Brazilian Brutalist

At 1stDibs, there are many versions of the ideal Brazilian brutalist for your home. A Brazilian brutalist — often made from metal, wood and brass — can elevate any home. There are 49 variations of the antique or vintage Brazilian brutalist you’re looking for, while we also have 53 modern editions of this piece to choose from as well. Your living room may not be complete without a Brazilian brutalist — find older editions for sale from the 20th Century and newer versions made as recently as the 21st Century. A Brazilian brutalist, designed in the Mid-Century Modern style, is generally a popular piece of furniture. A well-made Brazilian brutalist has long been a part of the offerings for many furniture designers and manufacturers, but those produced by Estúdio Orth, Percival Lafer and Giampiero Volpe Prignano (YURI) are consistently popular.

The average selling price for a Brazilian brutalist at 1stDibs is $2,400, while they’re typically $153 on the low end and $20,000 for the highest priced.

More often than not, vintage mid-century Brazilian furniture designs, with their gleaming wood, soft leathers and inviting shapes, share a sensuous, unique quality that distinguishes them from the more rectilinear output of American and Scandinavian makers of the same era.

Commencing in the 1940s and '50s, a group of architects and designers transformed the local cultural landscape in Brazil, merging the modernist vernacular popular in Europe and the United States with the South American country's traditional techniques and indigenous materials.

Key mid-century influencers on Brazilian furniture design include natives Oscar Niemeyer, Sergio Rodrigues and José Zanine Caldas as well as such European immigrants as Joaquim Tenreiro, Jean Gillon and Jorge Zalszupin. These creators frequently collaborated; for instance, Niemeyer, an internationally acclaimed architect, commissioned many of them to furnish his residential and institutional buildings.

The popularity of Brazilian modern furniture has made household names of these designers and other greats. Their particular brand of modernism is characterized by an émigré point of view (some were Lithuanian, German, Polish, Ukrainian, Portuguese, and Italian), a preference for highly figured indigenous Brazilian woods, a reverence for nature as an inspiration and an atelier or small-production mentality.

Hallmarks of Brazilian mid-century design include smooth, sculptural forms and the use of native woods like rosewood, jacaranda and pequi. The work of designers today exhibits many of the same qualities, though with a marked interest in exploring new materials (witness the Campana Brothers' stuffed-animal chairs) and an emphasis on looking inward rather than to other countries for inspiration.

Find a collection of vintage Brazilian furniture on 1stDibs that includes chairs, sofas, tables and more.