The Tulip Table: It Goes with Everything! (15 comments)

I've never been a Trekkie, so it wasn't until I Wikied "Eero Saarinen" that I found out that Tulip furniture starred in the original Star Trek series. I'm not sure if this adds or detracts from Tulip's cool factor. At the risk of being a total geek, I'm going to say it adds to its cool factor.

It's funny, with the explosion of design blogs over the past five years, as well as the frequency in which they appear in Dwell, Tulip tables seem rather ubiquitous. However, this table, which was designed by Eero for Knoll in 1956, is so genius that it will never go out of style. At the time he designed it, Mr. Saarinen was persevering to "clear up the slum of legs in the U.S. home." (check out the fascinating Time magazine cover story from 1956 here -that's where I snagged this quote!).

The Tulip table is the perfect example of form following function and resulting in a beautiful design. It works with so many different looks - straight up mid-century modern, space-age, eclectic, mixed in with antiques, as the only white thing in the room or in an all-white room, the list goes on. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen it paired with a chair that didn't look great with it, whether it's the matching Tulip chairs or a cafe chair by Thonet. If you have seen a bad Tulip table/chair combo, upload a photo to the comments, because it will shock me. In the meantime, let's check out some lovely combinations:

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