Italian Marble Flooring

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”

Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.

Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — crafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.

Carefully chosen antique, new and vintage flooring, while not usually considered a focal point, can play a huge role in designing how a space should look and feel.

Archaeologists have identified glazed brick tiles and polished stones on historic floors and other surfaces around the world. Some of the earliest known glazed bricks date to a 12th-century B.C. facade in Susa, in today’s Iran.

Whether you choose wide planks to contrast with your modern appliances in your farmhouse-style space or understated oak for a clean contemporary look, humble wood can play a starring role when it comes to flooring. Alternately, vintage tiles can be the “it” factor in your kitchen, bathroom, patio or bedroom. Gapless mosaics forming tessellations or complicated geometric patterns can provide a bold statement, and one doesn’t have to be polymath designer Gio Ponti, for example, to create dramatic floors with these tiles. (Ponti ​​was arguably the most important figure in 20th-century Italian architecture and design, and diagonally patterned floors, meant to make rooms more dynamic, were a signature of his.)

Modern 21st-century flooring and new and made-to-order flooring come in many styles. However, choosing antique or vintage flooring or a unique pattern from innovative designers like Aimee Wilder can add an extra layer of charm and sophistication to an interior or other space.

On 1stDibs, find flooring to match a range of styles and tastes.