Fashion, Art, Design, Lifestyle

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Khaki Field

Titanium auto 36mm Limited Edition

Engineered Garments

Automatic | 36mm | H70235130

https://www.hamiltonwatch.com/en-gb/h70235130-khaki-field-auto.html

A collaboration like no other, this Hamilton X Engineered Garments Limited Edition timepieces seamlessly blends practical design with American tradition and military style. The Khaki Field Titanium is remodeled in a smaller 36mm unisex design in timeless, neutral colors and a titanium case and bracelet. The production is limited to 1,999 watches, to mark the founding date of Engineered Garments.

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Hover craft: a time-bending treehouse designed by architects Sarah Featherstone and Jeremy Young

https://www.themodernhouse.com/journal/open-house-ty-hedfan-powys/

Deep in the ancient heart of the Welsh countryside, in a landscape steeped in legend, you can, if you look carefully, find a modern example of architectural wonderment floating above the River Ysgir. A monumental cantilevered form that somehow manages to emerge unobtrusively from the hillside, clad in local slate, stone and wood, surrounded by established trees, this is a building at perfect ease with its rare site on the watery edge of the quiet hamlet of Pontfaen.

Ty Hedfan (the name, aptly, is Welsh for “hovering house”) is the work of Sarah Featherstone and Jeremy Young. The architects, who came together in the early 2000s to start Featherstone Young, had been looking to design a house in the countryside as a counterpoint to Sarah’s celebrated London home, adjacent to her office near Spitalfields. Jeremy, a keen mountain biker, was spending a lot of time in the Welsh mountain range at the time and started looking online for land on which the couple could build a home that served multiple purposes: a showcase for their nascent practice, a potential holiday let, and a multi-faceted family home. “Because we were working for ourselves, we had pretty much total freedom,” says Sarah. “And once you have that as an architect, you can really go for it.”

Now, as the multi-award winning Ty Hedfan comes on the market for the first time, Sarah and Jeremy discuss the home’s many and varied charms, and why they hope that the next owners will put their own stamp on their unique vision.

Jeremy Young: “We joined forces architecturally in the early 2000s. At that time, it was less common to build your own house so we hatched a plan to build something in the countryside together. Sarah wanted to be by the sea; I liked the mountains.”

Sarah Featherstone: “We saw the site and immediately fell in love with it. It was pretty much the centre of this tiny little hamlet, but it hadn’t been built on before and it’s got 60 metres of river frontage. We saw that and knew we could do something exciting …”

Jeremy: “It wasn’t by the sea, but it persuaded Sarah because it had this watery element to it.”

Sarah: “That constant flow of water is lovely; it’s always moving. And you can fish in it – we have trout and salmon. Under the house there’s a confluence of two rivers, and there’s a deep plunge area. My favourite spot is under one of the bridges, where the water cascades through. There’s a rock arrangement in this waterfall which you can sit in like a throne.”

Jeremy: “The region is very easy to get to from London, and it also acts as a gateway to the rest of Wales. This whole area of mid Wales is just a fantastic, wild space unlike anywhere else in the UK. It’s got this hinterland feel.”

Sarah: “Also, in terms of policy-making, Wales is really forward thinking with policies such as the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act. I teach at the Welsh School of Architecture at Cardiff University where they are really passionate about social values and we really feel that – as a practice – we share a lot of those values.”

Jeremy: “Ty Hedfan embodies our practice because of the site specificity, the contextualism of looking at the history of the site, and taking some cues from it. When we’re taking on a project, we always research the site’s past. We were definitely inspired by the very distinctive shape of a Welsh longhouse – they’re low-slung, and they sit in or on the hill, rather than above it.”

Sarah: “Yes it’s also little things, like where the labour and materials come from – the slate and the pennant stone – being locally sourced.”

Jeremy: “A lot of people who come to the house say, ‘Oh, it’s amazing how you’ve incorporated an existing ruin in your design.’ And we go, ‘What are you talking about?’ The pennant stone just looks so much of the place, gnarled and lovely. A lot of modern architecture looks quite whizzy, like we kind of sit down with a sketchbook and go, ‘There it is; that’s the perfect design.’ Actually, all our work is all about responding to the site, and deriving the architecture from the site. It was very important for us that it was a very contextual design, rather than just a one-off.”

Sarah: “We talk sometimes about ‘baggy space’ and the idea is that architects shouldn’t be so dictatorial in terms of how they design a house or a building that it denies other people from making it their own. I think we’ve anticipated that in the way we designed Ty Hedfan – to allow that flex. You could say we’ve got five or six bedrooms here, for example, but equally you could just have three because the spaces are deliberately designed to be used in different ways.”

Jeremy: “I’m always happy that people change things for themselves; I think architecture should be inhabited and changed. This building has got a lot of flexibility, and it’s surprising, too. We made it all about the river. We thought of it kind of like a Fallingwater scenario. But actually, because we’re up high and we didn’t have any foundations below it, it enabled us to keep all the trees around it. And when you’re in the living space, the overarching feeling is one of being among the trees, like you’re in a treehouse.”

Sarah: “You really feel the different seasons and the changing light at different times of day. When the leaves are out, you get the shadows dancing across the room; when the branches are bare, you get these amazing views up to the hills. So when people ask us, ‘Where’s your favourite spot in the house?’ My answer is that I’ve got lots of favourite spots, because it just depends on what you’re feeling and what time of day it is.”

Jeremy: “For me, home is about a journey through the day. You start in one place because there’s a nice bit of sun in the morning, and that’s where you have your family breakfast. And then there’s a study space which might be a bit more out of the way and quieter, and there’s a big living room that everyone gets together in, and it’s noisy and fun. Whenever we design a house we try to provide enough spaces so you can inhabit it in the different ways that you might want to. My perfect home is to be able to find those moments and spaces during the day. It’s about being able to get together and also disperse, so you can have your private time and your public time. And the architecture should support that.”

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A lush animated opus evokes the frenzied pace of modern life

The Swiss animator Georges Schwizgebel is known for crafting intricate, shapeshifting works that offer canvas-worthy imagery in every frame. With his rollicking animation Jeu (2006), which translates from French as ‘play’ or ‘game’, he pairs a portion of the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s Concerto for Piano No 2, Opus 16 (1913) with a series of sequences that summon Post-Impressionism in their brushstrokes and rich hues, and M C Escher in their perspective-shifting geometric exploration. Moving between recognisable scenes of concert halls, museums and parks, and moments of abstraction, the piece evokes the overwhelming complexity and breakneck pace of modern life.

Director: Georges Schwizgebel

Composer: Sergei Prokofiev

 

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Mid-century modern design "embraced a more human aesthetic while remaining aggressively forward-looking"

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/07/mid-century-modern-design-introduction/

More than 70 years after its birth, the popularity of mid-century modern design and architecture shows no signs of abating. This overview by Penny Sparke kicks off our series about the movement.

Mid-century modern design is hard to pin down. As soon as you think you have grasped it, it re-invents itself. Unlike the late 19th- and early 20th-century architecture and design movements – arts and crafts, art nouveau, art deco, and Bauhaus – which are all linked to specific time periods, places, and visual styles, the definition of what constitutes mid-century modern is in constant flux.

Also, while all the earlier movements have been revived from the 1970s onwards, they have tended to come and go. Mid-century modern's rebirth, however, has been in place since the 1990s and, three decades later, is still going strong.

Mid-century modern design, like the Eames House, is still popular. Photo by Leslie Schwartz and Joshua White, courtesy of Eames Office

Antique shops and auction houses are full of boomerang-shaped coffee tables with spindly metal legs and lightly decorated ceramic and glass items – the prices of which continue to soar – while popular home magazines across the globe show us easy-to-live-in interiors filled with elegant Danish chairs, sculptural room dividers, patterned textiles, modern paintings, and sprawling houseplants.

Mid-century modern design usually associated with the home

If we can say anything definite about mid-century modern design, it's that it is usually associated with the home rather than the workplace, and that it manifests itself as architecture, furniture, textiles, and as decorative ceramic, glass, and metal items. While they can all be looked at in isolation, they are better understood as ensembles.

Moving beyond the austere modernism of the 1920s and 1930s, mid-century modern design embraced a more human aesthetic while remaining aggressively forward-looking. The adulation of the machine was replaced by an affection for the organic forms of the natural world.

'High' mid-century modern design in Scandinavia included Josef Frank's print designs, seen here on a curtain. Photo courtesy of Svenskt Tenn

Always optimistic, the style emerged to offset the austerity of the post-war years and symbolised the importance of economic and cultural reconstruction. By the late 1950s, many countries in the developed world had developed their own versions of it.

While its roots were in Europe and the USA, as a popular domestic style it quickly spread further afield. Many questions remain, however. When did it start and finish? Where did it originate? What does it look like? Who are its designer heroes?

Scandinavian mid-century modernism "reached its full potential" post-war

In many ways, the Scandinavian countries can be seen as the home of what we might call "high" mid-century modern design, as opposed to its later, more popular manifestations.

There were early signs – in the form of Iittala's lightly engraved glassware of the 1920s, designed by Simon Gate and Edward Hald, and the work of the Swedish-based architect-designer, Josef Frank, described as bringing in a new "sanity in design" – that Scandinavia wanted to humanise the stark, tubular steel designs emerging from Germany.

