Tiempos Modernos

When you think about your business, what are you most proud of?

We believe that a shop like ours, which works in certain styles and sets trends, is capable of creating a club of customers and friends around its activity.

Tiempos Modernos is a contemporary antique shop. We sell furniture and objects from the 20th century and we do it with todays people in mind. For modern customers who find in our furniture the quality, class and inspiration that only individual pieces can produce. We sell original pieces, each piece of furniture, each piece of glass, each lamp... are unique.

What is your professional experience?

The business was founded by Carmen Palacios - a nurse by profession and passionate about furniture, who studied for three years at the School of Art and Antiques in Madrid - and was later joined by Bento Figueira. Bento, who was born in Lisbon, already had experience in the antiques trade.
The two partners of Tiempos Modernos came to antiques out of passion, convinced that Madrid needed an international shop.

How has covid 19 affected your business?

For all the businesses, the first few weeks were very hard. We were all confined from one day to the next, and there were a few moments of deadlock.... But we immediately started working from home and preparing things for the first opportunity of deconfinement.
Because we all spend more time at home, our sector has not been much affected by the pandemic crisis. Perhaps the few consumer pleasures we could afford to have were the purchase of a painting, the dining table, a lamp, the desk that was so badly needed but could always wait, and so on and so forth. Lets say that we became house-loving and we became more aware of how important it is to surround ourselves with beautiful things.

What services and products does your business provide?

In Tiempos Modernos we sell furniture from the 1930s (Art Deco) to the 1980s, with a special focus on European furniture from the 1950s to the 1970s.
But we also sell art. We hold exhibitions of great contemporary Spanish artists, presenting original work, drawings, small paintings, sculptures and graphic work by great names in the art world. In the last two years we have exhibited Eduardo Arroyo, Hernández Pijuan, Alfredo Alcaín... but also Picasso, Miró or Barceló.
We also sell some contemporary editions of great classics, such as Serge Mouilles lamps, and we present the work of great Spanish and international artisans: ceramists, jewellers, textile artists...