Names to know: The top modernist furniture designers for cutting-edge yachts

The modernism movement looks to be here to stay for superyacht interior design from hull to hardware. Designers are becoming increasingly comfortable with both modern and postmodern styles, using one to reinforce the other. This tendency expresses itself most tellingly, perhaps, in furnishings. Louis Postel rounds up the interior design brands to know...

The art of steel: Gary Magakis x Todd Merrill Studio

When bronze and steel sculptor Gary Magakis happened upon the exclusive, high-ceilinged Todd Merrill Studio in Manhattan one day in 2009, he wasn’t expecting his life to change. Merrill not only took him on as his exclusive representative, he also pushed Magakis to create much larger pieces, which now enjoy great success. In this cantilevered, subtly tapered, layered and patinated bronze console, Magakis’ jazzy riffs on mighty forms hover ever-so-lightly in postmodern space.

32 inches x 89 inches x 19 inches, $28,000, toddmerrillstudio.com

A favourite of Milan Design Week 2014 and 2015, “Helix” challenges our modernist sensibilities defining space as up, down and across. Designers Marcella Del Signore, Giuseppe Morando and Elena Del Signore of Open Source Workshop in Milan and New Orleans use CNC wire-cutting techniques to carve out solid, recyclable modules from a corn-based polystyrene to wrap bulkheads and overheads in such a way that Helix conforms to the specific space within the yacht.

€5,000 to €8,000 depending on dimensions and finish, opensourceworkshop.net

Set as shown with two metal hooks fixed to the bulkhead, Enrico Marone Cinzano’s “Geode Console” captures all the flash and clash of a big city in miniature. Hand-brushed stainless steel planes carom in chiseled celebration of our dynamic, fractious world, lined with LEDs for a floating effect, while simultaneously coddling our various odd and ends within its wood-lined interior.

142.5 inches long, $35,000, enricomaronecinzano.com

Dutch designer Maarten Baas thumbed his nose at modernist formality, launching his celebrated postmodern furniture assemblages titled “Hey, Chair, Be a Bookshelf” with a series of puns: A chair became a bookshelf, a lampshade became a vase, a violin became a coat rack, using parts salvaged from rubbish containers. Baas then strengthened these forlorn castoffs with polyurethane for lasting value.

Price on request, maartenbaas.com

After graduating from Istanbul Technical University in 2010, Emre Bagdatoglu (pronounced Ba-dat-olu) established his design studio and went on to earn a master’s degree at the elite Rhode Island School of Design. His Wall-to-Wall Chair is a combination of high and low, elegantly rolled and folded strips of commercial carpet bound with utility rope in a configuration spoofing traditional box spring construction.

$2,800, emrebagdatoglu.com