McGUIRE DESIGNS
"Elinor and I married and settled in San Francisco, hoping to find a career that would allow us to work together, although we had no idea what that might be."
As McGuire celebrates 60 years of development and refinement of a concept of furniture that had its beginnings just after World War II, it also represents John & Elinor McGuire's very personal ideas about furniture. Then, fresh out of the Navy, they were a young couple starting their first home. What they found on the market was a glut of machine-made "modern" and uninspired reproductions. They felt a craving for a different kind of furniture, furniture crafted entirely by human hands working natural materials, contemporary in spirit but reassuring and satisfying as only the natural and handmade can be. They wanted their home to be a warm, inviting, comforting refuge, a spirit-lifting, livable shelter. They had no doubt that there were many others like them who felt the same hunger, and against this background we set about creating a new vocabulary of furniture.
They were struck by the intrinsic beauty of Philippine rattan-used at that time in only the most casual of furniture, porch furniture. They sparked to its natural warmth and the softness of its innately rounded form and the individuality of each vine as nature grew it. They saw in this material unique potential that more than qualified for its interior use. So when they came to the unlikely conclusion that they should start a furniture business, there was no uncertainty in their minds about the sort of furniture they wanted to produce, nor the material they would use.
In design development, they followed the growth of their own taste and awareness, keeping alert to the changing needs of modern living. They made it their goal to develop rattan furniture of elegance and style, as compatible with traditional furniture and fine antiques as with the best-designed contemporary furniture.
We hope to carry on this tradition of innovation and curiosity, and of following a dream.
