The revised edition of Phaidon’s 1000 Design Classics includes a number
expected nods to now ubiquitous creations. There’s the all-aluminum Airstream trailer, which followed an unconventional route to become an American icon, the asymmetrical coffee table by Isamu Noguchi, a breakout design for the acclaimed sculptor that almost never came to fruition, and Charles and Ray Eames’s Lounge Chair Wood (LCW), which Time magazine once voted the best design of the 20th century, calling it “elegant, light and comfortable. Much copied but never bettered.”

The book, a glossy follow-up to the publisher’s three-volume Phaidon Design Classics, also highlights a number of equally recognizable objects whose origins are somewhat ambiguous. Here are a few objects dating back to the 17th century with anonymous creators, excerpted from 1000 Design Classics by the Phaidon Editors.

Scissors

Scissors have most probably existed since the 14th century BC in the form of shears and since the first century AD as scissors so, unsurprisingly, variations in scissor design are nearly endless. From the points to the sharpness, thickness, curvature, length, and width of the blades, to the shanks—straight, cranked or offset—and the bows, there are scissors for every possible function. The most common are household scissors, known as the sharp blunt, which refers to the form of the points. When closed, the blunt part protects the sharp part, making them safer. Bright steel or nickel-plate finishes are used; they are usually hot-drop-forged, machine-grounded and finished by hand.

Industrial production of scissors began when steel was invented in mid-18th century England. Sheffield had been an important center for the cutlery trade since the 13th century, helped by the area’s natural resources, including waterpower from the rivers in a pre-steam era, extensive woodland, and limestone resources. Cutlery and scissor production increased after Henry Bessemer invented his eponymous converter in 1856, a large crucible that could convert 30 tons of steel in half an hour. Today, Sheffield remains one of the best-known manufacturing centers, where companies such as William Whiteley & Sons have become renowned producers.

Clip Top Jar

These jars have quietly become a fixture in the domestic landscape, rising from the ranks of anonymous canning and preserving jars to become something like the equivalent of the Chair No.14 by Thonet, now a universal standard. Early examples have been made since at least the beginning of the 19th century, and used for the storage of conserves, fruits, terrines, and foie gras. Modern French-made Le Parfait versions are constructed in pressed glass to form a perfect seal. The jars are available in a variety of sizes, and each has a glass lid that flips closed using a wire bail and is sealed by the distinctive orange rubber gasket. When the jar is heated a vacuum forms inside, making the seal airtight. The flat lid is designed for easy stacking, and the wide mouth for easy filling. Indeed, clip top jars have been repeatedly patented, imitated, and distributed, but none quite equals the distinctive orange-sealed Le Parfait options found in countless kitchens.

Folding Director’s Chair

Oddly for a piece of furniture that is widely regarded as being utilitarian, the folding director’s chair has an illustrious history and has traditionally been a status symbol. The chair is believed to have been developed by the Egyptians between 2,000 and 1,500 BC for the commanding officers of its army, and the basic design had barely changed by the early 20th century, when it gained its iconic status as the seat for movie directors in America’s growing film industry. Between its ancient antecedents and its present-day incarnation, the church adopted the folding chair. The decorative Savonarola, named after the former ruler of the Florentine Republic responsible for instigating the Bonfire of the Vanities in the late 15th century, was used by traveling bishops before the Renaissance.

Made from wood, with a canvas seat and back, the classic director’s chair frame is shaped like the letter X, with pivots below the seat at the front and back that allow it to be folded away like a concertina. In 1928, Marcel Breuer produced his version, while the likes of Erik Magnussen, Enzo Mari, and Philippe Starck have also created their own interpretations—however, it is a product that is associated more with a particular era and industry rather than with any specific designer.

Martini Glass

Made from clear, colorless glass, the geometrically inspired shape of the Martini glass is a drinking vessel as iconic as the cocktail it was designed to celebrate. The decisive outline of the glass, comprising a straight-flared, V-shaped cup supported by a tall stem and an elegantly proportioned base, is now the kingpin of cocktail motifs. The precise origins of the Martini glass remain difficult to establish, yet it is known to have originated during the mid-1920s, born from the changing currents influencing both high-class entertaining and the glassware designed to maintain it. Around this time, tastes in cocktails were moving away from the extravagances of the early 1920s toward a refined simplicity exemplified by Martinis and Manhattans. As these cocktails reflected the shift in taste, decorative glassware gave way to a streamlined modernism. These new glasses were decidedly avant-garde and, specifically, the Martini glass was a geometrically refined variation on the saucer-shaped champagne glass, which had replaced the flute at the turn of the century. The Martini glass remains cemented as an icon of 1920s glassware: accessible, instantly recognizable and endlessly revisited by illustrators, artists, filmmakers, and the like.

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Top image courtesy of Phaidon.

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