Hans J Wegner's Wishbone chairs are among many Scandinavian design icons. Photo by Tom Ross

Scandinavian mid-century modern design reached its full potential in the post-war years. In the form of sleek items of Danish furniture designed by the likes of Hans J Wegner and architect-designer, Arne Jacobsen; elegant ceramics and glass pieces, designed in Sweden by Gustavsberg's Wilhelm Kåge and Orrefors' Vicke Lindstrand; airy textiles created by Sweden's Astrid Sampe; and the dramatic forms of Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala's glass sculptures, the concept of Scandinavian Modern was celebrated worldwide.

Many of the designs have become iconic: Wegner's Wishbone bentwood-and-rope chair of 1949, for instance, still graces many a fashionable dining area, while, with its three slim steel legs, Jacobsen's moulded plywood Ant chair looks as modern today as it did back in 1952 when it was first produced.

Italian designers rejected the past

While Scandinavian mid-century modern design was about everyday family life and democracy, Italy's version was all about high style.

The furniture, lighting, and decorative items created by Gio Ponti, Franco Albini, Marco Zanuso, Gino Sarfatti, Piero Fornasetti and others inhabited chic interior spaces.

Gio Ponti's Superleggera chair (top back) represented optimism. Photo by Luc Boegly

None of them represented the optimism that was in the air at that time more than Ponti's little Superleggera chair, produced by Cassina in 1957.

Its light, tapering legs and woven cane seat rejected the weight of the past and looked enthusiastically to the future.

The mid-century modern lifestyle dominated in the US

Across the Atlantic, American designers Charles and Ray Eames, Finland-born Eero Saarinen, George Nelson, and Harry Bertoia also embraced the new, unencumbered lifestyle.

On the West Coast, the Eameses created a home for themselves – Case Study House 8 – which epitomised a new life that was lived as much outside as inside, and which was as comfortable as it was modern.

Harry Bertoia's Diamond chair "was as much about sculpture as it was about sitting". Photo courtesy of Knoll

Their leather and moulded rosewood lounge chair and ottoman, originally designed for filmmaker Billy Wilder, epitomised that attractive combination. However, Bertoia's gridded metal chair, with its leather cushion, of 1950-1, was as much about sculpture as it was about sitting.

Great Britain quickly followed. Lucienne and Robin Day, Ernest Race, and John and Sylvia Reid were among the protagonists of what the British called the Contemporary Style. Manufacturers, such as Ercol, and retailers, such as Heals, joined their ranks, while the producers of decorative glass and ceramics items employed designers to create new, exciting wares for them.

With its lightly decorated surfaces depicting abstract organic forms inspired by the natural world, Jessie Tait's Primavera dinner service for Midwinter, for example, evoked a new world miles away from the traditional dinnerware that filled so many people's cupboards.

The revival of mid-century modern design

While the mid-century modern design movement owes its origins and meanings to the pioneering designers working in Scandinavia, Italy, the USA and the UK in the 1940s and 1950s, from the perspective of the early 21st century the term embraces a much wider, ever-evolving, range of designs.

In today's vintage furniture stores, pieces by Jacobsen and Eames sit alongside Italian plastic chairs by Vico Magistretti and Joe Colombo from the 1960s and chunky German ceramics from the 1970s.

Robin Day's Forum seating design represents Britain's Contemporary Style. Photo courtesy of Case Furniture

While different in style, for today's consumers, the designs from the 1960s and 1970s embrace the same spirit of modernity and optimism as the earlier pieces.

That spirit died, arguably, when, from the 1970s onwards, the cycle of retro styles – from arts and crafts to art nouveau to art deco to Bauhaus – came into being and optimism was replaced by nostalgia for past models of modernity.

By the 1990s, it was mid-century modern's turn to be revived. Seemingly, however, it managed to buck the trend of ever-changing fashionable retro styles as, in the mid-2020s, the power of that historical design movement remains as strong as ever.

The optimism of its early protagonists still speaks to many people who seek to remain upbeat in the face of countless contemporary challenges – from the climate crisis to economic inequality, to migration, to the threat of global war. There are no signs as yet that that power is beginning to fade.

 

Mid-century modern

This article is part of Dezeen's mid-century modern design series, which looks at the enduring presence of mid-century modern design, profiles its most iconic architects and designers, and explores how the style is developing in the 21st century.

This series was created in partnership with Made – a UK furniture retailer that aims to bring aspirational design at affordable prices, with a goal to make every home as original as the people inside it. Elevate the everyday with collections that are made to last, available to shop now at made.com.

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"I love mid-century modern but it makes me sad"

Mid-century modern design may meet our needs even more now than when it first appeared, but that doesn't mean we should idolise the style, writes John Jervis.

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/23/love-mid-century-modern-makes-me-sad/

I love mid-century modern, but it makes me sad. In its beauty and simplicity, it speaks of postwar optimism, and a belief in a better world – one of prosperity and peace, with large homes and larger pay packets. It's not the fault of a bunch of attractive designs that this proved to be a mirage, even a fraud. But mid-century modern was wrapped up in that delusion, even contributed to it. And the design industry enjoyed, and continues to enjoy, the ride just a little too much.

In the 1950s, mid-century modern design promised a lifestyle free from markers of wealth and privilege, free of decorative excess, of clutter and dirt, free from the past. In reality, there were few progressive ideals involved. Before the war, modernist designers had struggled to bring their ideas to mass production, but still sought to raise living standards in cities, designing 'minimum dwellings' with floorplans, kitchens and furnishings calculated to maximize space and improve lives.

Their postwar successors – all those heroic, big-name designers we celebrate as prophets of a modern, democratic future – turned out to be less public-spirited. When mass production of modernist designs became a reality, they chose lucrative careers working, almost exclusively, for high-end manufacturers.

Then, as now, class was deeply embedded in design's power

And those manufacturers rarely considered, pursued or achieved affordability or accessibility, and still don't. There may well be perfectly justifiable arguments – and realities – around balancing profitability, quality and investment, and achieving sustainability. Yet it is fair to say that most such companies have never sought a mass consumer market – the sort of market that would erode the cachet and returns of their intellectual property. Then, as now, class was deeply embedded in design's power, even as its pioneers proclaimed the advent of a classless era.

To be fair, that worked both ways. The golden age of mid-century modern design barely stretches a couple of decades, partly because it was never that popular. Even when incomes grew, and aspirational furnishings became just about affordable, most consumers turned not to sanctioned 'good design', but to products with other, perhaps more important, meanings – nostalgia, craft, ornament, community, warmth.

To the despair of critics, heavy 'baroque' furniture remained the preferred choice of consumers during the German economic miracle, while Americans showed a similar predilection for colonial styles. In the heyday of the Italian furniture industry, many manufacturers stuck to an aesthetic decried by Domus editor Ernesto Rogers as 'Cantu Chippendale'.

Just as tellingly, when the wider population of mid-century modern poster child Finland was finally able to afford the country's furniture, the new 'Tower' suite was the immediate bestseller. Released in 1971, this three-piece sofa-armchair combo – a typology anathema in design circles – adopted a traditional 'English style', with comfortable upholstery and oak veneer over foam and chipboard. It turned out that imported British TV shows were more influential than lecturing from design's great and good about a modernist canon.

In the postwar era, that great and good – a pale, male and privileged elite – secured its status rapidly, with a raft of government- and industry-backed organizations such as Britain's Council of Industrial Design and the Industrial Designers Society of America, all dedicated to imposing universal standards of 'good design'.

Soon, even receptive audiences – including many young designers – began to find both the discourse and the results tedious, turning to Victoriana, pop and eventually postmodernism as the 1960s progressed. Some rejected 'design' in its entirety, looking to alternative culture instead, epitomised by the success of the Whole Earth Catalog.

Why has mid-century modern now become the default style for contemporary interiors?

The reasons behind changes in taste are always hard to pinpoint, but in this instance, it seems many were looking for a richness, diversity, vibrancy and meaning in their lives that mid-century modern was failing to provide – an opportunity to express their personality and creativity through their home decor. So why has mid-century modern now become the default style for contemporary interiors? As with Victorian design's comeback in the 1960s, or art deco in the 1980s and brutalism in the 2000s, such revivals are far from unusual, but it's still curious that mid-century modern meets our needs more than during its heyday.

Some of that may be practical. As more and more of us are crammed into ever smaller homes, squeezing a spindly faux-mid-century modern desk into a bedroom is more realistic than some glorious art deco behemoth. And, as we constantly move from space to space, its lightness and modularity make perfect sense. Other reasons are less tangible, less knowable – perhaps mid-century modern offers a clarity, calm and sense of control that is hard to find in the rest of our lives.

The financial equation hasn't changed over the decades, though. Manufacturers still have a tight grip on their 'originals', leaving the vast majority of us buying knock-offs, or flat-packed imitations, as we attempt to Marie Kondo our existence.

