In the weeks that follow, we will focus on modern design in the US and in Europe specifically.
Reading Assignment
For next week, be sure to make it through at least the first three links posted in the Course Materials area and to check Professor Pepper's blog before class. The fourth link in the content area provides a more detailed account of the evolution of modern design and principle designers and will be referenced over this and the next several weeks.
Written Assignment
As with previous weeks, your written assignment should reflect the main topics discussed during the week. In this case, it should communicate your understanding of the rise of 'mid-century modern' as a design concept/period, principle figures/designers associated with this, and your awareness of key objects/items created during this period.
Texts each link back to course materials found on bb.cazenovia.edu
World events that could not help but impact design in enormous ways:
The Great Depression = OCT 29, 1929 - 1939
The Housing Act of 1937 began to develop projects that had low overhead construction costs.
Link to:
The government built high security factories -- one, near Santa Fe, NM, Los Alamos Scientific Labarotries where the first atomic bomb was built.
Government $ provided to manufacturers towards the production of military efforts - automobiles, guns, radios, etc. With it new types of materials came onto the market including plastics, metal alloys which also gave rise to new boundaries in industrial design. While factory jobs gave individuals hand on experience to develop and work with the new materials.
An unprecedent building construction flourished ; technically high war defense factories, and with them many large communities of new modern homes for the workers to live in.
The war, also brought about the training of women in factories, while husbands, brothers were off fighting.
Rosie the Riveter remains immortalized to this day by Westinghouse Electric's poster. Women at work brought about a hopeful and greater sense of gender equaility.
The Great Depression = OCT 29, 1929 - 1939
The New Deal = 1933 - 1940
By the middle of the 1930's the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration began to bring attention to the housing problem of lower middle class. Many New Deal admins were convinced that decent housing was the right of all American citizens. The Housing Act of 1937 began to develop projects that had low overhead construction costs.
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| All-white Holly Courts, San Franicso, opened in 1940 |
Designed to be temporary housing for the middle class in the 1940s - offering a helping hand to the submerged middle class. Rent was $22.45 / mo. + utilities. (Families of two earned an annual income of about $2,160). Some practiced segregation -- for instance, keeping the Chinese inChinatown, away from such a housing project.
"The official policy was to accept only tenants who conformed to a “neighborhood pattern” — the racial and ethnic demographics of a given neighborhood. Since the city was largely white, minorities were allowed to live in public housing only in a few rundown areas..."
"1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island featured a display put on by the new Housing Authority, complete with models of the not-yet-constructed housing projects and a film made by the U.S. Housing Authority that told the “story of what our dynamic democracy is doing to house our citizens."
Link to:
WWII = 1939 - 1945
The US enters into the war efforts, althought netural at first, ending the Depression in 1939. A system of rationing commodities and using coupon books was put into place to keep prices down for American consumption. The country was now a place for huge economic growth. Industrial designers were devoting efforts towards new technology.
The US enters into the war efforts, althought netural at first, ending the Depression in 1939. A system of rationing commodities and using coupon books was put into place to keep prices down for American consumption. The country was now a place for huge economic growth. Industrial designers were devoting efforts towards new technology.
The government built high security factories -- one, near Santa Fe, NM, Los Alamos Scientific Labarotries where the first atomic bomb was built.
Government $ provided to manufacturers towards the production of military efforts - automobiles, guns, radios, etc. With it new types of materials came onto the market including plastics, metal alloys which also gave rise to new boundaries in industrial design. While factory jobs gave individuals hand on experience to develop and work with the new materials.
An unprecedent building construction flourished ; technically high war defense factories, and with them many large communities of new modern homes for the workers to live in.
The war, also brought about the training of women in factories, while husbands, brothers were off fighting.
Rosie the Riveter remains immortalized to this day by Westinghouse Electric's poster. Women at work brought about a hopeful and greater sense of gender equaility.
Buckminister Fuller's Dymaxion Deployment Units of 1943 were the first galvanized steel used as emergency accomodations for the troops.
The Defense Housing Division was founded in 1941, constructing eight developments of temporary housing.
Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division part of the New Deal 1940-41
Post WWII > America sets the example for economic recovery for the UK and EU - including optimism, wealth and consumer confidence.
Brighter optimism with economic value paves the way for looking at modern design into practical realities on an international scale.
Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division part of the New Deal 1940-41
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| Walnut Grove, South Bend, IN The passing of the National Housing for Defense Act of 1940 (or The Lanham Act) was passed by Congress on OCT 14, 1940, providing $140,000,000 for defense housing construction. Cost per unit not to exceed $3,000.
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Brighter optimism with economic value paves the way for looking at modern design into practical realities on an international scale.
- Post WWII > American designers look at materials that were used in war, especially aircraft and automobile industries
- 1940-1950s Modern design was the "right look" for the new age >> although the Bauhaus presented it two decades prior
- Recall Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Marcel Breuer present the ideas in the 1920s and 1930’s that the forms that would be followed two decades later.
- But why did the earier Bauhaus design not catch on?
Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer 1925
- First tubular steel chair designed for residential use
- It incorporated components of earlier movements:
- Square silhouettes influenced by Cubism
- Intersecting planes influenced by deStijl
- Exposed construction from the Constructivists
- Together, with machine precision
Bauhaus mantra “Form follows Function.”
>> American consumer saw these styles as “cold” and “icy”
>> Americans wanted American design
>> Americans wanted American design
During the Great Depression 1929 - 1939 could not afford the Bauhaus furnishings
And Art Deco produced designs for the rich...
Art Deco designers Süe et Mare (French architect, painter, designer) produced furnishings for wealty customers, and Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann
The Art Deco furnishings
- Contained some of the qualities of the earlier Bauhaus
- Items and expressions of luxury and wealth
- Americans during the Depression were not wealthy
- Art Deco furniture was not for the machine age that post WWII favored
- Using exotic woods from Asia and Africa
- Was never affordable to the masses
Age of Industrial Design
Russel Wright & Ann Wright
in search of a national design aesthetic aligned
with the modern world
Age of Industrial Design - The American Dream
Pre WWII America affordable furniture manufactured by Conant Ball Company’s Modern Living Line 1935
Designed by Russel & Ann Wright - who were designers of Modern design for the masses. They were in constant efforts
towards a national design aesthetic aligned with the modern world.
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| Recall Josef Albers, Bauhaus, Stacking / Nesting Tables 1922 |
Russel Wright's designs for Conant Ball Company’s Modern Living Line 1935
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| Russel Wright's collapsable writing desk/table |
- Produced solid maple furniture
- Marketing was for "Addables" >> excellent marketing strategies as used t/o WWII and beyond
- Pieces could be purchased individually, thus affordablity purchasing one piece at a time
- Each piece visually worked with others in the generic collection providing for flexible arrangements of groups
- The company also featured the first sectional couch
In the late 1930s, Russel Wright gets away from furniture design and concentrates on ceramics. Possess organic forms
American designers: Raymond Loewy, Norman Bel Geddes, Henry Dreyfuss, and Walter Dorwin Teague’s works were streamlined for both the individual consumer and corporations.
Long clean lines, curved at one end to suggest visual speed
Why? This was the essence and symbol of modernity.
Why? This was the essence and symbol of modernity.
Gas pumps, clocks, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, cars, trains, ship, and planes — but furniture lagged behind other types of industrial design
The Homes of tomorrow — visitors could see what was yet to come.
Furniture designs from earlier World’s Fairs: Stockholm 1930, Brussels 1935, Paris 1937 > all ideas for the American designer to see, be impacted by and translate into their own.
WWII broke out 1939 - 1945 Causing furniture industry died out completely in the EU. Some American manufacturers held on.
Bent plywood chair of Alvar Aalto; having one-piece curved plywood back and seat.
The Dutch creating hybrid furniture that serviced cabinets, while incorporating a desk, bookcase, radio and storage for dishes.
The Dutch creating hybrid furniture that serviced cabinets, while incorporating a desk, bookcase, radio and storage for dishes.
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- Remember, America was the new superpower, and fairgoers were being reminded of the projections of superhighways that connected city to city and General Motor’s Futurama cars
- Fairgoers were being tantalized with ideas of harmonious lives of leisure
- The NY World’s Fair suggested a promise of postwar success
- Leading people to understand that such Modern furnishings needed to be in their own homes
** 1940 MoMA in NYC announced its Organic Design in Home Furnishings, a competition that brought many innovative designers submissions.
Link to:
MoMA Learning on Line on ORGANIC DESIGN CONTEST
In 1940, MoMA sponsored a contest challenging designers to submit furniture, lamps, and textiles of “Organic Design,” which curator Elliot Noyes described as exemplifying “harmonious organization of the parts within the whole, according to structure, material, and purpose.”
Winners would not only have their work exhibited in the 1941 exhibition Organic Design in Home Furnishings but were also awarded contracts for manufacture and distribution with major department stores, with the first day of sales timed to coincide with the exhibition’s opening.
This exhibition introduced the world to Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames, who worked together as a team and won in both the chair design (with the iconic Organic Chair) and living room categories.
Link to:
Eames Official Site
YouTube: The Design Genius of Charles & Ray Eames
Link to:
MoMA Learning on Line on ORGANIC DESIGN CONTEST
In 1940, MoMA sponsored a contest challenging designers to submit furniture, lamps, and textiles of “Organic Design,” which curator Elliot Noyes described as exemplifying “harmonious organization of the parts within the whole, according to structure, material, and purpose.”
Winners would not only have their work exhibited in the 1941 exhibition Organic Design in Home Furnishings but were also awarded contracts for manufacture and distribution with major department stores, with the first day of sales timed to coincide with the exhibition’s opening.
This exhibition introduced the world to Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames, who worked together as a team and won in both the chair design (with the iconic Organic Chair) and living room categories.
Link to:
Eames Official Site
YouTube: The Design Genius of Charles & Ray Eames
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Note: Eero Saarinen's name |
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| L Eames & R Saarinen > At the Organic Design MoMA |
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| Saarinen Womb Chair |
Charles & Ray Eames
Eero Saarinen — associated with Cranbrook Design Academy in Michigan present Conversation, Relaxation and Lounging furniture trio.
