Five Pieces I’d Happily Live With: Modern Design Edition, with James Tutton

Leonard Joel's quarterly Modern Design auctions feature collectable mid-century and contemporary furniture, lighting, and other unique pieces. Every auction celebrates modern Australian designers alongside renowned international manufacturers and designers from across the globe. The upcoming auction on 1 June features pieces by Ettore Sottsass, Shiro Kuramata, Afra & Tobia Scarpa, Vico Magistretti, and more. Browse the full collection here.

For their June Modern Design Auction, Leonard Joel asked Neometro Director James Tutton to share the pieces that caught his eye — selected with both his current renovation (James and his partner are currently mid-way through renovating a Graeme Gunn house on Yarra Boulevard, in Kew) and Neometro's residential developments in mind.

Lot 13 — Afra & Tobia Scarpa ‘Monk’ Chair for Molteni

I’ve always been drawn to the way the Scarpas handle restraint. The Monk is a great example – walnut, a sling of black leather and not much else. It is entirely resolved without trying too hard. There’s a Merchant Builders quality to it, the sense that every decision has been made for a reason, and that reason is never decoration. For a house where the architecture does the heavy lifting, you want furniture that has the confidence to simply exist without competing. This does that beautifully. Honest materiality in a residential context is something I think about constantly and these chairs embody it completely.

Lot 151 — Renzo Piano Pair of ‘Lingotto’ Floor Lamps for iGuzzini

A Renzo Piano lamp makes perfect sense once you see it. It’s all there in the construction – the coiled stem, the adjustable head, nothing hidden. It’s a lamp that knows exactly what it is and makes no apologies.

It has that quality particular to great industrial design where the engineering is the aesthetic. I tend to prefer lighting that serves a purpose. These aren’t decorative objects moonlighting as lamps, which is precisely why they belong in a house that was never built to impress anyone unnecessarily.

A pair of these would perfectly anchor a reading corner without overwhelming the space.

There’s always been a pull toward Italian design for me, and having worked with Italian architects on our Walsh Street apartments in South Yarra, that European sensibility has stayed close. These feel very much in that vein, and would sit comfortably in that kind of setting too.

Lot 177 — Marcel Breuer, Five ‘Cesca’ Chairs for Gavina

The Cesca has been knocked off so many times that encountering a genuine set is exciting and feels like finding the original pressing of a record you’ve known only through later editions.

The tubular frame and cane seat and back is highly resolved. The chairs are light, structural, visually complex from a distance and beautifully simple up close.

Five is an awkward number for a dining table, but I’ve always liked the idea of one at a desk and four around a table, or all five somewhere unexpected.

Lot 214 — Hans Wegner ‘GE 258’ Three Seat Sofa Bed for Getama

I actually own one of these already – it lives in our place in Byron Bay and it serves a very specific purpose, which is to ensure that guests do not get too comfortable! It is not a sofa you sink into. It is a sofa you sit in, upright, alert, with a cup of tea and the sense that you have things to do. I find this incredibly appealing.

The piece also has integrity in abundance. It is solid, with a particular shade of olive green that is both period-specific and completely timeless, with a frame that converts to a daybed.

A study needs exactly this kind of furniture – considered and comfortable enough, without encouraging you to disappear into it.

Lot 201 — Michel Ducaroy Two Seat ‘Togo’ Sofa and Corner Module for Ligne Roset

And then the counterpoint. If the Wegner is furniture for people with things to do, the Togo is furniture for people who want to settle in for the afternoon. This is one of those pieces that looks faintly absurd in a photograph and then the moment you sit in it, makes complete sense.

This particular colourway seals it for me – that deep olive khaki sits in the same palette as a well-worn field jacket, the kind of colour that only gets better with age and use.

Lot 240 — Arne Jacobsen Pair of ‘Oxford’ Chairs for Fritz Hansen

These have a certain commanding presence, especially the tall back. They were designed for an academic setting, and you can still feel that in the proportions.

For me, these would be going into the home office, and will be present on every video call I take from that room. They have institutional authority baked into them, but more importantly they’re comfortable enough for long stretches at a desk.

Special thanks to Leonard Joel for inviting James to select his favourite pieces for June's Modern Design Auction. This article was originally published by Leonard Joel. Read it here.