But how long will everyone want to live in these ranks of pristine waiting rooms? My aspirations for a mid-century modern bachelor pad – a Julius Shulman photo on the cheap – have long since fallen away. Leaving behind that quest for a lifestyle that never existed in the first place has improved my lot considerably. It is the (slightly mannered) accumulation of battered paperbacks in the Penguin donkey and the coffee stain on the Aalto stool that give them their charm. And their submersion in the general detritus of life gives them context and meaning.

Maybe we just don't need another generation of Eames loungers

And there is another thing that might speed up a mid-century modern rethink. In promotional literature, its timelessness and durability have long been trumpeted as the route to a sustainable future. Perhaps this claim is no longer quite so convincing. Regenerative and circular design requires us to instead embrace age, imperfection, decay, decomposition, even odour – to view products as a passing moment in the life of a material, with longevity as a potential drawback. So maybe we just don't need another generation of Eames loungers.

In this context, mid-century modern's 'timeless perfection' can seem a cold quality, one throwing a harsh light on our own imperfections and frailties – our human nature – while overlooking our concern with and capacity for joy. The obsessive repetition of this mantra, and of outdated concepts of 'good design', invites the backlash that brought mid-century modern design to a shuddering halt last time round, viewed as sterile, inflexible, lifeless.

Certainly, like so many others, I will always find mid-century modern beautiful, even sublime, and I've got my eyes on a few more alluring examples. But I wouldn't want too much of it in my life.

Main photography by Joe Fletcher.

John Jervis is a writer, editor, project manager and ghost writer across a range of media, including Icon, Frame, RIBA Journal, Apollo, ArtAsiaPacific, Thames & Hudson, ACC, WePresent, Laurence King and others. He has just published his first book, 50 Design Ideas You Really Need to Know, with Greenfinch Books.

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Eero Saarinen's Tulip table has "a kind of dishonesty to it"

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/10/eero-saarinen-tulip-table-mid-century-modern/

Next in our mid-century modern series, we examine Eero Saarinen's seminal Tulip table, which embodied the Finnish-American designer and architect's hatred of table legs.

"The undercarriage of chairs and table in a typical interior makes an ugly, confusing, unrestful world," Saarinen remarked. "I wanted to clear up the slum of legs."

The designer achieved his vision in 1957 through the Pedestal Group, more commonly known as the Tulip collection. While a stool and a famous chair were also included, it was the table that arguably became the most influential.

Also known as the Pedestal table, the Tulip table is among the most famous mid-century modern design pieces. Photo by Joe Fletcher

Produced continuously by American furniture brand Knoll since its release and counterfeited countless times, the table is described by Dominic Bradbury in his Mid-Century Modern Design: A Complete Sourcebook as "one of the most recognizable and successful pieces of furniture of the mid-century period".

Cast in enamelled aluminium, the table's sculptural single leg – its pedestal – resembles the stem of a wine glass, flaring as it meets the floor and the underside of the round tabletop.

Saarinen went to great lengths to achieve the clean, curving look that he wanted. Photo courtesy of Knoll

"There are no angles to break the sweep of the observer's eye along the pedestal," Saarinen wrote in the patent filing for the table.

"These designs have a very restful and pleasing effect on an observer, particularly when used in conjunction with chairs of corresponding design."

Architecture and design curator Donald Albrecht, who has authored a book on Saarinen and is the proud owner of a white marble-topped Tulip table, disagrees with the designer on that point, however.

Saarinen's (right, with Florence Knoll) designs have been continuously manufactured by Knoll. Photo courtesy of Knoll

"I actually think they go better with other pieces of furniture," he told Dezeen. "To me, the table and the chairs are too much. It's just too much curving, too much sculpture."

Albrecht instead matches his Tulip table with Bertoia chairs wrapped in purple fabric.

"Its success is that on the one hand, it's unique, and on the other hand, it plays well with others," Albrecht went on. "And that's why I think it's always been so successful."

Around the time he was developing the Tulip, Saarinen was also building the TWA Flight Center. Photo by Atosan via Shutterstock

Around this point in his career, Saarinen was working primarily as an architect, including on his best-known building project – the TWA Flight Center at New York's Idlewild Airport, later to be renamed John F Kennedy International Airport.

Many design historians have noted that the sculptural curves of the TWA terminal and the David S Ingalls Rink at Yale University, which was also designed by Saarinen and opened in 1958, bear distinct stylistic similarities to the Tulip collection.

Engineering challenge

Embodying the futuristic tendencies of the mid-century modern style, the Tulip table was also a significant moment in the trend for innovation and ambition in furniture design during the period.

Facilitated by advances in material and manufacturing technology, the humble table underwent a revolution during the 1950s and '60s, and more single-legged tables began to emerge in the years after the Tulip.

Despite its aesthetic simplicity, the Tulip table was a relatively involved work of engineering and underwent many rounds of prototyping.

Saarinen faced a major challenge in achieving the "restful and pleasing" effect he wanted using the materials available at the time. It was not easy to make a large table that balanced such visual lightness with sufficient sturdiness.

Curator Donald Albrecht believes the Tulip's blend of uniqueness and versatility is what makes it so successful. Photo by Gilbert McCarragher

"The pedestal contours employed in these designs do not lend themselves readily to manufacture by conventional methods," he wrote in the patent filing.

"If made with conventional structures, tables employing these design contours would be top heavy and hence would have a tendency toward instability."

As a result of these difficulties, embedded within the Tulip table is a little-known deceit.

The table has been manufactured in multiple shapes and finishes by Knoll continuously since its release. Image courtesy of Knoll

"You could not technically achieve in 1957 what he wanted, which was an all-plastic table," said Albrecht. "The plastic wasn't strong enough."

As a result, look at the underside of the Tulip table and you may spot a roundup piece of white-painted plywood supporting the top.

"The Eameses would have never done that," joked Albrecht. "There's a kind of dishonesty to it. He was more interested in the effect, and he got that."

In his patent filing for the Tulip table, Saarinen said it could not be produced using "conventional methods"

Albrecht suggests the Tulip designs may have been an influence on Danish designer Verner Panton's famous eponymous chair, which became the first chair manufactured from a single piece of plastic when it went into production in 1967.

Saarinen died during an operation to remove a brain tumour six years before the advent of the Panton chair.

"Had he continued to work he probably would have done all-plastic furniture like Panton," said Albrecht.

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Florence Knoll Bassett "led an office revolution"

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/24/florence-knoll-office-design-mid-century-modern/

As part of our mid-century modern series, we portray Florence Knoll Bassett, who transformed how we think of office design with her streamlined furniture and leadership of design brand Knoll.

Under Knoll, Florence Knoll, as she was then called, brought modern lines and a human-centric design ethos to the American office environment. As well as leading the company's interior design arm, the Planning Unit, she designed furniture for its collections and developed its aesthetic identity.

She was also known for professionalising the mid-century interior design industry, combining her extensive architectural training with an eye for form and combatting the notion that interior design was the same as decorating.

Florence Knoll (left) worked with designers and architects including Eero Saarinen. Photo courtesy of Knoll

In a 1964 New York Times article about her, titled "Woman Who Led an Office Revolution Rules an Empire of Modern Design; Florence Knoll Gave Business 'Living' a New Look", she said that offices had changed from being 'decorated' to being designed.

"I am not a decorator," she said in the article. "The only place I decorate is my own house."

Knoll was founded by Florence Knoll's husband Hans Knoll, who was in the process of developing the company in New York City when the pair met in 1941.

In 1943, Florence Knoll joined the burgeoning company as a designer and soon after became a full business partner upon the couple's marriage in 1944.

Today, Knoll is known for its portfolio of office furniture, including notable designs such as the Barcelona Chair by Mies van der Rohe, the Wassily Lounge Chair by Marcel Breuer, and the Womb Chair by Eero Saarinen – three pieces Florence Knoll commissioned herself through her many long-standing connections in the architecture world.

She also created seating, tables, and storage systems for office interiors that were meant as "fill-in" pieces – uncomplicated designs that complemented the more flashy products by her peers.

"People ask me if I am a furniture designer," she said. "I am not. I never really sat down and designed furniture. I designed the fill-in pieces that no one else was doing. I designed sofas because no one was designing sofas."

Among her best-known pieces are the T Angle series of tables, which were constructed from a steel base and have laminate tops. These include a dining table, coffee tables and numerous other versions.

Her Executive Desk, part of her Executive series and also known as the Partner's Desk, with its rosewood top and splayed chrome-plated steel base, still looks modern today and is still produced by Knoll.

Planning Unit specialised in corporate office interiors

Her Lounge Collection, created in 1954, also epitomizes her approach. It encompassed a tufted lounge chair, sofa, settee, and bench that sat upon geometric, metal frames.

Today, these pieces are treasured additions to household or corporate spaces, but Florence Knoll originally created them as a backdrop for the office interiors she designed while she led the Knoll Planning Unit.

Founded by Florence Knoll in 1946, the Planning Unit consisted of a small group of Knoll designers that created corporate office interiors for prominent companies such as the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Cowles Publications and CBS.

Led by Florence Knoll's exacting eye, the small team was tasked with designing furniture, textiles and objects for a space.

Florence Knoll designed the interiors for the CBS building in New York

In the 1960s, Florence Knoll designed the interiors of a new CBS headquarters in New York City, housed in a black-clad skyscraper by friend Eero Saarinen.

