Mid-Century Modern

Why Won't Midcentury Die?

Here's an interesting, if brief, article from the New York Times on the lasting appeal of midcentury design.  While confessing a weakness for some of the motifs of the time, my most significant appreciation of it has more to do with the midcentury approach toward design.  One of Charles and Ray Eames's most beautiful artifacts was the splint they designed in the 1940s.

This molded plywood splint was designed to fit the contours of the leg, and its details serve this function, giving beauty to use.

Sit in an Eames chair and you know instantly that it was made for sitting.   This may sound trivial, but how many chairs have you sat in that just make you want to stand up and move away?  In my experience the latter happens much more often than the former.

Float

float 
(verb)

1.to rest or remain on the surface of a liquid; be buoyant:

2.to move gently on the surface of a liquid; drift along:

3.to rest or move in a liquid, the air, etc.:

4.to move lightly and gracefully:

5.to move or hover before the eyes or in the mind:  

One of my favorite things to do when I have a free afternoon is head over to my local Room and Board store and window shop.  My sofa, the Dublin, is from there, a product of window shopping after a couple glasses of wine to free the inhibitions and the purse strings.  Times being what they are, and owing to the small footprint of my house, I haven't had the pleasure of buying much more from the store.  However, I never fail to find something new for which to pine every time I go.

At the store last Friday, it struck me how many pieces, whether tables or chairs, captured some sort of idea about floating, levitating between or over something else, whether that be a frame, a base, or the floor. 

There's the Zane chair, for example.

It would be difficult for an image to capture the sensation of floating from the Zane.  In person, however, the chair really does give the effect that the seat and back float inside the frame.  This effect becomes especially true when the chair is viewed up close and from above.

There's also the Stafford cocktail table.

Recalling perhaps a warmer approach to the modern kidney shape.  I can't help think of the Jetsons when I see this table.  Just retro enough, but graceful, and with an elegant simplicity.

Then there's Mies van der Rohe's classic Brno chair.



The "float" in this chair is an experiential one.  The chair has just enough give to remind you of it's tubular construction and extend the notion of comfort even down to the act of sitting down.

Another modern classic, Saarinen's end table, also conveys a sense of levitation, with its spindly frame sliver-thin surface.

The table top almost looks like it could have risen from a melted pool at the base.  It's lightness gives it an air of timeless sophistication.  This piece has been knocked off maybe dozens of times, never anywhere near as good as the original.

All of these pieces struck me as having something in their compositions or in their forms that evoked a lightness, perhaps even of being.  What better feeling to bring into a home!

(Thanks to Dictionary.com for definitions.)