Five Great Coffee Tables

Time-tested coffee tables are 20th c. furniture icons that work with any living room style

Some believe in decorating “rules.” I believe in designer’s wisdom — according to moi. So here’s my rule #16:  classic 20th century coffee tables are the best and least-limiting choice for living room because these designs  withstand the test of time. Most important, one of these tables will look good with nearly every furniture style. Here are five great coffee tables to consider. Any one could be a lifetime purchase.

One of the most beautiful, and certainly a best buy ($200-400) right now, is Isamu Noguchi’s 1948 table [top]. Among the leading American sculptors of any era, the California-born Noguchi worked on home design concepts during the 1940s. His table has a wooden base that resembles a couple of stylized reclining bodies with a ¾-inch, softly triangular glass top. It stands 15-3/4-inches high, is 50-inches wide and 30-inches in diameter. The Noguchi Museum, devoted entirely to the artist’s work, is located in Long Island City, N.Y.

If, like me, you invested in the granddaddy of all classic coffee tables – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona table from 1929 — you kit the jackpot. I paid about $200 – $300 for my Mies table as one of two key furniture pieces in my first apartment. I still own, use and love it and it’s as much in style today as it was 80 years ago. This photo, which my beloved new Odegard rug, was taken last week.  Manufactured by Knoll, the table sells though Design Within Reach in the $1500 range. Simplicity is the key: the X-shaped base is a single piece of steel with a hand-buffed finish topped by a ¾-inch piece of beveled glass. Betraying its European origin, the table measures 40 x 40-inches (slightly over a meter) and is 18-1/2 inches high. Back in 2001, two New York museums examined Mies van der Rohe’s work both in Germany and New York. Check out the 1930s photo on the website which shows how Mies used the table a room.

Most of us have seen a variation of Eero Saarinen’s endlessly popular 1956 pedestal table. In magazines, the  tall version remains a favorite for dining rooms. The most elegant of the coffee tables includes a marble top (5 marble colors are offered) and cast aluminum base in black, white or platinum. There are also wood veneers and laminate tops. Mix and match.  The architect, whose architect father emigrated from Finland during the 1920s with his family,  is famously quoted as saying he designed this furniture line “to clear up the slum of legs in the U.S. home.”  Not inconsequential, the 15-1/4-inch high table is 41-1/2-inches long and 27-1/2 inches wide and continues to be produced by Knoll.

Handmade, hand-sanded and hand-rubbed with oil to create an amazing surface patina, a  George Nakashima Minguren II coffee table is fine sculpture first, and furniture second.  Pieces made by Nakashima (who died in 1990 – his daughter Mira continues to run the workshop) can cost tens of thousands of dollars at auctions, which is the main point of purchase for vintage examples. Modern pieces continue to be sold. This 1976 English walnut table is typical of the naturalistic aesthetic that exalts natural wood and includes a Nakashima signature rosewood  “key” a piece of butterfly-shaped wood used for joining. Suitable for larger living room spaces, it measures 88-inches by 32-1/2-inches and stands 15-inches high.

The Maison Jansen revival got a huge boost when Hollywood Regency became chic.  This is the furniture of my youth, in L.A., so it’s no surprise I would go for something like the strappy, nickeled steel table base with brass accents, 40 by 20-inches and 17-inches high. Jansen, founded in Paris during the 1880s was a design business with an international clientele and Jansen helped decorate the White House during the Kennedy Administration. While known for 18th and 19th century reproductions, often ebonized and gilded, Jansen also reproduced historical styles such as this Roman-inspired table which had an auction estimate of $1500-2000. The sale price went unrecorded — some smart dealer probably snapped it up for a song. Wish it had been me.

(Sources: Phillips du Pury, Antique Helper, Design Within Reach, Fairfield Auctions)

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