"Her job embraces everything from the choice of wall coverings – sometimes felt or tweed for the sake of acoustics – to ashtrays, pictures and door handles," the New York Times said of her involvement in the project.

"She has led people to see that texture in fabrics can be as interesting as a print (she dislikes prints) and that steel legs on tables, chairs and sofas can have grace and elegance."

Bespoke pieces usually custom-made for interior projects

The bespoke furniture that Florence Knoll designed for projects such as the CBS headquarters would then be folded into the Knoll catalogue.

"The spaces suggest the furniture, and sometimes that furniture was not in our catalog," Vincent Cafiero, an early member of the Planning Unit, said.

During this period, Florence Knoll also started a textile program at the company, which would become Knoll Textiles. This saw her develop a "tagged sample and display system", a technique used industry-wide today.

As Knoll grew, Florence Knoll would also shape much of the company's identity and practices.

She worked with designer Herbert Matter to create branding for Knoll, including its advertisements, stationary and logo, imbuing its branding with the same straightforward style as her personal work.

Florence Knoll also filled the company's catalogue with commissions from her many connections, gathered during her architectural training at schools including he Cranbrook Academy of Art, Columbia University, Architectural Association and Illinois Institute of Technology.

Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona chair is among the pieces commissioned by Florence Knoll. Photo by Adrià Goula

Born and raised in Michigan, her training began in earnest at age 12, when Florence was orphaned after the death of her father at age 5 and mother at 12.

Her guardian encouraged her to choose a boarding school, where the young Florence chose the Kingswood School for Girls, a school on the same grounds as Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Eilel Saarinen, Cranbrook's then headmaster and designer of both schools, noticed Florence's interest in architecture and eventually "virtually adopted" Florence into the Saarinen family, according to Knoll.

Mies van der Rohe was "teacher and friend"

She would go on to befriend his son, Eero, and other prominent designers during her studies and beyond including Charles Eames, Harry Bertoia, Isamu Noguchi and George Nakashima.

Florence was also mentored by architects Alvar Aalto, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer.

Designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who she studied under at the Illinois Institute of Technology, had perhaps the most lasting influence on her style, as seen in her methodical, detail-oriented approach.

"Like her teacher and friend Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Ms Knoll Bassett's attention to detail was all-encompassing, relentless, and, over time, the stuff of legend," said Knoll.

Her colleagues held her "unerring" taste in high regard.

"Each time I go East I see something you have done," wrote Charles Eames in a 1957 letter to Florence Knoll. "It is always good, and I feel grateful to you for doing such work in a world where mediocrity is the norm."

Upon Hans Knoll's sudden death in 1955, Florence Knoll took over leadership of the company as president until 1960, when she switched back into a design and development role and moved to Florida with her second husband Henry Hood Bassett.

She officially retired from the company in 1965 at age 48.

Under her five years as president Knoll doubled in size, cementing its status as a leader in the design industry.

"[Florence Knoll] probably did more than any other single figure to create the modern, sleek, postwar American office, introducing contemporary furniture and a sense of open planning into the work environment," wrote The Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger in 1984.

In 1961, Florence Knoll became the first woman to receive the Gold Medal for Industrial Design from the American Institute of Architects, and in 2003 she was presented with the National Medal of Arts.

"We have lost one of the great design forces of the 20th century," Goldberger said when Florence Knoll died in 2019. "Florence Knoll Bassett may have done more than anyone else to create what we think of as the 'Mad Men' design of the midcentury modern workspace."

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Charles and Ray Eames changed the landscape of design with "just a few chairs and a house"

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/22/charles-ray-eames-changed-design-mid-century-modern/

We continue our series on mid-century modern design with a profile of Ray and Charles Eames, the duo that championed a functional and democratic approach to design.

Their iterative, materials-focused approach saw the designers harness mass-production techniques in an attempt to create what would be enshrined in their motto as "the best for the most for the least" – including the world's first moulded plastic chair, the Shell chair.

The designers created the world's first moulded plastic chair. Photo courtesy of Eames Office

The Eameses were not interested in innovation for innovation's sake, but as a means of problem-solving, and making the solutions available to all.

As Ray Eames herself would put it, "what works is better than what looks good. The looks good can change, but what works, works."

This perhaps explains how their studio Eames Office achieved a remarkable impact with a comparatively modest output. As architect Peter Smithson would remark to the magazine Architectural Design in 1966, it was with "just a few chairs and a house" that Charles and Ray Eames were able to profoundly impact the landscape of design.

The Eames Elephant was designed as part of a group of animal stools for children. Photo courtesy of Vitra

Charles Eames and Bernice Alexandra "Ray" Kaiser met at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in 1940.

Charles was already an architect who had joined an industrial design fellowship recommended by architect Eliel Saarinen, and Ray was an abstract painter who joined the academy looking to expand her artistic practice.

The two married in 1941 and relocated to Los Angeles to establish their studio Eames Office, initially working out of their apartment in the Westwood neighbourhood.

Early work explored moulded-plywood designs

The early work of the Eameses focused on experimenting with moulded plywood. This had been initiated by a chair they had designed with Finnish architect Eero Saarinen while at Cranbrook, which won first prize in the 1940 Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

Plywood bent along a single curve had long had applications in furniture, but the Eameses were drawn to the possibility of moulding it across three dimensions in order to better contour to the shapes of the human body.

The Eameses wrote in 1953 how "the problem of designing anything is in a sense the problem of designing a tool," and for their furniture, their tools were the patented "Eames process" and a homemade device they called the Kazaam! Machine.

Named after the fact that it worked "like magic", the Kazaam! Machine worked by bonding multiple sheets of thin veneer with thermosetting resin around a mould, originally inflatable balloons.

The LCW chair was made from moulded plywood. Photo by Hiart via Wikimedia Commons

While their competition design in 1940 had not been deemed mass produceable, by 1945, the Eameses had developed a range of furniture known as the Plywood Group, most significantly the Lounge Chair Wood or LCW.

This low chair featured an angled, curved seat and a small curved back connected with rubber shock mounts, designed to be comfortable even without the addition of upholstery.

Along the way, these experiments led to what would become other products – the Eames Elephant, for example, was designed in 1945 as part of a group of animal stools for children, and has today been reproduced in plastic.

These same plywood-moulding techniques were also used, as Ray put it, "to aid in the war efforts without hurting anyone", creating wooden splints and prototyping a stretcher for use by the military.

Despite the successes of the Plywood Group, the need for low-cost furniture that could be mass-produced after the end of the second world war meant there was still a problem for the Eameses to solve.

In 1948, they proposed a fully moulded shell chair in their entry into the International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design, also sponsored by MoMA.

This was intended to push the organic forms of the Plywood Group even further, creating a singular, curving shape that comprised the seat, back and – for certain models – arms, and could be mass-produced to a consistently high quality and fitted to a variety of different bases.

Fibreglass used for both furniture and architecture

True to form, the Eameses did not want to develop a new material but rather apply an existing one, and the second world war had led to the development glass-fibre reinforced polyester resin, originally used for aircraft radomes and cockpit covers.

The Eameses entry suggested the use of stamped steel, but subsequent iterations saw them arrive at the material of fibreglass via a boat manufacturer, leading to the Fibreglass Chair, the world's first mass-produced plastic chair.

Available both with and without arms, the Fibreglass Chair was lightweight, robust and easy to clean. Colour was a particularly important factor, and initially three were three neutral tones available: greige, elephant hide grey and parchment, soon to be joined by a wide variety of colours.

The Eameses worked in fibreglass to create screens for Eames House. Photography by Leslie Schwartz and Joshua White, courtesy of Eames Office

The Eameses had in fact first used this fibreglass resin in their architectural work, sourcing it from army surplus stores to create screens for their own home, Case Study House 8, also known as the Eames House, in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood of Los Angeles.

The home was commissioned by John Entenza, the owner and editor of Art & Architecture magazine, who in the 1940s initiated the Case Study House programme.

This programme tasked the major architects of the day with creating efficient and cheap prototypes for housing that could meet the housing boom following the end of the second world war – a brief very much in line with the ethos of the Eameses.

Charles had again collaborated with Eero Saarinen on the early design for Case Study House 8 in 1945, which used off-the-shelf materials and components ordered from catalogues.

The Shell chairs are often used in interiors today, like here in Slot House in the UK

Steel shortages, however, meant that the materials were not available for several years, by which time Charles and Ray had re-designed the home to sit more harmoniously on its meadow site.

"The house would make no demands for itself and would serve as a background for life in work, with nature as a shock absorber," described the Eamses.

The finished home was a simple steel-framed rectilinear box, with a Mondrian-like gridded facade of opaque white and coloured panels and large windows.

Inside, the double-height living area was filled with furniture prototypes by the Eameses themselves as well as works by the designers they admired and folk art they had collected on their travels.

For Entenza himself, the Eameses and Saarinen would design Case Study House 9, also known as the Entenza House, in a similar style.

Eames' Case Study Houses were a precursor to high-tech architecture

While few of the Eameses architectural designs made it past the drawing board, their use of standardised materials in the Case Study Houses proved hugely influential, and a precursor to the high-tech style of architecture that would become popular in the UK a decade later.

