15 Herman Miller Projects That Have Changed Our Way of Living

Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, Gilbert Rohde continued to design elegant, of-the-moment pieces that seemed to anticipate consumer's needs. In both his own office in New York City and in the pieces he designed from 1939 to 1941, Rohde began to exhibit an interest in curvilinear, biomorphic form—possibly inspired by the work of Alvar and Aino Aalto in the late 1930s. These undulating pieces by Rohde were show in an installation for the Contemporary American Industrial Art exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and were seen as one of the first biomorphic furniture designs that were manufactured in the United States. (No. 4187 and No. 4186 Paldao Group tables designed by Gilbert Rohde, 1941.)