Furniture as Miniature Architecture in Modernist Design

Furniture served as the primary vehicle for introducing modernist principles into everyday life before architecture could be widely commissioned. Le Corbusier described furniture as "équipement de l'habitation" (equipment of living), integrating it into the building's operational system. The Bauhaus treated chairs and tables as industrial prototypes, embedding standardization and mass production. Architectural historian Beatriz Colomina argues that modern architecture circulated through media and objects, not just buildings. Furniture became architecture in miniature: portable, reproducible, and capable of reorganizing space without reconstruction.