Milo Baughman: The Cary Grant of Furniture Design
If you’re looking to inject a bit of Hollywood-style glamour into your home, you might want to add a piece or two by Milo Baughman, the hugely popular American designer whose affordable creations dominated the department store market from the early 1940s through the mid-’60s. Baughman’s designs are still being produced by North Carolina furniture company Thayer Coggin. In fact, it was the late Mr. Coggin who discovered Baughman and — through a handshake deal — cemented a 50-year relationship with the designer.
Baughman’s sensuous and streamlined creations are now considered classics. He maximized drama by using dazzling combinations of glass, sumptuous burled wood, chrome, snazzy contemporary textiles and glossy white lacquer. He once said, “I’m much more interested in the atmosphere of a space than in design as such. I used to go to Astaire and Rogers films twice — once to admire their incomparable dancing, the second time to admire the sets, which were so unashamedly moderne.”
Inducted into the Furniture Hall of Fame in 1987, Baughman is remembered as having achieved, in the words of his manufacturer, “a look that is uncompromisingly modern, but which never violates the timeless standards of classic good taste.” Call him the Cary Grant of furniture design.
Milo Baughman’s Design Classic 825 Sectional reflects his affinity for a relaxed style that fosters an aura of gregariousness and warmth. In a 1971 lecture at Oregon State University, Baughman asserted, “The structured environment must offer significant social and emotional benefits; it cannot simply look good. In discussing the importance of environment, we are discussing primarily the quality and importance of human life.”
The classic triangular Noguchi coffee table is a natural fit with the Design Classic 825 Sectional, shown here from the front. Baughman believed design should bolster family life and “allow for reinforcement of expressions of affection.”
This elegant, streamlined Baughman room setting — with its rich, sophisticated colors and welcoming sensibility — looks like it could be a set design for the silver screen. Baughman was a devotee of Viennese émigré Paul Frankl, a designer to the stars whose celebrity clientele included Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire and Alfred Hitchcock.
Milo Baughman Chaise - $5,500 Baughman’s elegant cream velvet upholstered Waive chaise, with its mirror-polished chrome base, epitomizes his design aesthetic of “bold but controlled proportions, sophistication and simplicity, daring and restraint.”
Two vintage Milo Baughman chrome-base swivel chairs, circa 1970, fit seamlessly into the 21st-century Metamorphosis Lounge at the San Francisco Exploratorium. The concept of the space is that everything in it should express mutability, which would certainly apply to chairs that can smoothly rotate 360 degrees, revealing ever-changing views.
Milo Baughman Chrome Rocking Chair A bit of humor never went amiss in Baughman’s designs. This chrome rocking chair and its matching ottoman, which extends the undulating line of the seat, would make a fun and attractive addition to a family room, bedroom or study.
Here’s the chrome rocking chair in gray.
With their soft, gently curving seats supported by solid, rectilinear chrome frames, these vintage dining room chairs are classic Baughman.
Highly polished burled wood was another favorite material of Baughman’s; he used it in desks, vanities and credenzas. This table was found in a San Diego consignment store.
Baughman’s white lacquer John Stuart desk has X-shaped chrome legs similar to those of the vanity in the previous picture. This item was found at Neven Moderne antiques shop in Hudson, New York.
Thayer Coggin, the esteemed furniture company for which Baughman designed for half a century, recently reintroduced his sideboard/buffet (under the mirror here), made of burled olive ash with a stainless steel base.
Design Classic Buffet by Milo Baughman This close-up of a similar Baughman credenza, circa 1960, reveals the swirling, almost psychedelic patterns in its burled wood.
Who wouldn’t want to sink, martini in hand, into one of these vintage barrel-back club chairs? The graciously curving frames are made of chrome-plated steel, a popular 1930s material used in many art deco designs. And don’t they look swell upholstered in Pantone’s 2014 Color of the Year, Radiant Orchid?
This set of four loopy bar stools references a bit of the art deco sensibility that influenced Baughman during his early days as a designer in Los Angeles. (This was known as his Hollywood Regency period.) The upholstery is a cream textured weave, and the frames are made of tubular brass.
Vintage Milo Baughman Shelving Unit, Chrome by Modern Logic - $995 This chrome shelf unit (which I can easily envision in Hercule Poirot’s parlor) would be the perfect storage solution for my growing collection of design books, which come in a wide variety of heights and widths. I love the idea of housing books about art in a work of art.
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