The Eameses were also interested in photography and film as a means of communicating their work, and the studio would create nearly 200 films.

Some demonstrated their products, such as Fibreglass Chairs – Something of How They Get the Way They Are, and others were more educational, such as Powers of Ten, a short film depicting the scale of the universe in factors of ten – from outer space to a molecule in a man's hand.

After Charles' death in 1978, Ray would continue to run the office and lay the foundations for their legacy until her own death 10 years later (to the day) in 1988.

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"Mid-century homes are a labour of love" say conservation experts

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/23/mid-century-modern-home-preservation-conservation/

The challenges of preserving and upkeeping mid-century modern homes mean many are at risk of demolition, conservation experts tell Dezeen as part of our mid-century modern series.

Open-plan layouts, large windows and aesthetically on-trend fitted furniture are among the attributes found in many mid-century modern houses built from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s that make them sought-after today.

However, experts say that difficulties in maintaining the original building fabric and the challenges of fittings that aren't compatible with modern technology mean mid-century modern homes are especially vulnerable to demolition.

Many mid-century modern homes are at risk of demolition. Above and top: photos of High Sunderland by Dapple Photography courtesy of Loader Monteith

"Mid-century homes are a labour of love," said Liz Waytkus, director of conservation group Docomomo US. "Most people who own them put most of their time into them."

"Mid-century modernism was when we came up with the idea of open concept between the kitchen, the living room and dining room, so they're absolutely what people still want," she told Dezeen.

"Maybe the bathrooms and closets were smaller, but maybe we can learn something about our consumerism and our spending habits."

Mid-century modern houses "underbuilt for the land"

Although many mid-century modern homes have qualities that people today consider desirable, in some cases, they are torn down to make way for larger developments.

A number of notable mid-century modern homes have been razed recently. These include Marcel Breuer's Geller I house in Long Island, demolished to make way for a tennis court, and Craig Ellwood's Zimmerman House in Los Angeles, which was torn down by actor Chris Pratt to build a mansion.

"There are realtors in all 50 US states who specialise in mid-century because there is such a demand," said Waytkus. "It gets trickier when you have a house in a desirable area – the mid-century homes are then considered underbuilt for the land."

Experts say mid-century homes and interiors are desirable today. Photo of Farnsworth House by William Zbaren

Waytkus aims to offer guidance to homeowners navigating the challenges of maintaining mid-century modern homes in the hopes that more of the homes will be well preserved. One of the ways she does this is by connecting them with contractors who have experience working with mid-century materials.

"The earlier examples of modern homes were often made of wood, and wood will last you longer than any of the plastic garbage that you get on the market now," she said. "With a little bit of TLC, that wood could be restored."

"Later, in the 60s and 70s, the materials were more experimental and it takes more time to find the right contractor who understands mid-century homes. Having a knowledgable community is really important to point people in the right direction."

Jon Wright, who is the 20th-century heritage lead at architecture studio Purcell, agreed with Waytkus that mid-century modern interiors are popular are highly sought after today.

"Mid-century modern is really quite desirable now, and it fits very well into modern lifestyles," he said. "The key thing for that is the open-plan nature of it."

"If we were having this conversation 20 years ago, nobody would have been interested in G plan furniture, fitted teak sideboards, open plan living, or anything from the 50s or 60s," he continued.

Lack of mid-century modern conservation reference material

However, he argued that fixtures and fittings from the period are a challenging aspect of home preservation and that there are not enough previous examples for people to reference.

"The fixtures and fittings are not compatible with new technology and new ways of living, particularly in the kitchen," Wright said. "That includes completely new pieces of utility that would not been there before, like dishwashers."

"There's also an issue of knowing how to look after it," he continued. "If one were dealing with the fixtures and fittings of a Victorian or Georgian house, there is a long track record of textbook cases that you could go to – you know what to do because it's been done in another 100 places."

"But there isn't that track record for post-war building conservation. Very often, you're doing things for the first time."

Purcell worked on the conservation of the 1961 Ahm House in Hertfordshire. Photo by James O Davies

Wright emphasised the importance of distinguishing between original features and later alterations when conserving a building.

For mid-century homes, he argues that the most significant features are the building materials, the arrangement of internal spaces and how the project relates to the surrounding landscape.

"Making changes is what conservation is really about – what can I do to this building without messing up what's truly important about it?" he said.

Balance between preservation and future suitability is necessary

UK conservation group Twentieth Century Society director Catherine Croft believes that some alterations are necessary to make mid-century modern homes liveable and long-lasting.

She explained that in some cases, homeowners are told by authorities to preserve impractical home fittings that are sometimes later additions to the house.

"With housing more than anything else, we're sometimes asked to intervene on behalf of owners who feel that they're being given too hard a time by local authority planners and conservation officers – particularly about retention of kitchen fittings that aren't necessarily original," she said.

"It's the sort of cases where we end up saying, maybe back off a little bit. Let's get a balance between preserving the historic fabric and making sure these buildings have a future."

Hassrick House is a mid-century home maintained by Thomas Jefferson University. Photo by Hussain Aljoher

Suzanne Singletary – director of The Center for the Preservation of Modernism and architecture professor at Thomas Jefferson University – hopes to spread awareness of the significant design aspects of mid-century modern homes by using Hassrick House as an example.

Designed by modernist architect Richard Neutra in 1958, the Philadelphia home was sold to Thomas Jefferson University to be used for educational purposes.

Singletary has analysed Hassrick House with her students, documenting how the building's condition declines without proper maintenance.

"The reason why many buildings from this period are being demolished is because it's easier to get rid of it and start all over with newer materials, even though the notion that the greenest building is one already built is true," said Singletary.

"Within the five years since we've purchased Hassrick House, we can see already how quickly the building deteriorates," she continued. "They used novel materials that are often hard to replace and hard to get to a state of equilibrium where they're not decaying any further."

Croft argued that allowing buildings to be listed before they are at risk of being torn down would help protect more mid-century modern houses and would mean they are purchased by people with a desire to maintain them.

"Buildings are only being added to the list if they are threatened with demolition, but it would be infinitely better if a broader upgrading of the listing system was happening on a regular basis," she said.

"It's not really fair that people might buy a property and then subsequently have restrictions placed on it that they weren't anticipating."

There is more of an interest in preserving these types of homes now than ever before, according to experts.

"There's more of an outcry when something from this period is threatened than there ever has been before," added Wright. "That's entirely due to listing and organisations like the 20th Century Society putting their head above the parapet, saying, actually, this stuff is really great."

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Eames Shell chair aims to get "the best to the greatest number of people for the least"

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/11/eames-fiberglass-chair-mid-century-modern-series/

Continuing our series on mid-century modern design, we spotlight the Eames Shell chair, which features a seat that was moulded to the contours of the human body.

Created by design duo Charles and Ray Eames in the summer of 1949, the Eames chair became hugely influential in a period of mass production across the United States.

Produced by furniture company Herman Miller from 1950, the fibreglass chair presented an innovative furniture typology and has become one of the best-known furniture designs of the twentieth century.

Charles and Ray Eames created the first industrially manufactured plastic chair. Photo courtesy of Vitra

The chair is defined by its organically shaped shell made from glass fibre-reinforced polyester resin, a type of plastic that the couple started working with after it was developed by the US military.

Its seat was moulded to embrace the contours of its user and is raised on a network of steel or wooden legs.

The smooth form of the one-piece seat dips towards the rear, before rising up to form its backrest, which tilts backwards and tapers inwards to cradle the user.

The Shell chair was the latest in a line of chairs designed by Ray and Charles Eames, who met at the Cranbrook Academy of Art before marrying in 1941 and moving to Los Angeles where they established the design studio Eames Office.

The chairs feature shell seats moulded to the contours of a human body. Photo by James Brittain

The duo's first chair was the plywood Lounge Chair Wood, created in 1945, which showcased new ways of working with plywood.

Continuing their material experiments, in 1948, they created the first prototype for the Shell chair, which won second place in the Low-Cost Furniture Design competition organised by the Museum of Modern Art.

Following the win, the designers conducted experiments in search of a cheaper and more practical material for mass-produced furniture, which ultimately led to their use of fibreglass.

"The point was not fiberglass, the point was the 'need,'" Eames Office director Eames Demetrios told Dezeen.

"It was a belief that if you could harness the cost – for example: no upholstery cost –, comfort and elegance efficiencies of making the seat and back one, you would fulfill a need people may not have even realized they had."

The fibreglass armchair curves upwards at its sides to form an armrest. Photo courtesy of Vitra

Integral to the success of the Eames Shell chairs was their ability to be mass-produced, which reflects the duo's goal of "getting the most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least", as Charles Eames said in a LIFE magazine interview in 1950.

A number of variations of the original Eames chairs, which become known as the Plastic Group, enhanced their adaptability and multifunctional qualities and have contributed to their endured success.

Among the first iterations to be launched was the Shell armchair. Also made from moulded fibreglass, the Shell armchair features an ergonomic seat that curves upwards at its sides to form an armrest.

The designers also created a side chair for the collection, which became the first mass-produced plastic chair in the history of furniture.

The chairs were later available in a range of different colours. Photo courtesy of Herman Miller Archives

The original fibreglass seats were designed to be combined with a variety of bases – including a four-legged base made from steel and a rocker – to enable various seating positions.

