Designed by Architects

Furniture, lighting and other objects designed by architects have an undeniable appeal. Their work displays an almost architectural precision, a formal understanding of materiality and an attention to detail that comes from years of creating spatial compositions. Given all this, it says a lot about the enduring overlap between architecture and design that these transcendent objects can still fascinate us without the building they were created to harmonize with.

This idea of architects as furniture designers is very much of the early 20th century. Modernist masters such as Le Corbusier, as evi...