Eat like a postmodern Roman Senator! This heavy, imposing flatware from a prior QBO estate was made in Japan for Reed & Barton. The stainless handles end in classical column capitals – Corinthian (palm fronds), and also Doric (graduated stacked discs), and Ionic (scrolls) which the Romans copied from the Greeks, whom they paradoxically both admired and conquered.
The architectural flatware was produced in the 1980s. It’s often only listed as designed by American architect Robert Venturi, but several accomplished women need to be credited too. Along with the flatware there was also a matching carving set, a tea set and other serving pieces. They were part of a series of high-end postmodern table products – serving ware, utensils, ceramics and glassware all designed by famous working architects who had been recruited by Swid Powell. Among Swid Powell’s atelier of 45 lauded architect/designers: Michael Graves, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Stephen Holl, Richard Meier, Denise Scott Brown, Gwathmey Siegle, Ettore Sottsass, Robert A. M. Stern and Stanley Tigerman; quite a lineup!
Robert Venturi was an influential architect and author with a witty postmodern style. His firm, founded in 1960, underwent multiple name changes as partner architects came and went, but solidified to ‘Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates’ acknowledging his final partner, award-winning architect and author Denise Scott Brown. They met teaching at the University of Pennsylvania and married in 1967. Their firm completed many notable projects including the Philadelphia Orchestra concert hall, and in 1991 Venturi was awarded (individually) the Pritzker Prize in Architecture. He objected to the exclusion of his professional partner but the awards jury refused to include her. A coalition of women architects then petitioned for Scott Brown’s name to be retroactively added to the award, but to no avail. So, it’s worth noting that while some online sellers list this flatware as designed by Venturi, others list it as Venturi/Scott Brown and the makers mark on the back says Venturi Scott Brown, Swid Powell. Of course Venturi also did notable things on his own, authoring a must-read book for students of architecture, “Complexities and Contradictions in Architecture”. First published in 1966, it is still in print. Venturi died in 2018, but Scott Brown is still living, so, still time to make that award right, yes?
Sometimes erroneously cited as a single person, Swid Powell was also a partnership – a design firm founded in 1982 by two friends and former employees of New York modernist furniture company Knoll Intl., Nan Swid and Addie Powell. Powell was the business acumen of the collaboration, starting as sales rep at Knolls to become Divisional Vice President of Sales for the Northeast and attending the Harvard Program for Management Development. She passed away in 2019. Nan Swid was the firm’s resident designer and main recruiter. A professional artist for decades, she’s had many shows and is sold in galleries from New York to Miami. ‘Architectural tabletop objects’ was her idea. Today she is retired; her last show was in 2013. Swid Powell closed in 1991 but interest in its groundbreaking work was renewed by a 2007 retrospective at the Yale University Art Gallery: ‘The Architect’s Table: Swid Powell and Postmodern Design’. Today Swid Powell’s original drawings, silver, ceramics, glass, promotional materials and rare unrealized prototypes are archived at Yale. (And for historical accuracy we must also mention that although spoons and knives were used by cooks during the Roman Empire, back then everyone ate with their fingers and never even laid eyes on a dinner fork because they hadn’t been invented yet, so these opulent ‘Roman’ implements are just a postmodern fancy.) Ciao!
Tuesday Treasures was started by our staff member, Jeanne Lusignan. Each week she will be featuring items that have been found at our estate sales. If you would like to submit a treasure for Jeanne to feature in a future installment of “Tuesday’s Treasures”, please follow the button below and send us an email! Please attach a few photos of your treasure in a beautiful setting as well as any details you have about your item such as manufacturer, use, age, region of origin. If you don’t know about the piece, that’s okay! We still might be able to research it for you! Don’t forget to tell us what makes this item such a treasure to you!