"The role of the designer is that of a very good, thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests," Charles Eames said.

The rocker was used to create the Rocking Armchair Rod (RAR), developed in 1950, which features a swaying seat sat on a network of steel rods connected to birch rockers.

The Rocking Armchair was developed in 1950. Photo courtesy of Vitra

The colour range of the Shell chairs was also expanded from the original three colours of elephant-grey, greige and parchment to up to 30 colours.

Due to its environmental impact, the use of fibreglass for the shell chairs was discontinued first by Herman Miller in 1989 and later by Vitra, which is the partner to the Eames Office for Europe and the Middle East, in 1993.

Both companies began to instead use polypropylene as an alternative for their production.

A Herman Miller x Hay collaboration aims to create "designs for a new generation". Photo courtesy of Herman Miller

Working through the 1950s and 60s, the Eameses moved into other furniture typologies. Among these is the Model 671 ottoman chair, made from rosewood plywood, aluminium and leather upholstery in 1956, which has become another classic.

Their design expertise later expanded to architecture, with the creation of the two-storey Case Study House #8, known as Eames House, which became one of the most influential mid-century modern houses.

Since the passing of Charles in 1978 and Ray in 1988, the shell chairs remain in production through a collaboration between the Eames Office and its product partners Herman Miller and Vitra.

Continued demand and popularity of the Eames chairs have led to their evolution over the years.

"It lasts today, because the Eameses focussed on the need, not a pre-selected solution," Demetrios concluded. "This allowed them and now us at the Eames Office today to thoughtfully improve the chair with more eco-friendly plastics."

"And even now, we have made the chair with post-consumer recycled plastic. All the same chair that they envisioned decades ago."

In January of this year, Vitra launched the Eames Plastic Chair RE range, which sees a shift to recycled plastic for the manufacturing of the chairs' shells.

The chair also lives on in collaborations, such as the recent Herman Miller x Hay range. This encompasses eight Eames chairs that were reimagined by Danish design brand Hay to create "Eames designs for a new generation".

The photography is courtesy of Eames Office unless otherwise stated.

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Charlotte Perriand's Bibliothèques countered the "quite elitist" furniture she created for Le Corbusier

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/21/charlotte-perriands-bibliotheques-tunisie-mexique/

The latest story in our mid-century modern series explores how designer Charlotte Perriand stepped out of the shadow of her mentor Le Corbusier in the 1950s and created a pioneering modular storage system.

Originally developed on a small budget for even smaller rooms in two new student halls at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, the storage system featured a flat-pack wooden frame with modular compartments made of folded aluminium.

The standardised, industrially produced metal components could be lacquered in different colours and assembled in different configurations, creating storage with unprecedented adaptability.

At Steph Simon Gallery in Paris, where the public could purchase the bookcases or Bibliothèques from 1956, Perriand even sold these compartments individually, alongside other modular "hardware" like shelves, trays and sliding panels.

The designer briefly lived in Japan. Photo Jacques Martin/AChP courtesy of Scheidegger & Spiess

These could be used to customise the shelving system – and other furniture like desks and wardrobes – to the needs of the owner.

"Although revolutionary, this concept of kit furniture adaptable by the customer did not achieve the expected success," explained the catalogue of a 2005 exhibition on the designer's work at the Centre Pompidou.

"Undoubtedly too far ahead of her time, Charlotte Perriand did not realize that the public was not yet ready for so much freedom."

It wasn't until the 1990s, when they started showing up on auction blocks in Paris and New York, that the Bibliothèques would become a "cult piece of design furniture", according to Jacques Barsac, who oversees the Archives Charlotte Perriand alongside the designer's daughter.

Today, the original shelving units sell for upwards of €100,000 at auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's, with some fetching over €500,000.

But when Perriand originally created the shelving in 1952 for the new Jean Sebag-designed Maison de la Tunisie student halls in Paris, the budget covering all the furniture for the rooms including a bed, desk, chair and wardrobe was a mere 150,000 francs.

Perriand adapted the idea for the Maison du Mexique. Image courtesy of Phillips

Crucial to the relative affordability of her storage units were their prefabricated aluminium modules, mass-produced in the metal workshop of architect Jean Prouvé in Nancy.

These metal compartments weren't just decorative but actually supported the shelves and braced the whole furniture piece, reducing the need for more expensive, hand-crafted wooden components.

The Bibliothèques were a marked departure from the tubular steel seating Perriand had created for architect Le Corbusier's studio in the 1920s. These include the iconic 4 chaise longue, previously known as the LC4 Chaise Longue, which proved too expensive to produce in large numbers.

"It was quite elitist because only a very small volume of pieces could be made," said Dominic Lutyens, author of Design Monograph: Perriand. "They were very expensive and so had a very limited audience."

"But there was a point at which Perriand felt that design should be a lot more democratic," he told Dezeen. "And one way in which that could happen for her was through the use of prefabrication."

Fondation Louis Vuitton recreated a Maison de la Tunisie bedroom. Photo by Marc Domage courtesy of the Fondation Louis Vuitton

In light of the post-war housing crisis, space-saving shelving became a primary concern for many mid-century designers. And Perriand was among the most prolific, leading French newspaper Le Monde to dub her the "high priestess of storage".

"Storage is a priority," Perriand said at the time. "It must be resolutely industrialised."

Perriand designed her Bibliothèques to make the most of the compact bedrooms in the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris student halls, measuring only 15 square metres.

"She enumerated what was necessary for a student’s daily life: shoes, clothing, bed covers, files, books, et cetera, whose dimensions she took down so as to be as exact as possible in the storage volumes," Barsac wrote in Charlotte Perriand: Complete Works.

Like many of her pieces, the Bibliothèque Maison de la Tunisie was designed to fulfil multiple functions at the same time, with one of its shelves extending to form a bench seat.

Similarly, the adapted storage unit that Perriand created for Jorge Medellin's Maison du Mexique, which followed a few months later, functioned as a freestanding partition between the bedroom and bathroom.

Accessible from both directions, it provided storage for toiletries on one side and books on the other, either proudly displayed or hidden away behind sliding doors.

"She really pioneered open-plan spaces," Lutyens said. "One of Perriand's room sets for fairs in the 1920s used storage cabinets as room dividers so conceptually, she was quite ahead of her time in this respect."

Perriand created many variations of the Nuage bookcase including one with a built-in radio and bar. Courtesy of AChP via Scheidegger & Spiess

The individual components for the shelving were flat-packed and ultimately assembled on-site by cabinetmaker Jean Chetaillecuts, who also created their wooden structure.

Perriand went on to create myriad variations of the design under the title Nuage, meaning cloud in French, produced and sold by Galerie Steph Simon until 1970.

The name is a nod to the original inspiration behind the design, which she found in the Sukiya-style cabinets of Kyoto's 17th-century imperial villas.

"I noticed some shelves arranged on the walls in the form of a cloud," said the designer, who went to Tokyo in 1940 as war was breaking out in Europe to consult on a Ministry for Commerce programme focused on modernising Japanese crafts for export.

"This is where my cloud-shaped bookshelves came from with aluminium connecting elements, a free form that gives rhythm to space and enhances the objects it supports," she wrote in her autobiography. "Starting from these elements, I could freely create entire walls or reduced combinations, or even furniture."

The Nuage bookcase was originally sold by Galerie Steph Simon. Photo by Marie Clérin via Galerie Downtown-François Laffanour and Scheidegger & Spiess

Like so many works by women in the European modern movement – including Perriand's designs for Le Corbusier – her family says Nuage was later falsely credited in part to Jean Prouvé and was embroiled in a lengthy legal dispute before being reissued by Italian furniture brand Cassina in 2012.

"Charlotte gave her whole life for her copyright to be recognized," her daughter Pernette Perriand told Domus at the time of the launch.

"The money from the Cassina reissues allowed Charlotte to live and write books, to organize exhibits and keep the memory of her work alive, maintaining the archives."

Today, Perriand is considered one of the most influential designers of the 20th century, with several high-profile exhibitions at London's Design Museum and the Fondation Louis Vuitton reappraising her work in recent years.

The show in Paris featured a full-scale recreation of a Maison de la Tunisie bedroom and marked the first time the whole Frank Gehry-designed gallery was given over to the work of a single artist.

Unless otherwise stated, all imagery is from volumes two and three of Charlotte Perriand: Complete Works by Jacques Barsac, courtesy of Scheidegger & Spiess.

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Mid-century designers and engineers "envisioned the future" at GM's Tech Center

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/30/gms-tech-center-mid-century-saarinen/

The Warren Technical Center in Michigan, the first solo project by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen, showcased the unity of mid-century architecture, design and engineering in the United States.

Completed in 1956 in a small town outside of Detroit, the headquarters comprises a number of administrative, testing and design facilities for General Motors (GM).

Driven by GM head of design Harley Earl, the campus was meant to create an environment for innovation, with every aspect reflecting the company's high standard of design.

The Warren Technical Center is a hub for General Motor's research divisions

"[Earl] created the first automotive design department that would be able to apply aesthetic considerations to a mass-produced, industrial product," GM curator and archivist Natalie Morath told Dezeen.

