Mid century modern is the design language that ran from roughly the late 1940s to the early 1970s: clean lines, honest materials, and furniture built to be used rather than admired. Assembly holds around a hundred pieces from that period in our Al Quoz showroom in Dubai, nearly all of it Italian, and nearly all of it bought in person in Europe.
What the term actually covers
Mid century modern is used loosely, often to mean any furniture with tapered legs. Used properly it describes a specific movement with specific roots: the Bauhaus work of the 1920s and 1930s carried into post war production, where new materials and new manufacturing made it possible to build those ideas at scale for the first time.
That is why a 1960s tubular steel chair is mid century even though the design is from 1925. The design is Bauhaus. The object in front of you is mid century, because that is when it was made.
The Bauhaus line
The single largest group in our collection descends directly from the Bauhaus. Marcel Breuer's Wassily and Cesca chairs, Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona pieces, and Le Corbusier's LC series are the designs, and the Italian manufacturers Gavina, Cassina and Knoll are who actually made the pieces we hold.
Which manufacturer made a piece matters more than most buyers realise. Gavina produced Breuer's work in Italy from 1962 and was later absorbed by Knoll, so a Gavina stamped Wassily sits in a different part of the market from a later licensed one. See Seating.
Italian mid century lighting
Italy is where mid century lighting was invented twice over: once in the industrial design studios of Milan, and once in the glass furnaces of Murano.
From Milan we hold pieces by Flos, Artemide and Stilnovo, the companies that turned lighting into a design discipline rather than a fitting. See Vintage Lighting.
From Murano we hold around 92 pieces, mostly 1960s and 1970s, with Mazzega and Vistosi among the makers. Murano in this period is mid century in date and something else entirely in method: every piece hand blown, on an island, using techniques that had not changed in centuries. See Murano Lighting.
Scandinavian pieces
A smaller group, but it includes some of the best documented work in the showroom: the Poul Kjaerholm PK11 armchair of 1957 made by E. Kold Christensen, an Arne Jacobsen Egg, a Verner Panton Wire Cone, and Danish and Swedish seating in teak. See Scandinavian design.
What to look at when buying
The frame before the fabric
Upholstery can be redone. A bent or badly repaired frame cannot, not invisibly. Look at the welds on tubular steel, and at how the chrome has aged. Small spotting is normal after sixty years. Flaking or bubbling means it has been rechromed, badly.
Original leather is worth keeping
Leather that has darkened and creased where someone sat is evidence of age and is generally worth more than a recent reupholstery in the wrong hide. We would rather sell a chair with honest wear than one made to look new.
Ask who made it
If the answer is only a designer's name and not a manufacturer, the piece may still be good, but it is not documented. Where we know the maker we say so, and where we do not we leave it blank rather than guess.
What we hold now
Around 119 pieces of seating, 92 pieces of Murano lighting, 37 other vintage lamps, and a smaller group of tables and objects. The collection turns over constantly, because we buy in batches of four to eight pieces at a time rather than from a catalogue.
Start with Seating or Murano Lighting, or read what makes a piece collectible. Everything is in Al Quoz and can be seen before you buy, see vintage furniture in Dubai.
