In reply to SDR, and without wanting to derail the thread too much, Renzo Piano *has* designed furniture and lighting! Quite a bit in fact, for companies like Fontana Arte, Riva and iGuzzini. To my mind, it doesn't look anything like his buildings- there's a world of difference between the Pompidou Centre and his wooden chair for Riva, for example- but does exemplify his sensitivity to, and appropriate use of materials, and his desire to render an object in its most appropriate form.
Thanks, Andrew. Architects continue to design seating without atrending to the basics: seat and back angles, and lumbar support. The easiest way to achieve the latter is by terminating the back some ways above the seat, so the sitter can move back into the chair at will, to take advantage of the back rest. The Eames plywood chairs accomplish this, for instance, while the shell chairs by the same designer do not . . .
A chair seat should virtually never be parallel with the floor, except when there is no back rest. For the sitter to comfortably take advantage of the back, the seat needs to incline slightly toward it. Many chair designs recognize this fact, while others do not.
Again, off topic. My apologies.
By the way, re my "DEEP MCM" offering, I have to say that I really HATE the term "Mid-Century Modern", and I hate the "MCM" abbrieviation too. It sucks.
But what else can we call it?
"Post- War Modern"?
No. "Post-War Modern" has the word WAR in it. And POST is pretty ugly word too, So even though it is better than MCM, it's not gonna fly. Besides, PWM is a really tweasily-looking abbrieviation.
Maybe someday "Modern" alone will be enough.
Once we get DEEP enough-- or far enough away from the time frame-- the term will need NO pre-qualifiers. That will be so cool.
Re the topic: "The next big thing"... Industrial Furniture (as on the current nearby thread) is pretty cool, and might still be folded into the MCM (cough) thing?
I'm with ScanDesign on the leg-gnawing, and with Minimoma and Mark on combining things. (I have a Stickly child's table that I think looks pretty great next to the Eames 670.) I like good mid-century furniture because I find it pleasing to the eye, comfortable, good to live with - but clearly other people feel that way about say fussy silly French things, and I don't know why it speaks to them. Some kind of recieved wisdom, that someone said that that was the good stuff? but I could say the same thing about myself, I like the kind of furniture and architecture I grew up with. I wonder how many people came to mid-century stuff after being raised with and living with other things, and why and how it felt .... I suppose there are shrinks/social scientists who study taste, and have some answers ... interesting, at least to me.
Ps - Hollywood Regency is modern (ish) furniture with a lot of garbage tacked on to it, so people can say that it's something new.
Well, yes, it all comes down to personal taste, which is derived or driven by a number of factors, the vagaries of individual experience being very high on that list.
Trying to be objective leads me to the attempt to formulate an acceptable definition of terms, and a history that might explain the evolution. And no, I don't like the term MCM particularly, either !
Modern means up-to-date. But I'd be happy if it also meant the period and the kind of design that we're talking about here. Perhaps it will be the accepted term, sooner or later ?
I agree with Eames head.
There is nothing to replace it. After the late 70's we fall off a cliff. Everything is made in China. Yes, there is a bit of 80's, Memphis Modern stuff people might get into, but it's not that great. It was over designed and hard to live with. Zig zaggy lucite chairs your bum is sure to sweat on and your back is sure to break on.
I don't notice it's cheaper on Ebay. I do notice that there is less of the good stuff around actually-especially at reasonable prices. I think we've peaked. Many of the people that had it, have cleaned out their homes long ago.
Art Deco is endearing. But a lot of the good stuff was on the market long ago. Good luck finding art deco at estate sales and garage sales like some people do still with mid century. A lot of good art deco stuff is in museums.
I don't think it's dead. I think people's taste has refined. Like Eames said, the people that like it are going deeper. The general customer that just wants the look is finding it at Crate and Barrel.
Feel sorry for the kids today. There is very little for them to aspire to collect furniture wise. Yep, they'll have our old Apple Computers to fight over I guess. Can't see having old typewriters, keyboards, cell phones and computers as a collection that will make your life bright. But that's what they're going to collect. They're going crazy now over old Atari game cartridges. I guess we aren't too far off from a Beenie Baby rebirth. Fun.
SDR - I guess I paint with a ridiculously broad (and simplistic) brush sometimes. I never even bothered to look up what "Modern" really meant. Completely irresponsible on my part. Perhaps that comes from the art world, where there are both general and specific uses of terms like Impressionistic and Impressionism. One is a general approach, where the other refers to a "school of painting" historically.
Anyway, it was just a bit of wishful thinking to hope that Modern (with a capital M) might someday refer to something specific historically.
SCAN DESIGN - I hope my silly phrase did not derail any carefully considered thoughts you might have had on the subject of "the next big thing"! I am only one example of someone who is hoplessly down the river with Charles and Ray and George, and the like. I was just throwing it out there.