"This approach to design consideration continued with the Tech Center project and the architecture that would support the organization, from the large scale of the entire campus, down to the smallest detail – like the chairs that designers sat in – and was very much a shared priority of Eero Saarinen," she added.

The centre was built in the context of the post-war economic boom in the country, which coincided with many European architects and mass-produced consumer items exploding in popularity.

Eero Saarinen created a masterplan for the campus in the 1950s

Many of the more than 30 buildings designed by Saarinen were rendered in the International Style, with some aesthetic flourishes such as the silver-coloured Design Dome and Auditorium.

Saarinen was tasked by Earl to design the campus to reflect the future-looking ethos of the company at the time and to facilitate the industrial design and engineering taking place there.

The Design Center and other administrative buildings were built in the International Style

"The campus needed to immediately communicate to visitors the significance of GM as an American company, and it needed to reinforce its vital role in the future," said Morath.

"As incredibly practical as it may be, the campus also must function as a bit of a dream world, where designers and engineers are inspired to envision the future."

Many mid-century furniture designers created pieces for the headquarters

The buildings themselves feature clean lines and industrial detailing on the outside, with colourful spaces and a mix of natural and industrial materials spread throughout the interiors.

Many have sculptural staircases at the centre that highlight the openness of the space.

Saarinen and Earl also collaborated with some of the leading names in mid-century furniture design at the time, such as the Eamses, Harry Bertoia, and Florence Knoll, modulating their popular designs to fit the needs of the campus.

Earl commissioned Danish designer Finn Juhl to design a chair for his personal office.

According to Morath, the campus functions more like a small town than a traditional business centre, with roads and other facilities for the staff.

Saarinen worked with American landscape architect Thomas Dolliver Church to carry out the vision, including plantings as well as reflecting pools.

"It was the type of project where one architect was providing a vision for a really large space, a holistic vision, where all the buildings and all the landscaping – everything would work together," said Morath.

It was a demonstration of mid-century design on a large scale

The scheme included the integration of large-scale works of art, such as a water fountain by American sculptor Alexander Calder, which was recently restored in line with efforts to revamp the historical aspects of the campus alongside new builds.

This integration of functional and artistic elements in aspects of the campus can also be seen in the futuristic, aluminium-clad water tower on the site.

Today, Saarinen's structures are a reminder of the mid-century roots of the campus

The Tech Center was where many of the concept cars and experimentations in post-war automobile technology were designed for GM.

During this time, the design team at GM developed the first three futuristic Firebird concept cars, and the building was often used as a prop to underline GM's focus on modern design.

"Photoshoots were staged on campus, using the Eero Saarinen-designed buildings as backdrops, further driving home the message that the architecture of the campus was as future-oriented as the concept vehicles," said Morath.

Since its construction, the campus has also undergone significant expansions, which, according to Morath, was part of the original brief.

GM still references the mid-century architecture in its new buildings

"Eero Saarinen's original design was a highly functional and highly specialized industrial campus that was intended to meet GM's needs at the time, and accommodate its needs in the future, whatever those might be," she said.

The campus showcased what it meant for mid-century design concepts, such as organic shapes and flexible design, to be applied at a massive scale.

It also incorporated the Bauhaus principles from earlier in the century, combining a future-looking vision with creating human-oriented spaces for work.

"The campus needed to be large, enclosed and private to protect GM's confidential product development activities, and it needed to inspire its residents to focus on innovating for the future," said Morath.

Saarinen would go on to design a number of other iconic structures in the United States that took on the industrial materials of the age.

Many of the mid-century interiors still look very much like they did more than 60 years ago

The Warren Technical Center has since become an icon in the context of American mid-century architecture and design, integrating as it did Saarinen and Earl's grand visions for an integrated industrial facility.

It has expanded over the years to accommodate the growing facilities, and Morath said that the new buildings are always designed with deference to the original scheme.

In 2014, it was designated as a National Historic Landmark in the United States.

The photography is courtesy of General Motors. 

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Arne Jacobsen "dared to work with modern materials" for Egg chair

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/18/arne-jacobsen-egg-chair-fritz-hansen-mid-century-modern/

Continuing our mid-century modernism series, we take a look at the iconic Egg chair, which was designed by Danish architect Arne Jacobsen in 1958 for the former SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.

Characterised by an oval, upholstered main body supported by a steel insert and a four-pronged aluminium tilt and swivel base, the Egg has been manufactured by Danish furniture brand Fritz Hansen since its inception.

Jacobsen first sculpted the Egg out of hard polyurethane foam instead of shaping it around a traditional wooden or steel frame – an unconventional furniture manufacturing process for its time, positioning the chair as a historic achievement. It was subsequently upholstered in textile and leather variants.

Arne Jacobsen designed the Egg chair in 1958. Top and above: photos courtesy of Fritz Hansen

Jacobsen was the first designer to realise its full potential, according to Arne Jacobsen Design I/S – an organisation founded to preserve the architect's legacy – with Fritz Hansen securing the rights for the foam-based method in the mid-1950s.

The distinctively cocooning chair is considered one of the defining product designs by Jacobsen, who practised as an architect and designer until he died in 1971.

The architect conceived the original Egg in his garage, experimenting with wire, plaster and clay to devise the chair's recognisable scooped shape. It is often said that Jacobsen's inspiration was the 1948 Womb chair, designed by his contemporary, architect Eero Saarinen.

It was created for Copenhagen's former SAS Royal Hotel. Photo courtesy of Fritz Hansen

Christian Andresen, design director at Fritz Hansen, reflected on the significance of the Egg, which highlights a post-war trend in the international design scene when European and American architects began to favour organic shapes crafted from novel materials.

"Jacobsen dared to work with modern materials and was curious about technology and industrial manufacturing, unlike some of his peers who were still focussed on the traditional way of making furniture," he told Dezeen.

"A key characteristic of Jacobsen was his ability to convert his artistic belief in furniture into all of his designs," added the design director.

 

Jacobsen designed every component of the hotel. Photo courtesy of Radisson Collection Royal Hotel

Born in Copenhagen in 1902, Jacobsen is remembered as a pioneer of Danish modernism, with a particular focus on projects that combined his architecture and design.

Among these is Copenhagen's SAS Royal Hotel – today, the recently listed Radisson Royal Collection Hotel – constructed as a hotel-cum-airport terminal for Scandinavian Airlines in 1960. Jacobsen meticulously designed every component of the building, from its rectilinear aluminium and glass facade to the restaurant's stainless steel cutlery and porcelain blue ashtrays.

One of these designs was the Egg, first created for the hotel lobby in 1958 alongside its sister chair the Swan. The generous curves of the furniture were designed in direct contrast to the hotel's strict geometric architecture.

The Egg is known for its enveloping body. Photo courtesy of Radisson Collection Royal Hotel

"Jacobsen had a clear and uncompromising style when designing architecture and a very emotional and organic approach to interiors and the furniture in his projects," considered Andresen. "This was probably uncommon in the 1940s and 50s, making him unique."

"The Egg created an intimate, almost enclosed space, while simultaneously allowing its occupants to swivel around and follow the buzz of the hotel reception," he added.

"Jacobsen often put two to three chairs in a circle to create a bouquet of chairs in an often rigid and structured space, creating an oasis in the room."

It has been made of foam since its inception. Photo courtesy of Fritz Hansen

Dominic Bradbury, author of the 2022 book Mid-Century Modern Furniture, agrees. "The Egg famously provides an enveloping and secure space within a space," he wrote.

In 1958, both the Egg and the Swan were met with positive reviews, highlighting the instant popularity of Jacobsen's modern design approach.

"There was a major do at Fritz Hansen's furniture factory yesterday – almost like a catwalk show with spotlights, flash photography and VIP guests," reported Danish newspaper Politiken shortly after the furniture launched.

The hotel's room 606 has been preserved with its original interiors. Photo courtesy of Radisson Collection Royal Hotel

While the interior of the Radisson Royal Collection Hotel was redesigned, a singular room – number 606 – has been preserved with its original interiors, showcasing the Egg as Jacobsen first intended.

Since its creation, the Egg has remained a design classic, not only in luxury environments. The chair's more unusual settings have ranged from the diary room of the first UK series of reality TV show Big Brother in 2000 to European branches of fast food chain McDonald's.

Despite its consistent appearance, the Egg's manufacturing process has undergone four main changes over the years, and "loads of small constructive updates", said Andresen.

"We are constantly looking for new ways of fine-tuning," he explained.

In the 1960s, Fritz Hansen switched from hard to moulded foam and reinforced the chair with fibreglass. However, fibreglass was phased out in the 1980s, when Fritz Hansen switched to a different type of foam, according to the design director.

"Fibreglass is not very sustainable because it creates a composite construction that cannot be recycled," considered Andresen. "Today, we manufacture the chair in a unique construction of moulded hard and soft foam surrounding the steel inner structure."

The Egg has "an iconic sculptural shape". Photo courtesy of Fritz Hansen

"This ensures a very high level of durability and firm stability. The chair also now has no glue or composites, enabling disassembly and recycling," he added.

Despite these shifts in manufacturing, the Egg has retained its foam body, steel insert and upholstery since 1958.

