Mid2Mod: Contour

Showing posts with label Contour. Show all posts

Saturday, September 11, 2010

All that glitters is not Towle

A couple of years ago, I was browsing through a Macy's ad, and a set of stainless steel flatware caught my eye. It was a style called Opus by Henckels. What attracted me were the modern lines and the simplicity of the design. I bought a set and love it more now than the first time I saw it.

Recently I was doing some research on John Van Koert, the designer of my Drexel Profile dining room furniture, and I saw a picture of the Contour sterling flatware he designed for Towle in 1951. I was surprised to see how much his design inspired the design of some of the pieces of the Opus flatware. Though not identical, it definitely has the same feel, with its narrow, upturned handle. While the knives are the most dissimilar pieces, the dinner forks, spoons, and meat forks are very much alike. Now I know why it looks like it was made to go with my furniture.

I found a set of Contour flatware on eBay today for $2995, but I don't plan to raid the savings account to buy it. I'll just stick with my Opus for now. However, a Contour set has definitely made it to my "If I Ever Find It Cheap" list.

Contour in sterling silver by John Van Koert for Towle

My Henckels Opus stainless steel flatware

Thursday, September 9, 2010

John Van Koert

Since I featured my Drexel Profile dining furniture in a recent post, I thought I'd devote some time to the designer, John Van Koert. He is not as well-known as some MCM designers, but he played an integral role in establishing the modern aesthetic.

Van Koert (1912-1998) designed silverware and furniture that helped introduce modernist shapes. Born in Manitoba, Canada, he later moved to Milwaukee, where he studied at the University of Wisconsin to be a painter and sculptor and taught design in the art department. After World War II, he settled in New York as a jewelry designer for Harry Winston and later branched out into industrial design.

His flatware designs for Towle were well known in the 50s. One of them, "Contour," as sleek Miro-like design, was chosen to represent modernism in "Knife, Fork and Spoon," a 1951 traveling exhibition on the history of eating implements organized by the Walter Art Center of Minneapolis.

In 1954, he was exhibition director of "Design in Scandinavia," a show that traveled for three years to venues around the country and helped introduce Scandinavian modern design to Americans.

Van Koert's furniture designs for Drexel were presented in model rooms in department stores like Abraham & Straus, Macy's and Bloomingdale's. A 1956 installation of walnut furniture with rounded edges, silver-finished hardware and chartreuse upholstery known as the Profile collection, was shown against purple, silver, and electric-blue walls.

Van Koert was an early advocate of the built-in furniture popular in the 1950s with modernist architects and designers. Predicting a time when people would treat furniture like kitchen cabinetry, he said in an interview in 1958: "We shouldn't have to move our furniture when we more. After all, you can't get sentimentally attached to a $200 chair."

From nytimes.com