible without being any larger than the smallest feature to be built. While the Planck Length would allow maximum freedom, I was also limited by the necessity of including the connector, for which I set aside a 1 inch cube. The smallest feature I wanted to accommodate bigger than four inches on a side (two connecters per side, plus 1” of substrate each to connect them to) is the seat of a chair, which ranges from a diameter of 10” for a stool to approximately 24” for an easy chair. So I compromised at 18”.

Unless the entire panel is made from metal, the connection points must be reinforced to bear a point load where they are joined with screws. To effect this strengthening I decided to replace the substrate with aluminum only at the connection point, bonding them with a high-strength composite as well as mechanically. The connection point must allow as many connections as possible at one time and must also offer the greatest possible number of different configurations. A connection which can receive only one element and can only attach it in one configuration – like a threaded pipe fitting – will make a line of the elements and nothing else. However, after having ruled out the locking hinges, the connections must have a separate hole for each screw which will connect two panels – including space for the head of the screw and requiring enough material for structural stability leaves room for only 2 holes in any face of the aluminum cube. Out of the 6 ways the corners of two square panels can be juxtaposed so that a screw can run between them, I was only able to allow three: two perpendicular arrangements and one parallel. With two holes in each of the 4 exposed faces of the cube, there are a total of 8 possible connections to any corner, however only 3 of these can be used at once.

With this connection, the panel alone is perfect for making shelves of any type, tables small and large, and for any furniture which requires neither movement nor any angle other than 90 º. To accommodate cabinets, chests, doors, and tilt-tables, a simple hinge element could be inserted at the connection point between two panels. For seating, a variable-angle brace can be fashioned from metal tubing to attach the back to the seat using longer screws to secure it to the aluminum connectors. Cushions with grommets in the corners are easily screwed in using the same screws as with the panels.

After the addition of these three extra elements, an atomized, universal modular furniture has been created. A set of 30 panels, eight tubular braces, and 10 cushions can be used to make a dining table and four chairs, a large sofa with a coffee table, a bed with nightstands, more than a hundred different shelves, racks, and entertainment centers, or any of thousands of other useful devices.

The primary limitations of this system are the weakness of the connectors, the difficulty of effecting the connection, and the unyielding stylistic boredom of square panels. The first two flaws are addressed in an entirely different approach to the problem of tying together square panels: the Box Joint System. The final flaw, however, is a necessary evil in order to make the basic elements as uniform and interchangeable as possible and will be present in any evolution of the system. Any specialized pieces – for example an indented contour for a seat, or a rounded corner for the edge of a table – would have a more limited range of use and would cut down on the amount of functionality by weight, volume, and cost of the entire system. Including such specialized pieces would increase the initial cost of the system and would require a place to store them when they are not being used. Though it may be the only fatal flaw in a world where style is often as important as results, the system’s great flexibility rests entirely on the uniformity of every element.

Synthesis

Furniture is a ubiquitous element in everyone’s life. We depend on it to keep us comfortable and to allow us to work. Technology has transformed the way we make and use furniture as much as almost every aspect of human activities during the past hundred years. From a tradition based on wood, nails, and glue, designers have developed an experimental science of combining the latest advances in materials technology with the natural form of the human body. The reigning theory in the early 20th century was Functionalism: a minimum of ornamentation, a focus on utility, and low costs for the user will lead to good furniture.

This formulation of values was born in the Bauhaus school in Germany and produced such widely accepted and profitable designs that soon the old tendencies toward labor-intensive craftsmanship and ornamentation were being tossed out of windows from Los Angeles to Milan. Great strides were made in using simple materials such as metal tubing and plywood to create strong, light, and cheap furniture – the perfect solution to fill the millions of homes and offices built or rebuilt in the wake of the two world wars. With this huge market for new ideas and new designs, hundreds of styles chairs, tables, and shelves were developed and sold.

The new vision of what furniture could be and do was so attractive and profitable that designers tried to continue the revolution long after it had broken down the old, restrictive structure of furniture making. They continued to try out new materials, experiment with unexpected forms, and attempt greater efficiency. The search for new materials has introduced plastics, foams, and composites as cheaper and easier ways to furnish public spaces, and new ideas about form have led to such popular devices as the bean-bag and the recliner, but the path toward efficiency seems to be productive only to a point. Though the savings produced by using industrial materials and mass-production techniques were sufficient to make Functionalist furniture an instant success, the relatively small increase in efficiency afforded by modular furniture does not compensate for its lack of style and comfort, except in the eyes of margin-cutting corporations. Even when an opulent and attractive finish is achieved, as in USM’s products, it is done at an expense out of the reach of most individual users. The further increases in efficiency produced by Colombo’s living systems and my own invention are tiny in comparison to the advances of the original Functionalist revolution, and will probably be exploited only when large numbers of people begin to live in space, if ever.

Bibliography

Anne Bony, Furniture & Interiors of the 1960s (Paris: Editions Flammarion, 2003)
http://www.designmuseum.org/httpd/design/main_content.php?id=46
Ignazia Favata, Joe Colombo and Italian Design of the Sixties (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988)
Fischer Fine Art Limited, Pioneers of Modern Furniture (London: Fischer Fine Art, 1991)
Phillipe Garner, Twentieth-Century Furniture (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1980.)
James Hennesy and Victor Papanek, Nomadic Furniture* (New York: Pantheon, 1973)
Joe Colombo website
Karl Mang, History of Modern Furniture (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1922)
Sara Pendergast, Contemporary Designers Third Edition (Detroit: St. James Press, 1997)
Leslie Pina, Fifties Furniture (Altglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1996)
Klaus-Jurgen Sembach, Twentieth Century Furniture Design (New York: Taschen, 1991)
Penny Sparke, Furniture (London: Bell & Hyman, 1986)
USM Mobelbausysteme website
Alexander von Vegesack and Mathias Remmele, Verner Panton: The Collected Works (Vitra Design Museum, 2000)
Andrea Zitel website
Daniel Erwin - Modular Furniture 1988) Fischer Fine Art Limited, Pioneers of Modern Furniture (London: Fischer Fine Art, 1991) Phillipe Garner, Twentieth-Century Furniture (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1980.) James Hennesy and Victor Papanek, Nomadic Furniture* (New York: Pantheon, 1973) www.joecolombo.com Karl Mang, History of Modern Furniture (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1922) Sara Pendergast, Contemporary Designers Third Edition (Detroit: St. James Press, 1997) Leslie Pina, Fifties Furniture (Altglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1996) Klaus-Jurgen Sembach, Twentieth Century Furniture Design (New York: Taschen, 1991) Penny Sparke, Furniture (London: Bell & Hyman, 1986) www.usm.com Alexander von Vegesack and Mathias Remmele, Verner Panton: The Collected Works (Vitra Design Museum, 2000) www.zitel.org