There was a time when architects designed furniture at the start of their careers while patiently waiting for their first buildings to be constructed. In 1972, some six years before Frank Gehry created a stir with his unorthodox house in Santa Monica, California, he was designing his beloved cardboard chairs.

Within the span of a few years, Marcel Wanders has made the transition from brazen, young upstart, with his novel designs for the Dutch avant-garde label Droog, to become a leading figure in contemporary design, all the while creating innovative, often quirky objects.

From tables and chairs to buckets and shoe racks, the young German designer Konstantin Grcic (pronounced gir-chic) has an ability to inject both beauty and wit into the objects he creates.