The story of this furniture is as important as the
transformation it goes through. We believe it is important to preserve it because of its social and industrial history, not to mention its design roots. And also because of the memories it evokes and can continue to create on porches and patios everywhere. Whether you have memories of this furniture or not, your experience with it will be transformative. It will invite you to sit awhile, to enjoy its gentle movement, to engage with the people you love in a meaningful way. It will encourage you to slow down and live a little.
Steel indoor and outdoor furniture has been popular in this country since the 20’s. Around 1925, Marcel Breuer, the Bauhaus furniture designer and architect, began working with tubular steel, having been impressed with the light weight and strength of the handlebars of a bicycle. The resulting furniture designs by Breuer and others using this material are some of the most important of the period.
Structurally, the cantilevered tubular steel furniture we sell on Mulberry Street is directly inspired by their innovative work. But production of all outdoor furniture came to a sudden halt when the United States entered World War II and factories began churning out products supporting the war effort.
After the war ended, those same factories necessarily switched to making products for peacetime pursuits – from swords to plowshares. Arvin Industries, for example, began production of metal lawn furniture and dinette sets in 1940 and stopped it by the end of 1941 when the US entered the war. The company began making bombs, radio communications equipment and parts for military vehicles among other things.
With the war over and a new consumer society developing, Arvin began producing
products for the home such as electric irons and ironing boards, waffle makers, radios and, by 1949, its first television set. It also began once again to manufacture outdoor steel furniture. By the 1950’s, in addition to tubular steel, furniture was produced using aluminum, wire mesh and legs made of thin steel rods that give mid-century furniture its distinctive splayed leg, light-on-its-feet look.
