From a Grecian Urn

For almost a quarter of a century, Designer T. H. (for Terence Harold) Robsjohn-Gibbings successfully designed stark, austere contemporary furniture for a number of top U.S. manufacturers. A decorator, architect, author (GoodBye, Mr. Chippendale), and longtime admirer of the durability of classic Greek forms, Gibbings grew increasingly disenchanted with the coldness and built-in "artificial obsolescence" of most modern furniture. Poking through museums and private art collections all over the U.S. and Europe, he cribbed ideas from the drawings on ancient Greek pottery and bas-reliefs. This week in Athens, a new line of classically inspired furniture based on Gibbings' research into the Greece of 25 centuries ago went on display in the form of klismoi (chairs), difroi (stools), and trapezia (tables).

Gibbings' new pieces have their models' clean, simple lines and gracefully swooping curves, which can be fitted easily into the modern split-level, while at the same time suggesting the ageless charm of antiquity. In the Gibbings collection is a leather-topped folding stool with four sturdy horse legs, which was copied from a mid-6th century earthen plaque in the West Berlin State Museum. Other straight-legged stools are borrowed from a frieze in the Parthenon. Copied line for line and curve for curve from the stele of Hegesco, built in 400 B.C., is a large chair with curved back and legs. Gibbings' couches reflect the economy of the classical Greeks, who used them for sitting, sleeping or eating. Modern users, if they like, can follow the Greek custom of dining from a small side table while reclining on the couch and then shoving the table under the couch to make room for the dancing girls.

Produced in Greek walnut, bronze and leather, Gibbings' collection of 19 pieces, almost totally handcrafted, costs a Pyrrhic $10,000, but Gibbings hopes to mass-produce a complete line in Greece for the more modest buyer. "People are now ready to accept the classical environment in their homes," says Gibbings. "We need to return to the ancient Greek practice of perfecting existing things and not trying to forget them by producing shinier new ones."

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