Mid-Century Modern Design
A Wonderful Life: How Postwar Christmas Embraced Spaceships, Nukes, Cellophane
By Lisa Hix — When I was kid in the 1980s, I assumed everything I knew about Christmas had existed since the beginning of time. So it was strange to grow up and realize that only 10 percent of my concept of Christmas came from ancient history—the story of Jesus’ birth, the myth of a winter gift-giver leaving treats in footwear, and the transposing of the Nativity story onto pagan traditions such as putting up an evergreen tree. Another 30 percent of my Christmas beliefs were just 160 years old,...
Why Are America's Most Innovative Companies Still Stuck in 1950s Suburbia?
By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — When Apple finishes its new $5 billion headquarters in Cupertino, California, the technorati will ooh and ahh over its otherworldly architecture, patting themselves on the back for yet another example of "innovation." Countless employees, tech bloggers, and design fanatics are already lauding the "futuristic" building and its many "groundbreaking" features. But few are aware that Apple’s monumental project is already outdated, mimicking a half-century of stagnant suburban corporate campuses...
Unboxing Modernism: How the Russian Revolution Spurred Mid-Century Design
By Ben Marks — Who was “The Man With the Golden Arm” and where did he come from? Well, Frank Sinatra played the “Man” in the 1955 Otto Preminger film, and the movie itself was shot at RKO Studios in Hollywood. But after reading John Clifford’s "Graphic Icons: Visionaries Who Shaped Modern Graphic Design" (Peachpit Press, 2013), I've come to think that “Saul Bass” and “Russia right after the 1917 revolution” might also be suitable answers to these questions about one of the most famous movie posters of the...
Stuck on Colorforms, the Two-Dimensional Toy Beloved By Mid-Century Modern Kids
By Ben Marks — One of the most cherished myths about children is that they possess incredible imaginations. Put a child on the floor in front of a pile of blocks, this magical thinking goes, and she will assemble veritable Roman Aqueducts and Towers of Babel, making the efforts of most adults look, well, like child’s play. "We had Eames furniture, of course. Who didn’t?" In fact, psychologists have long known that the imaginations of children are actually kind of lame. That's because most little kids...
From Retail Palace to Zombie Mall: How Efficiency Killed the Department Store
By Lisa Hix — The once-vibrant shopping mall has one foot in the grave these days. About 20 percent of the 2,000 largest U.S. malls were failing in 2008, and by 2012, only 1,513 remained in operation. Current numbers predict more than 200 existing big malls will collapse in the next 10 years. Search the phrase, “dead malls,” and you’ll find photo after photo of tiled walkways littered with debris, untended planters near the darkened rest areas for bored dads, and empty indoor storefronts—the discolored...
Mr. Chemex: The Eccentric Inventor Who Reimagined the Perfect Cup of Coffee
By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — As part of our modern obsession with artisan-everything, today's pickiest coffee drinkers insist upon a hand-brewed cup made right before their eyes. At the cornerstone of this trend is the undisputed king of pour-over coffee, the Chemex Coffeemaker, which graces the counters of hip homes and cafes around the globe. But this ingenious device is nothing new: In fact, the Chemex company has been making the exact same brewer for more than 70 years, proving the staying power of great...
Paper Wizard: Mid-Century Modern's Unsung Visionary Gets His Due
By Lisa Hix — When you think of 1950s Atomic Age design, a handful of images probably pop into your mind: The Ball Clock. The Marshmallow Sofa. The Sunburst Clock. What you probably don’t realize is that the designer of these Mid-Century Modern icons spent decades living in obscurity, filling his upstate New York farmhouse with 300-some whimsical handmade paper sculptures of animals, Pre-Columbian and Southeast Asian figures, Cubist abstractions, and African masks. But in a few weeks, Irving Harper and...
Make Me Mod! Top 10 'Mad Men' Essentials
By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — With the return of "Mad Men" to AMC this Sunday, Sterling Cooper’s attractive staff will raise the bar for contemporary cubicle-dwellers for the fifth season in a row. Along with the show’s cast, we’ll be thrown into the turbulence of 1966, when neon-colored plastic and the ubiquitous Twiggy kicked Mid-Century Modern to the curb. No doubt the characters will weather radically shifting social norms, a polarizing foreign war, and all kinds of inappropriate office politics with the grace of...
Kem Weber: The Mid-Century Modern Designer Who Paved the Way for IKEA
By Ben Marks and Lisa Hix — When most people think of Mid-Century Modern, they conjure images of kidney-shaped coffee tables, boomerang-patterned lampshades, and wall clocks that explode in starbursts and other radiating designs. But in the 1930s, long before Mid-Century Modern was the definition of cool in Madison Avenue corner offices and Palm Springs living rooms, an architect and designer named Kem Weber was helping define a sleek, unfussy look that would become all the rage in the years that followed. As for his...
'Mad Men' Prop Master Scott Buckwald Explains How He Re-Creates the '60s
By Maribeth Keane and Jessica Lewis — I always wanted to work in film, but I didn’t have anybody in my family who worked in the film business. I’ve been a major movie buff since I was a child, and I’ve always been very meticulous. I’ve always been a collector. The Beatles are definitely my main thing, but my wife and I collect old metal lunch boxes and I’ve always just been good at holding onto things. I have a fairly nice collection of movie memorabilia. For example, I like collecting police badges. I did the first props for...
Mid-Century Modern Furniture, from Marshmallow Sofas to Hans Wegner Chairs
By Ben Marks — Mid-Century Modern used the technology of mass production to produce good-looking pieces of furniture out of the latest materials. A number of these materials became commonplace after World War II, so the idea was to make things affordable. These were not “custom-made pieces.” When you bought a Tiffany lamp, even though it was a production piece in its day, it was also handmade and cost as much as $500. That was a huge amount of money. It was not for general consumption. The Ruhlmann chair...
Eames, Nelson, and the Mid-Century Modern Aesthetic
By Maribeth Keane — In this interview, Steve Cabella talks about collecting the work of designers Charles and Ray Eames, and about the mid century modern movement. As a teenager, I collected everything from vintage bicycles to Coca-Cola to Victorian stuff. Once I realized some of this stuff contained concepts of art and design, I started looking for vintage objects that also represented art or design movements that could hold my interest. I ran across Art Nouveau and then Art Deco and then Arts and...