"We still sew the textile and leather variants by hand so the final finishing has not changed since the beginning," added Andresen. "This also means that the chair can be reupholstered if the surface gets damaged or worn out."

"The Egg chair was, and still is, an iconic sculptural shape and a unique design," concluded the design director. "I think the organic, simple and elegant shape is like a sculpture in a room. It can stand by itself and create a space around it, appearing beautiful from all sides."

The photography is courtesy of Fritz Hansen unless stated otherwise.

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THE MENSWEAR COLLAB

Sunspel X Nigel Cabourn

 

Sunspel has teamed up with renowned British designer Nigel Cabourn for a second time. The collection is inspired by brands’ rich archives and consists of a range of pieces in heritage fabrics. Ventile, a waterproof fabric invented in the 1930s, is used for the mesh-lined jacket which reimagines a 1981 army sports jacket from Cabourn’s archive. There’s a Balmacaan wool-cashmere coat crafted from British-woven wool, plus a wide-neck jumper made from soft merino wool. The capsule is completed by a long-sleeve striped roll-neck and t-shirt, with everything made in Sunspel’s Long Eaton factory.

Visit Sunspel.com

 

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Olive Centre Stripe Wool Knitted Rugby Shirt

https://www.drakes.com/products/olive-centre-stripe-wool-knitted-rugby-shirt

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100 Thieves x adidas Palos Hills 'Red'

https://100thieves.com/products/adidas-originals-palos-hills-shoe-red

2 November 2024

Style Code: JI4306

 

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Clòimh: the new Scottish wool brand that sold out in ten hours

Hollie Mercedes Peters, the influencer who has 200,000 followers and has featured in Vogue, on her new sustainable knitwear label

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/fashion-influencer-builds-her-brand-on-back-of-social-media-fame-j3ctp5vms

This hat by Hollie Mercedes Peters and other examples of her clothing are sourced and made in Scotland but draw on her time in the Netherlands

CLOIMH

 

It is hard to imagine a connection between the banks of Loch Leven and the canal-lined streets of Amsterdam. But Clòimh, the brainchild of Hollie Mercedes Peters, an influencer turned fashion entrepreneur, has created just that.

The new knitwear label is a merger between Peters’ rich Scottish heritage and a modern aesthetic synonymous with the Dutch city.

Clòimh — which means wool in Gaelic — launched this month after Peters and her co-founder spent two years building the brand.

Long scarves are a signature piece in Clòimh’s collections

CLOIMH

 

Twelve items from their inaugural winter collection, called Essence of Scotland, sold out within ten hours. Their red collection and the Aran vest proved particularly popular.

The wool is sourced from Todd & Duncan, a company with 150 years of expertise that is based at the Lochleven mill in Kinross, central Scotland. The mill uses the soft local water to open up the cashmere fibres, and the yarn is spun on modern mules. It claims to be the only Scottish spinner that offers cashmere yarn to fashion houses and manufacturers worldwide.

Grounding the brand even further in Scotland, Peters’ products are made in Irvine, North Ayrshire. “It’s a lot easier to manufacture for a lower price when you leave the UK and Europe but this would not be true to the values of our brand,” she says.

The Scottish wool and textiles industry has been in decline since the 1950s, largely due to the rise of fast fashion and synthetic fibres. Estimates suggest that about 60 per cent of fast fashion items are produced with plastic-based fabrics.

 

Wool prices hit an all-time low in 2021, with sheep farmers receiving between 5p and £3 per kilo.

Clòimh aims to honour Scotland’s textile history by offering high-quality, sustainable products.

Social media has been important in Peters’ journey as an influencer and in creating Clòimh. “My platform motivated me and made me realise that my dreams of having a fashion brand could come to life,” she says.

After a four-year stint at Tommy Hilfiger in Amsterdam, after a degree in product design at Glasgow Caledonian University, she committed to influencing full-time in 2021 and her platform gained huge popularity. She has more than 200,000 followers, has featured in Vogue magazine and has secured partnerships with global brands including Ganni, Pandora and Burberry.

Peters’ own style — a mix of colour, oversized shapes, and classic timeless pieces — is reflected in Clòimh’s premium wool accessories, including hats, scarves, and gloves.

Prices start from £59, which Peters says reflects the quality of the materials and how the clothes are made. Each item in the first collection is also made from a mono-material, making it a more sustainable choice.

Peters and her co-founder, who wishes to remain anonymous, plan to expand Clòimh’s offerings to include a summer collection with “skinny scarves”. There will also be an entry into the homeware market.

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Halloween Nike Dunk Low and Air Force 1

https://www.sneakerfreaker.com/releases/nike-dunk-low-air-force-1-halloween-price-buy-release-date/

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Ruh-Roh! Scooby-Doo Teams up with the PUMA MB.04

https://www.sneakerfreaker.com/performance/releases/scooby-doo-puma-mb-04-310776-01-price-buy-release-date

It’s spooky season and there’s plenty of spine-chilling sneakers for the occasion in 2024. From the Kobe 5 Protro ‘X-Ray’ to the Air Jordan 1 ‘Black Cat’, it’s been a monstrously good year for ghoulish grails. LaMelo Ball is also joining the festivities – not surprising given that the Charlotte Hornet with the fiendish handles boasts some of the most creative colourways in the business. We’ve already glimpsed the 'Jack-o'-Lantern' MB.03 ‘Halloween’, and now it looks like we’re getting a belated Halloween edition of the MB.04 slated for November.

A collaboration with the beloved Scooby Doo franchise, the MB.04 pays homage to the classic mystery-solving cartoon with a pastel palette reminiscent of the Mystery Machine van. 1960s style flower power imbues the uppers with hippy energy, while Scooby-Doo, the venerated Great Dane himself, dribbles a basketball over on the heels. In terms of the engine, the MB.04 utilises PUMA NITRO – the Big Cat's advanced nitrogen-injected foam.

As part of the collection, PUMA are also launching a collection of shorts, tees and hoodies. The entire Scooby-Doo x PUMA collection is scheduled to land on November 27. For more spooky sneakers, make sure to check out the Nike SB Dunk collection that still haunts our dreams!

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LLDS Architects tops self-designed home in Melbourne with curved plywood roof

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/11/04/northcote-house-llds-architects-melbourne/

A curved roof and textured concrete walls characterise Northcote House in Melbourne, designed by local studio LLDS Architects for its founder partners.

Slotted into the site of a former car park measuring 4.6 metres in width and 22 metres in length, the project by LLDS Architects aims to showcase how narrow urban plots can be developed into compact houses.

"At an urban level, we see the project as a renewed terrace typology that can be used to infill underdeveloped land in inner city Melbourne," said studio founders Paul Loh and David Leggett.

"The key design goal is to create a house that supports compact, urban living while still addressing the laneway characteristic," they told Dezeen.

Computer numerically controlled (CNC) manufacturing and robotics were used to create bespoke elements in Northcote House, including the irregularly shaped plywood roof structure, bent trellis facade and internal concrete wall surfaces.

Over 70 per cent of the bespoke features were manufactured by LLDS Architects' sister company, Power to Make, which is located just five kilometres from the site.

"In Northcote House, we wanted to experiment with standard construction techniques using advanced digital fabrication techniques to create a more sustainable construction practice," said Loh and Leggett.

"The outcomes are familiar and yet highly unusual textures and finishes."

An external staircase at the front of Northcote House leads to a raised entrance area, sheltered by the plywood roof that curves between two concrete-block boundary walls.

Glazed doors lead to an open-plan kitchen and dining room on the upper floor, where the arched roof structure is left exposed.

A sculptural curved plywood staircase in the middle of Northcote House descends to the lower floor. Tucked under the stairs is a snug, which creates separation between two bedrooms at either end of the home.

Dark green velvet curtains are used in place of doors in the bedrooms to allow the owner's dog to move more freely.

Interior walls are finished with textured concrete, designed to improve the home's thermal and acoustic performance. The concrete formwork liner, which was used to make its textured surface, was reused as insulation in the roof.

"We used CNC and robotic technologies in this house to create the highly textured concrete internal wall that provides thermal mass and improves the dining room's acoustics by reducing the flutter echo effect caused by the parallel boundary walls," Loh and Leggett explained.

Steel tubes shroud the rear facade and form a balustrade at the front of the home, which doubles as a trellis for climbing plants. The tubes are bent at different angles, creating a three-dimensional effect.

"The 385 steel tubes forming the front and rear facade are hand-bent using augmented reality and form a giant trellis to support vertical greenery and articulate the house's privacy," said Loh and Leggett.

Loh and Leggett added outdoor spaces to the home in the form of a rear courtyard and roof terrace. Next to the terrace is a brown roof, designed to encourage biodiversity on the former brownfield site.

"We wanted to introduce more greenery to the gritty laneway to better support the local ecology," said Loh and Leggett. "The brown roof reduces the urban heat island effect and provides new space to support local ecology in an urban context."

Loh and Legget founded LLDS Architects in Melbourne in 2012. Their self-designed home is among the shortlisted projects in the House (urban) category of this year's Dezeen Awards.

Other houses recently completed in Melbourne include a multi-generational home wrapped in pale bricks and a renovated 1970s bungalow where the architects aimed to preserve the original character.