KEEWEE - I have wondered about that generational thing too, and what the next generation might collect. If everything gets bought up and owned, does MCM no longer stay in the public eye enough to "bend the trend" going forward? Or do the knock offs keep advertising it just enough to hook large numbers of true believers from each generation?
TKTOO - I totally agree. The best stuff always seems to have the power to cut through the noise and haze of the moment. And shows it's true strength when the trend seems to wane.
MARK - Hi.
It's kind of funny to see a desire to rename MCM as Modern - because that's what it USED to be universally called. Calling it "Modern architecture and design" made a lot of sense back when it really was "modern" (i.e. the cutting edge of what was being done at that time). And if you read any of the periodicals of the time you will see it referred to as such. But once time moved on, and design tastes started changing (for better or worse), it became confusing and inaccurate to call it Modern, when in fact it was from a previous time.
Quite so ! Gropius has the history exactly right, and that history is the reason I hold out hope that Modern (with a capital M) will be the term that applies to all of the past century's progressive design -- and, perhaps, any similar work done after, say, 1970 ? (I wonder if someone influential will declare that anything after that date must be called "Neo-Modern . . .!)
Or do we hope to weed out the mid-century work -- 1940 to 1965 ? -- and have the term apply only to that ? I don't think that's reasonable -- which is perhaps why "MCM" came into use . . .
What do we think ?
Yeah good points above.
Let's hammer out an agreement right here! (I'm kidding of course... well maybe not)
Even if we did annoint the word "Modern" a new meaning right here, it would still come down to how many people pick it up and run with it in the long term. And sadly, we have no control over that.
But we could still just throw it at the wall and see if it sticks?
OR create an unofficial "movement" to change meaning of the word, and at the same time use it to actively advertise and bring more focus to what changing the meaning of "Modern" IMPLIES. (That this time period needs and deserves a better handle)
OR we could actively attempt to get the new meaning listed in Webster's Dictionary or Wikipedia or wherever such things are made official. This would have little impact, but might make for an interesting academic excercise or work of art in itself.
Our work has perhaps already been done for us. Although there is no entry in my high-school dictionary (Webster's New World, 1958) for Modern (capitalized), the second half of the first definitionof "modern" reads ,". . .often used to designate certain contemporary tendencies and schools of art, music, literature, etc., as, modern architecture and furniture are characterized by functionalism and lack of extraneous ornamentation: see TYPES OF ARCHITECTURE, p 77."
The referenced page has, as the last two illustrations, drawings of two houses, one a Bauhaus/cubist/Moderne two-story affair with some glass block and corner windows, the other a long single-story flat-roofed residence with glass walls, a raised central roof with clerestory glass, and a suspiciously Wrightian reverse-beveled roof fascia.
There are also definitions of "modernism" and "modernist," which, when capitalized, characterize certain Christian reformers influenced by "modern science," such movements having been "condemned in the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Pius X in 1907 as a negation of faith."
So, I would say, "modern" was already being used as we would wish it to be, in the 'fifties. Therefore, is it only our task to insist that this definition still obtains and should be used in an ongoing manner, with the difference being that we capitalize the word and use it in the context of architecture and design, not in a religious sense ?
And if so, how broad should that definition be; should something like MCM still be used to refer to a specific sub-set of Modern . . .and is it too late to substitute something else for Mid-Century Modern, or is that the best term for the purpose ?
Eames Head-
Herman Miller bought DWR over the summer and wants to become a major "lifestyle" store. I'm guessing their market reserach is saying the look isn't dead. Word is Herman Miller is going to open mega stores of several stories. DWR only had 39 stores. But...it's like Scan Design and older Danish stuff from the 60's. It's just not the same. Not to us anyway. The thought of mega stores filled with new productions of mcm depresses the hell out of me. At that point, some Heywood stuff might start looking good to me again just because it isn't in the mall.
Sometimes I try and do the math...I honestly believe there is nothing furniture wise worth collecting past the late 70's. A few things in the 80's were ok, but none of it was made in large quantities. But I digress...So in the 1970's if people in their 30's set up house and bought furniture and didn't redesign and held on to it all this time...it means those people are now in their 70's and are dying/downsizing...so yeah we are pretty much getting near the tail end of findability from original owners.
Kids today are into stuff from the 80's. And they're going to have electronics. They'll collect original Apple Computers and Love Sacs. I'm serious. That's the new vintage for kids today.
Whats it like in that igloo? Milan, Cologne, b+b, minotti, edra, Morrison, Citterio, Barber Osgerby, Isokon, Grcic, Dixon, Rashid (shudders), Starck, Pillet, Bourollec. Droog, Karpf, E15, NAD, B+O, Pedralli, La Palma, De La Espada... I could go on for pages, all producing new work, each showing a different face of modernism.
Are you seriously suggesting that the monumental volume of consumer goods produced in the last 20 years does not contain and never will contain anything of aesthetic value?
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