Ernest Race

First lines

Ernest Race's career as a professional furniture designer dates from the end of the Second World War, when the only furniture that was allowed to be made in this country was Utility; there were severe shortages of materials for furniture-making and it hardly seemed a propitious moment to launch a new career. Race had been involved in design before the war, but his main concern then had been with textiles. In the 1930s, when he trained as a designer and started his career, the main influence on architecture and design was the International Modern Movement. The work of Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Gropius was becoming better known among architects and designers in Britain, though it was by no means widely accepted here; indeed, both traditional and revivalist architects and designers were loud in their criticisms. Race's career as a designer thus spanned the 1930s, the period of Utility furniture, the flourishing of 'contemporary' design in the 1950s and continued into the early 1960s. In 1964 he died at the early age of 49.

Themes & subjects