Top Convertibles

I've said before that I am kind of steering away from stark Modernism in recent years. But I do think it still has its place at times. Here and there I do find people doing great work in this vein, one of them is Germany's Kati Meyer-Brühl. First, here's "Sunrise":

Click images for larger.

It's a bit hard-edged for my taste, personally, but surrounded by different kinds of pieces, it could work very nicely. Shown in some much brighter colors, it was a bit too much for me, but I really like it in the beige shown here. I think upholstery is very important with these kinds of pieces, which I've explained elsewhere.

"Lucky" is a very interesting line of seating, as well, pleasingly simple but with interesting textural qualities:

She's clothed this frame with a number of different upholstery treatments:

If you click that last one, you can see it's adorned with large upholstered flowers. I really love this idea in theory. Unfortunately, in execution, I think it becomes too overly feminine for all but somewhat limited situations. If done in a dark brown library red leather or paired with, say, a really thick, heavy, dark wooden coffee table, I definitely think it could work. But I think it'd have to be used carefully.

I think my favorite piece is "Mosspink," modern and sparse but playful and interesting at the same time:

The curvaceous asymmetry and the different colors give a welcoming, informal sensibility to an otherwise clearly modern piece. It works beautifully, but it has the same appeal even in a single color:

For anyone who happens to be looking for a sofabed and is consistently disturbed by the mostly awful selections there are to choose from, I definitely recommend checking out Brühl's convertible pieces. They're extremely suave and clearly a cut above the norm. Her "Roro" line is especially well done:

There are a number of different sectional pieces to choose, but most impressive is the way a single piece can be changed to provide so many different configurations.

We live in an era of flexible, adaptable spaces and are steering away from the single-use rooms of the homes of the twentieth century. It's surprising to me that there aren't more people doing things like this.

©2009, Ryan Witte