Heritage Henredon Sofa by Frank Lloyd Wright

Without question the greatest architect the United States has ever produced, Frank Lloyd Wright and his philosophy of “organic architecture” — of buildings that exist in harmony with their natural surroundings — had a profound influence on the shape of modern life. Wright gave us some of the most elegant and iconic buildings in America: residences such as Fallingwater, in rural Pennsylvania, the Robie House in Chicago, and Taliesin, Wright’s own home; and masterful institutional structures that include the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, the Johnson Wax headquarters in Racine, Wisconsin, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Whenever possible, Wright designed the furniture for his projects, to ensure an affinity between a building’s exterior and interior.

Wright’s wooden chairs and tables for his “Prairie Houses” of the early 1900s have sleek, attenuated forms, influenced by both the simplicity of traditional Japanese design and the work of Gustav Stickley and other designers of the Arts and Crafts movement. For Taliesin and several residential projects, Wright designed severely geometric chairs that are marvels of reductivist design. He revisited many of these forms in the 1950s in furniture licensed to the firm Henredon, adding a decorative frieze-like element to the edges of tables and stools.

The works on 1stDibs also show how happily Wright embraced new forms and materials. His desks and chairs for Johnson Wax have a streamlined look and use tubular steel to the same effect as designer Warren McArthur, who collaborated with Wright in the interiors of the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. For the Price Tower (1956) in Oklahoma, Wright designed angular wooden desks as well as upholstered pedestal chairs made of chromed steel — audacious furniture for his tallest completed building project.

The beauty of Frank Lloyd Wright’s furniture designs is that while many of us wish we could live in one of his houses, his vintage sofas, storage cabinets and armchairs connect us directly to his architecture, and to the history he made.

Founded in 1945, Henredon is one of the more recently minted of the top-tier North Carolina furniture makers. Among collectors, Henredon is admired both for its sleek, sexy furniture of the 1970s and for its partnerships with noted designers, a program that started in the 1950s with decorating icon Dorothy Draper and architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

From the start, Henredon — the brand name is a portmanteau term, derived from the first names or initials of three of the company’s founders — has been best known for its vintage case pieces, such as cabinets, dressers, armoires and credenzas. Though not on the cutting edge stylistically, the company’s production has always kept pace with contemporary tastes. In 1953, Henredon began a collaboration with Dorothy Draper, famed for bravura interior design commissions such as the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco and the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia. Her taste for bold, modernized historical style is reflected in the incised baroque medallions of her España line and the geometric motif of her Viennese furnishings group.

In 1955, Henredon launched the Taliesin Ensemble by Wright, named after the architect’s houses in Wisconsin and Arizona. The pieces are recognizable by their angular shapes a dentil motif on their edges. In those years, Henredon had a cross-licensing agreement with the Heritage furniture company, and Draper and Wright furniture is usually labeled Heritage-Henredon.

In later decades, Henredon produced collections for such designers as Ralph Lauren and Laura Ashley. The company took a stylish turn in the 1970s, fabricating new and unusual forms like mirrored room dividers and console tables with rounded corners and burl-wood veneers. Such pieces are priced in the $3,000 to $4,000 range, as are chests of drawers by Draper. Wright furniture tends toward the higher end, priced around $7,000. As you will see on 1stDibs, Henredon was an aesthetically diverse maker, but its furniture commands attention and makes a statement in any eclectic decor.