Chances are you won't be lugging a sofa back home, but this classy interior-design store in Gastown has contemporary lighting, home accessories, and design books, in addition to furniture. A second showroom is right across the street at 97 Water St.

Since the early 1960s, Danish-born designer Niels Bendtsen has been Vancouver's undisputed master of cool contemporary furniture and interior design. His Ribbon Chair is displayed as part of MoMA's permanent collection, and from humble West Van beginnings, he and wife Nancy now oversee a formidable retail, manufacturing and project design empire, supplying top-of-the-line installations like... more

Shopping here is like strolling through the modernist movement’s greatest hits (in fact, many of the pieces sit in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York). Our favourites: Hans Wegner’s elegant Shell and Wishbone chairs (from $2932and $779, respectively), Eero Saarinen’s Womb Chair ($2,924), and Warren Platner’s steel-wire coffee table ($1,846). Future classics... more