Mid-century modern

Mid-century modern (MCM) is a movement in interior design, product design, graphic design, architecture and urban development that was present in all the world, but more popular in North America, Brazil and Europe from roughly 1945 to 1970 during the United States's post-World War II period.
MCM-style decor and architecture have seen a major resurgence that began in the late 1990s and continues today.
The term was used as early as the mid-1950s, and was defined as a design movement by Cara Greenberg in her 1984 book Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s. It is now recognized by scholars and museums worldwide as a significant design movement.
The MCM design aesthetic is modern in style and construction, aligned with the Modernist movement of the period. It is typically characterized by clean, simple lines and honest use of materials, and generally does not include decorative embellishments.
On the exterior, a MCM home is normally very wide, partial brick or glass walls, low footprints with floor to ceiling windows and flat rooflines, while exposed ceilings and beams, open floor plans, ergonomically designed furniture and short staircases connecting rooms throughout the house often defines the home's interior.
The mid-century modern movement in the U.S. was an American reflection of the International and Bauhaus movements, including the works of Gropius, Florence Knoll, Le Corbusier, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Although the American component was slightly more organic in form and less formal than the International Style, it is more firmly related to it than any other.
Brazilian and Scandinavian architects were very influential at this time, with a style characterized by clean simplicity and integration with nature. Like many of Wright's designs, Mid-century architecture was frequently employed in residential structures with the goal of bringing modernism into America's post-war suburbs.
This style emphasized creating structures with ample windows and open floor plans, with the intention of opening up interior spaces and bringing the outdoors in. Many Mid-century houses utilized then-groundbreaking post and beam architectural design that eliminated bulky support walls in favor of walls seemingly made of glass. Function was as important as form in Mid-century designs, with an emphasis placed on targeting the needs of the average American family.
In Europe, the influence of Le Corbusier and the CIAM resulted in an architectural orthodoxy manifest across most parts of post-war Europe that was ultimately challenged by the radical agendas of the architectural wings of the avant-garde Situationist International, COBRA, as well as Archigram in London.
A critical but sympathetic reappraisal of the internationalist oeuvre, inspired by Scandinavian Moderns such as Alvar Aalto, Sigurd Lewerentz and Arne Jacobsen, and the late work of Le Corbusier himself, was reinterpreted by groups such as Team X, including structuralist architects such as Aldo van Eyck, Ralph Erskine, Denys Lasdun, Jørn Utzon and the movement known in the United Kingdom as New Brutalism.
Pioneering builder and real estate developer Joseph Eichler was instrumental in bringing Mid-century modern architecture ("Eichler Homes") to subdivisions in the Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay region of California, and select housing developments on the east coast.
George Fred Keck, his brother Willam Keck, Henry P. Glass, Mies van der Rohe, and Edward Humrich created Mid-century modern residences in the Chicago area. Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House is extremely difficult to heat or cool, while Keck and Keck were pioneers in the incorporation of passive solar features in their houses to compensate for their large glass windows.
The city of Palm Springs, California is noted for its many examples of Mid-century modern architecture.
Architects include:
Examples of 1950s Palm Springs motel architecture include Ballantines Movie Colony (1952) – one portion is the 1935 Albert Frey San Jacinto Hotel – the Coral Sands Inn (1952), and the Orbit Inn (1957). Restoration projects have been undertaken to return many of these residences and businesses to their original condition.
In nearby Newberry Springs, Harold James Bissner Jr designed the 1968 circular "space-age" Volcano House (1968-1969)
Brazil is the only country in the world where an entire city, and in this case the country's capital, Brasília, was built entirely in the mid-century modern style. The city was inaugurated in 1961, and is the third most populous city in the country, behind only São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In addition to the memorable buildings by architect Oscar Niemeyer, there are also works by Athos Bulcão, Marianne Peretti, João Filgueiras Lima, and landscaping by Burle Marx.
Architects include:
Scandinavia had a great influence on the mid-century modern furniture. The style design is characterized by a minimalist, clean-lined approach that looks to combine functionality with beauty, well-crafted, classic, and timeless. With an emphasis being put on utilizing natural materials to improve daily life through unique, purposeful design, durability and reliability. The Scandinavian mid-century modern goal was to minimize, quality over quantity, curated contrast, and cozy togetherness. The Nordic style united innovation, simplicity, and elegance. Scandinavian modern designers, such as Børge Mogensen, Hans Wegner, Finn Juhl, Arne Vodder, Verner Panton, and Alvar Aalto, stood out in this movement.
The Case Study Houses was a program creating a series of architectural prototype-homes involving major mid-century architects, including Charles and Ray Eames, Craig Ellwood, A. Quincy Jones, Edward Killingsworth, Pierre Koenig, Richard Neutra, Ralph Rapson, Eero Saarinen, and Raphael Soriano to design and build modern efficient and inexpensive model homes for the post-WWII residential housing boom in the United States. The program began in 1945 and lasted through 1966. The houses were documented by architectural photographer Julius Shulman.
Scandinavian design was very influential at this time, with a style characterized by simplicity, democratic design and natural shapes. Glassware (Iittala – Finland), ceramics (Arabia – Finland), tableware (Georg Jensen – Denmark), lighting (Poul Henningsen – Denmark), and furniture (Danish modern) were some of the genres for the products created.
In the eastern United States, the American-born Russel Wright and Mary Wright, designing for Steubenville Pottery, and Hungarian-born Eva Zeisel designing for Red Wing Pottery and later Hall China created free-flowing ceramic designs that were much admired and heralded in the trend of smooth, flowing contours in dinnerware.
On the West Coast of the United States, the industrial designer and potter Edith Heath (1911–2005) founded Heath Ceramics in 1948. The company was one of the numerous California pottery manufacturers that had their heyday in post-war United States, and produced Mid-Century modern ceramic dish-ware.
Edith Heath's "Coupe" line remains in demand and has been in constant production since 1948, with only periodic changes to the texture and color of the glazes.
The Tamac Pottery company produced a line of mid-century modern biomorphic dinnerware and housewares between 1946 and 1972.
Printed ephemera documenting the mid-century transformations in design, architecture, landscape, infrastructure, and entertainment include mid-century linen post cards from the early 1930s to the late 1950s. These post cards came about through innovations pioneered through the use of offset lithography. The cards were produced on paper with a high rag content, which gave the post card a textured look and feel. At the time this was a less expensive process.
Along with advances in printing technique, mid-century linen postcards allowed for very vibrant ink colors. The encyclopedic geographic imagery of mid-century linen post cards suggests popular middle-class attitudes about nature, wilderness, technology, mobility and the city during the mid-20th century.
Curt Teich in Chicago was the most prominent and largest printer and publisher of Linen Type postcards pioneering lithography with his "Art Colortone" process.
Other large publishers include Stanley Piltz in San Francisco, who established the "Pictorial Wonderland Art Tone Series", Western Publishing and Novelty Company in Los Angeles and the Tichnor Brothers in Boston. The printing of mid-century linen post cards began to give way in the late 1950s to Kodachrome and Ektachrome color prints.