See more objects with the tag skyscraper, stepped, apartment-living, Paul Frankl.

Object Timeline

	We acquired this object.
0	Work on this object ended.
1928	Work on this object began.
2017	We photographed this object. We exhibited this object.
2024	You found it!

Skyscraper Bookcase Desk

This is a Skyscraper Bookcase Desk. It was designed by Paul T. Frankl.

This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It was able to spend time at the museum on loan from Grand Rapids Art Museum as part of The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s.

It is dated ca. 1928. Its medium is california redwood and black laquer.

Austrian émigré Paul Frankl designed one of the most successful lines of furniture referencing the skyscraper, a uniquely American form of building. His “Skyscraper” line, introduced about 1926, consisted of stacked cubes representing the layered platforms and stepped-back profiles of buildings as seen from the street.

It is credited Lent by Grand Rapids Art Museum, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. John Halick, 1984.7.2.

Analogue clock. Base is black, resembling a bracket facing upward, holding the rectangular shape of the clock's body. The sides and top are metal, as are the hands of the clock. The numbers are black and surrounded by a red border, whose shape resemebles grooves or gears of a watch. From the edges of the clock to the red border are shapes resembling triangles whose tips get cut off by the red circle. The shapes go around the red borer and alternate between grey and tan. Separating each of these shapes is a small, black rectangle placed along the adjacent edges of two shapes.

M-1, Type B2 Clock, ca. 1928
chromium-plated and enameled metal, molded bakelite, brushed-burnished silver.
Gift of George R. Kravis II.
2015-41-1

Dramatic, dark red leather chair with brass and aluminum accents. The chair has a curved back, similar to a barrel style chair, but with open, decorative, swirled brass arms. The cushioned seat is flat, with a rounded back, and is supported on a brass-ringed platform with round accents underneath each arm. The legs of the chair are covered on three sides with a smooth aluminum curtain, which is red on the inside and appears white on the outside. The chair's diagonal positioning highlights the cut-outs along the bottom of each side of the aluminum curtain, with stepped contours recalling skyscrapers. Angled, square footings accent the bottom of each leg.

Chair, 1928
aluminum, brass, leather.
Private Collection.
79.2016.1

Chair, Skyscraper
painted pine.
Collection of Jody and Dick Goisman.
44.2016.1

Its dimensions are

L x W x D: 219.7 × 163.8 × 85.1 cm (86 1/2 in. × 64 1/2 in. × 33 1/2 in.)

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s.

Short URL http://cprhw.tt/o/2oaHat/
Accession Number 55.2016.1
Object ID 907214161