Monday, August 18, 2025

Know Your Chairs: The F300 by Pierre Paulin

I have posted about French furniture and interior designer Pierre Paulin and his wonderful creations previously here. Not all of his pieces are still in production but thankfully Danish furniture company GUBI, started in 1967, just reintroduced one of Paulin's iconic designs. So for this installation of Know Your Chairs, let's look at the refreshed F300 chair!


Created by Paulin in 1965 and released by furniture manufacturer Artifort that same year, the first F300s were produced in fiberglass or injected polyurethane, allowing for contoured ergonomic comfort while maintaining a visually light expression. GUBI says they have responsibly upgraded the production of the F300 for the 21st century, which is now crafted in Italy from the engineered polymer HiREK®, made using industrial plastic waste. Retaining the durability of plastic, HiREK is lightweight and resistant to UV, weathering, and pressure. Most importantly, HiREK produces a smooth, high-gloss surface without requiring additional finishing processes, perfectly replicating the performance and aesthetic of the original materials while minimizing waste created during production.

I love how, despite the fact that the chair references a certain, sleek, man-made aesthetic, it still managese to present an alluring organic shape. And I really love how the uphosltery creeps down the legs a bit...


Like so many pieces of furniture from Europe in the mid-sixties through the seventies, many Paulin pieces showed up in sci-fi films and television shows (the Paulin Ribbon chair was a staple on "Space: 1999" and even had a cameo in "Blade Runner 2049") and the F300 is no exception! It appeared in the film "Star Trek III: The Search For Spock" and on several episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation."


You can now have your own Pierre Paulin F300 chair from GUBI or Design Within Reach, available in two colors for the frame and many fabric and leather color options for the upholstery.

Happy designing!

Monday, August 4, 2025

Wallpaper Obsession: Calico Wallpaper

My new wallpaper obsession: Calico Wallpaper, not to be confused with the chain of fabric stores called Calico, is a wallpaper manufacturer started by Rachel and Nick Cope in New York. Their designs are marvelous. And I really love their collaboration with English lighting and furniture designer Lee Broom who created a dramatic, swagged, draped image. Just gorgeous...


This is a pattern called Eden, shown in Ginger, Hyacinth, and Mulberry colorways (additional colorways available).


Atmosphere feels like clouds and fog...here it is in Dusk, Lustre, and Moonlight.


This delightful pattern of artisan-drawn faces is Muse. Available in many colorways but shown here in Ada, Coco, and Simone.


Souvenirs and objects from around the world are the focus of Particulaire. Colors; Bazaar, Memento, and Origin (others available).


I love the sweet Impressionist landscape in pastel crayon of Memoir. The colorways Canopy, Expanse, and Wind really shift the feeling...


Happy designing!

Monday, July 21, 2025

Know Your Sofas: The Soriana Sofa

In November of 1969, Cesare Cassina, the founder of the Italian furniture brand Cassina contacted the husband and wife team of architects and designers Tobia and Afra Scarpa with an urgent request. He asked if they could design a new type of sofa, something unique that had not been seen before, to enter into competition at an important trade show in Germany in January. With only a little over a month, they came up with the remarkable Soriana sofa (which also comes with coordinating chairs!).


Taking advantage of new techniques in forming expanding polyurethane foam, they envisioned a sofa with no internal structure. Instead, it took its form from tines of discreet metal bracing curving up from the base. This allowed the upholstery to wrap around the shape of the sofa. Tobia recounted, "At the beginning, the workers did not understand that the leather covering was not supposed to be taut . . . but to appear like a soft, creased fabric curled around this soft mass and held together by a sort of giant metal spring." Well, the look of the Soriana was beguiling enough for it to win the prestigious Compasso d’Oro award at the trade show!

The silhouette of this sofa is still beguiling designers and homeowners alike even today. Designer Rodman Primack put a Soriana suite in his Mexico City home he shares with his husband Rudy Weissenberg.

Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson

Kelly Wearstler put one (with chairs!) in her Malibu home...


And Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent have one in their Los Angeles residence.

Photo: Douglas Friedman

The sofa (and chairs!) are still in production and can be purchased from Cassina.


Happy designing!

Monday, July 7, 2025

Tile AND Wood: Why Not Both?

If you can't make up your mind between a tile you love and the warmth of wood, why not opt for both?

by Jeff Schlarb

by Kingston Lafferty Design

by Benjamin Wood


If you'd like to explore some creative designs for your own floors, give me a call!
Happy designing!

Monday, June 23, 2025

History of Furniture: Regency

Welcome to another installment of the History of Furniture! We are getting into the way-back machine to visit a period that sits between the British eras of Georgian (Regency technically happened during this period) and Victorian.

King George III of England and Ireland reigned from 1760 to his death in 1820. Fans of "Hamilton" will recognize him as the petulant King, and the Georgian period is named for him and his reign. However, he suffered from ill health as well as later mental illness (seen in the film "The Madness of King George" starring Nigel Hawthorne as King George and Helen Mirren as Queen Charlotte). Scholars and historians now postulate, based on contemporaneous descriptions of his symptoms, that he had porphyria and most likely suffered from acute bipolar disorder.

Here I am with a wax bust of George III taken from an original modelled from life by Madame Tussaud in 1809, on view at Kew Palace in London. It must look exactly like him...


However, in 1810 George III became too ill to function, and in 1811 his son, George the Prince of Wales was appointed Prince Regent to rule in his stead, hence the Regency period began. When his father died in 1820, he became King and ascended the throne as George IV. But his reign was controversial: he was, by accounts, selfish, irresponsible, gluttonous, and supremely wasteful of money and resources. However it must be said that much of what was spent went to creating some enduring structures which have come to symbolize England itself. He tasked John Nash with renovating Buckingham Palace and designing the spectacular Royal Pavilion in Brighton, while also commissioning Jeffry Wyatville to reconstruct Windsor Castle. You can see that, strictly speaking, the Regency era spanned 1811 to 1820 when George became King but speaking stylistically, Regency can be considered to cover a bit of time before (1795) and after his regency, into his reign proper, and even into the reign of his successor to the throne, his younger brother William IV. It wasn't until 1837 when Victoria becomes queen that we get a new title for an era.

When considering Regency interiors, it is good to keep in mind that the preceding architecture was neo-classical in nature with the elegant lines, columns, and symmetry of ancient Greece and Rome. This informed the style and silhouettes of interiors and furniture. Regency pieces are marked by straight lines, clean edges, and design elements of acanthus leaves, rosettes, laurel wreaths, busts of caryatids, U-shaped lyres, and with discoveries in Egypt at the time (as well as Napoléon's campaign in that country), sphinx imagery, animal heads, legs ending in animal feet carvings, and general Egyptian shapes and designs. Chairs often featured gently curved sabre legs or X-legs. Woods tended to be dark like mahogany or exotic like rosewood and zebrawood, and pieces were generally painted. And convex mirrors, often topped with flowers and eagles were very popluar.



One of the biggest names in Regency interiors is designer, traveler, author, philosopher, and art collector Thomas Hope. He traveled extensively and his home on Duchess Street in London featured an Egyptian Room complete with furnishings inspired by the kind of authentic designs he encountered in Egypt. This space was very influential in the development of the Regency style.

“The Egyptian Room,” Plate 8, from the book "Household Furniture & Interior Decoration"
written by Thomas Hope, London, 1807
Egyptian chairs designed by Thomas Hope for his Egyptian Room
Collection of the Powerhouse Collection, New South Wales, Australia

Happy designing!