Philadelphiais no stranger to exquisite handmade furniture: It’s a city full of design galleries and renowned university craft programs. In the colonial period and in the early days of the Republic, Philadelphia craftsmen made some of the finest furniture in the New World. Later, nearby Bucks County was home to the furniture makers Phillip Lloyd Powell, George Nakashima, Wharton Esherick, and Paul Evans. So the city of Brotherly Love is a natural fit for thePhiladelphia Furniture Show, which, for the past 24 years, has showcased the work of top independent designers from across the country.
Last weekend, organizers welcomed visitors to the 23rd Street Armory, where more than 50 exhibitors tempted serious collectors and curious onlookers alike with their eye-catching creations. The show represents a dizzying range of styles, from classic silhouettes drawn from Shaker style to the arts-and-crafts aesthetic of Gustav Stickley and much more. Others are at the bleeding edge of digital design, using CNC routers and stack lamination (a nod to the late, greatWendell Castle,who died earlier this year aged 85) to make futuristic chairs and benches. Some of the standouts, though, do some of each, blending silhouettes from furniture history with the quirks and originality of their own imaginations.
Virginia Blanchardworks out of a studio in Rockland, Maine, where she lives in a ship captain's home that dates from the 1840s. She has an enduring love of the Vienna Secessionist movement and the fin de siècle interiors she describes as “strong and sexy formal environments.” Along with highly polished exotic woods, geometric botanical designs, and delicate inlay, Blanchard’s work seems to channel the spirit of Koloman Moser. Moser (1868–1918) was a key figure in the Vienna Secessionist movement, a cofounder of the Wiener Werkstätte, and one of the pioneers in Austrian Art Nouveau. In his work, human figures and flowers alike were rendered as geometric forms with round heads and foliate detailing snakes around the edges of book covers, fabric patterns, and pieces of furniture. “I think the early-20th-century designers got modernity right,” she says: “Your interior spaces could be fancy without being precious.” At the Philadelphia Furniture Show, Blanchard’s booth seemed to radiate vintage glamour. Its focal point was a padauk and holly-wood vanity, with a slightly off-center mirror and dramatically faceted legs. This piece captures Blanchard’s fondness for Art Deco, with its muscular form, highlighted by a delicate floral edge banding alive with Secessionist-style blooms.