Imagine that you are an architect. Your building is almost completed. Your client is still talking to you. And, it's time to design the interiors. You searched high and low for the perfect pieces; and you had a really hard time finding them. Well, you are not alone. Architects often get to the point where they want to design the furniture too.

The all time great role model for the architect/furniture designer is Alvar Aalto. He began designing furniture in the 20's because he couldn't find anything that he liked for the interiors of his first major building, the Paimio Sanitorium. and didn't quit until he died nearly 50 years later. He began by boiling wood in his kitchen to develop bending techniques and ended up with his own furniture company, Artek because he couldn't get the production quality that he needed. Along the way, he became almost as well known for his furniture designs as his buildings. Many of them are still in production. What better eulogy can that be? In the interim he was instrumental in bringing Finnish (and Scandinavian) design to the attention of the world.

Another great architect/interior designer/furniture designer was Josef Hoffmann. Born in Vienna at the end of the last century, he practiced architecture there until he died in 1956. A major figure on the Viennese architectural scene, his furniture complements his buildings. Some of Hoffmann's furniture was reintroduced by Wittmann about 20 years ago; these are pieces that mostly date from the teens. We are lucky; we managed to snag a few showroom samples.

Part of our mission at REALfurniture is to feature work from architects and furniture designers that are not familiar to a wide audience. We found an architect, Robert L. Bliss. A professor at the University of Utah for many years, a graduate of Black Mountain college, and a former student of Aalto's at MIT, his work is very interesting and thoughtful; we thought it needed a wider audience and selected a group of bent aluminum pieces. We've also added a couple of other bent metal pieces to this collection; several unusual coffee tables.

As architects, we think about materials. We got so inspired about the buzz about the sixties and the new plastic furniture that we put together a small collection that is built around it. Here there are pieces by Alberto Citterio, by Ron Arad, by Phillippe Stark and (we confess that we couldn't resist) the original 60's cantilevered stacking chair by Verner Panton.

We also found some great office furniture. The Bulo H2O line featuring beautifully designed adjustable height workstations, and the Jean Nouvel Less Series for Unifor are both wonderful. For chairs, we modified the Keilhauer Tom Chair designed by Tom Deacon so that you could change (and clean) the seat covers.

Also hard to find are good classic and semi-classic (or soon-to-be-classic) lounge furniture. Mark Kapka designed a series called Jet for Keilhauer which we're featuring in black or red leather.

Part of our mission is to begin to introduce our own line of furniture. Our first item, the Umbrella Stand is a very simple, very elegant stainless steel piece. Our second, the Coat Hooks, are simple bent pieces of stainless steel. Both of these pieces are made for us in Italy.

For fun, we are also showing the 'Chairs you can't sit in' group from Vitra, the scale models of some of the chairs featured in the Vitra Chair Museum. Since they are making a fortune selling the miniatures in every museum store in the country, we don't see why we shouldn't too. And anyway, shipping (by UPS) is considerably less expensive than carting a real chair, and storage is a piece of cake. Of course, we're somewhat selective (not all of them are available here).

Ok, we shouldn't have been given photoshop for our birthday. That plus our scanner (and digital camera) and, we started to create virtual galleries for our collection.

We were blown away by the charming mosaics at the 5th Avenue station on the N/R line. Thanks to Ann Schaumburger for her Urban Oasis design 1997 and to her glass mosaics fabricated by Miotto Mosaics which was our inspiration for this setting.

Our Lunar landing was inspired by Neil Armstrong. Norman Rockwell painted him landing on the moon; we took it from there. When we saw it, it just hit us. What could be more perfect for these chairs.

To show off Hoffmann's work, we found his original rendering for the Villa Gallia (published in the definitive work on Hoffmann by Eduard Sekler) and merely replaced the chairs he drew with the ones he designed for the villa.

But, we're guilty. Yes, it is Shirley Bassey direct from Goldfinger who is reclining on Hoffmann's leather sofa.

We have to thank a pop up book, Maisy's Pop Up Playhouse for the setting for the bent metal furniture.

And, we are grateful to the New York Public Library. When we rummaged the photo collection at the New York Public Library, we found a wonderful photograph of an igloo.

Thanks go to Dr. Seuss for the Cat in the Hat.

When we got a collection of canvas covered tables, we thought immediately of Rene Magritte. We really loved his painting, The Human Condition, done in 1935 and now in the Simon Spierer Collection in Geneva and used it as the inspiration for the setting in which to place it.

The Red Queen comes from Alice in Wonderland where the Queen shouts 'Off With Her Head' to Alice. We thought that the effect would be enhanced if she were perched atop our 'heart shaped' red throne.

Our collection of office furniture is placed in a doctored photograph of Eniac, the first computer. E#niac, the Electronic Numerical-Integrator and Computer was commissioned by the US Army to calculate artillery trajectories and was completed in 1945 at the University of Pennsylvania. The photograph is from the Smithsonian.

And lastly, of course, the sheer exhuberance of Gene Kelly dancing and Singing in the Rain provided the setting and inspiration for the Umbrella Stand, our first REALfurniture product.