Vintage Tannoys, JBLs, Yamaha NS1000 etc are all designed for a back wall (half-space) location. Most 'proper' speakers are to be honest, the middle of the room thing is a modern fad.
Corners (quarter-space) are more troublesome, you'd need to look to Klipsch, vintage Wharfdale, Voigt, Lowther and certain other stuff specifically designed to go there IMO. Corners really aren't as simple as just flicking some switch on some active box either (despite what some will say!). Klipsch etc work there as they are designed from the ground up to do so, e.g. very directional horns and bass loading that takes the room gain and behaviour into account. No dome tweeter or cone mid is ever going to sound any good in a corner, you need something that beams so the sound gets to you well before the reflections. As with most things PWK's papers from the middle of the last century are well worth reading as he understood it in a way most folk just don't these days.