Back to the '30s

The best preview of what America will be living with in the near future is Chicago's annual International Home Furnishings show. To it come some 40,000 department-store buyers; there to catch their eyes are all the leading U.S. furniture manufacturers, who last week had filled up ten floors of the Merchandise Mart, decorated 700 sample rooms, and put on display some 8,000 pieces of furniture. Most were familiar. American buying habits have long been traditional and change slowly; Chippendale copies still outsell modern 100 to 1, and buyers with lots of money tend to want the real thing, certified antiques, rather than to sponsor adventurous new designers.

Sausage Arms. But this year, showgoers spotted a new trend: a sweeping return to the 1930s, with its love of overstuffed furniture (one possible source of inspiration: late night replays on TV of the '30s movies) and the bright chrome chairs, tables and settees initiated by such Bauhaus architect-designers as Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe; there was even a revival of the laminated blond wood chairs made popular by Finnish Architect Alvar Aalto in the 1940s. What made the trend significant is that such furniture comes not from the avantgarde, relatively low-volume makers such as Knoll Associates and Herman Miller, but from mass manufacturers.

But if the styles were recognizable, they were of mixed ancestry. The sinuous curves of George Mulhauser's molded plywood chair and matching otto man (Directional Industries, $280) instantly recall Aalto, for example, but the sausage-shaped arms and headrest owe more to Le Corbusier. Hans Eichenberger's tubular framed sofa (Sten-dig, $1,000) is a relatively straightforward, clean-lined exercise in the Miesian idiom. Blond wood was back in Edward Wormley's new line for Dunbar, which features ash in everything from storage carts that open up for dining ($560) to toadstool-shaped tables ($248) and benches ($234).

A Design Called Crazy. Inevitably, many manufacturers have decided to tap the op-pop scene for bright, youthful ideas. Thayer Coggin, for one, showed tables covered in vinyl with polkadot, floral and zebra patterns. Kroehler, the world's largest manufacturer, held seven conferences with what the company calls "nearlyweds" (ages 18 to 22), concluded that they wanted their homes to look as unlike their parents' homes as possible. For them, Kroehler has developed its "In Group" line: sofas and settees covered in shiny vinyl, chairs and chaises longues in velvet and wide-ribbed corduroy patterned with polka dots, scrolls and stripes. One design is simply called Crazy.

That is not to say that all designers necessarily find the idea of kooky furniture appealing. "I have no sympathy for the youth cult," said Edward Wormley to Home Furnishings Daily. "Furniture can be fun, but it still must have dignity and integrity." And for those who agree, there is at least this consolation: emulating Detroit, the big manufacturers have each recently begun bringing out at least one stylistically new line annually. Wait until next year.

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