Characteristics: Organic, fluid shapes and biomorphic in design, their designs became the benchmark for post-war period furniture.
post -WWII as the technology was not available.
Eames & Saarinen used plywood veneers in a new way: layering it, pressing it. This superseded Aalto’s earlier bent plywood chair (the 1930s).
The process of manufacturing happened following the end of the war (5 years following). Each piece possessed the idea of flexibility to the fullest extreme.
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| Ray Eames in plywood leg splints assembly line |
Eames/Saarinen materials were coming out of anything other than an “organic” environment. Instead, they were coming from the same factories that manufactured wartime design research off of assembly lines.
Aircraft industry provided new ways of producing cast plastics, aluminum, and laminating plywoods.
The automobile industry made use of joining metal to rubber to wood.
Aircraft industry provided new ways of producing cast plastics, aluminum, and laminating plywoods.
The automobile industry made use of joining metal to rubber to wood.
The furniture of the Modern age was less concerned to be ‘well crafted’ and more concerned with producing furnishings by machine > producing low cost, for the masses pieces — visually and economically, this was at the opposite end of the Art Deco design and materials.
New Materials:
Fiberglass
Polyesters
Acrylics
Foam rubbers
Cast aluminum — all provided new materials for new furniture design that represented the New Age.
1943 Charles & Ray Eames
designed for the US Navy, lightweight, wooden, stackable leg splints.
designed for the US Navy, lightweight, wooden, stackable leg splints.
The leg-splint design led to their later bentwood chair design.
In 1942, medical officers serving in
World War II combat zones reported the need for emergency transport splints. This prompted Charles and Ray to begin experimenting with a new type of device to transfer war patients with injuries to their lower extremities.
World War II combat zones reported the need for emergency transport splints. This prompted Charles and Ray to begin experimenting with a new type of device to transfer war patients with injuries to their lower extremities.
The Eameses created their splints from wood veneers, which they bonded together with resin glue and shaped into compound curves using a process involving heat and pressure.
The slats between the wood allowed medical workers to pass cloth through the split and secure the patient’s leg.
Each of these splints bears an ink stamp with the words “Eames Process.”
RE: Eames Official Site
The slats between the wood allowed medical workers to pass cloth through the split and secure the patient’s leg.
Each of these splints bears an ink stamp with the words “Eames Process.”
RE: Eames Official Site
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| 1942 - Eames Leg Splint |
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| Eames Stackable Chair |
Excellent American publishing marketing advertising:
During the war, magazines produced articles centered around “Planning your Peacetime Decorating.”
During the war, magazines produced articles centered around “Planning your Peacetime Decorating.”
Remember, it had taken the war to get America out of the Depression.
By the end of the war, Americans were able to enjoy things in their sense of relief and optimism for futures of money to be spent.
1945 and into the 1950s there was a great run on American furniture with soldiers coming home and marrying their brides.
*Modern furniture was being produced by mechanical means and in great quantity. Americans were no longer looking towards Europe to tell them about good design — their mentality was with patriotic and victorious America.
Designers:
1940s:
Eero Saarinen for Knoll
Finnish - American Eero Saarinen designed the St. Louis Arch in 1947. Construction began FEB 12, 1963 and completed on OCT 28 1965. Cost $13,000,000 (equivalent to $77.5 million in 2018). The monument opened to the public on JUN 10, 1967.
Coming off the assembly lines were designs by:
George Nelson (Yale architect, editor of Architectural Forum) The indoor shopping mall was his idea in 1944.
Isamu Noguchi (Japanese American sculptor & designer)
Designed by Noguchi beginning in 1951 and handmade for over a half century by the original manufacturer in Gifu, Japan, the paper lanterns are a harmonious blend of Japanese handcraft and modernist form.
The lamps are created from handmade washi paper and bamboo ribbing, supported by a metal frame.
The Noguchi Museum Shop - lamps Long Island City, NYC
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| Noguchi's table Akari lamp |
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| Noguchi's Table and floor Akari lamps / paper, reed / steel |
International Modernism - East coast
Knoll International founded 1940s NYC by Hans Knoll whose father knew Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe of German Bauhaus.
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| George Nelson Desk |
other designers:
Edward Wormley for Dunbar of Indiana
Edward Wormley for Dunbar of Indiana
T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings for Widdicomb
Case Study House Program
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| The Stahl House #22, 1960 |
The Case Study Houses
- Experiments in American residential architecture sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine
- Commissioned major architects of the day, including Charles & Ray Eames, Richard Neutra, Eero Saarinen, Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, Pierre Koenin
- In efforts to create inexpensive and efficient model homes for the United States residential housing boom caused by the end of World War II and the return of millions of soldiers
- The program ran intermittently from 1945 until 1966 The first six houses were built by 1948 and attracted more than 350,000 visitors
- Exhibiting new ways of construction
- New ways of utilizing furniture in interior spaces
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| Case Study House - modular interior design |
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| Eames' House . Los Angeles, CA 1949 |
- organized by Arts & Architecture magazine
- commissioned architects to build experimental modern houses
Many museums around the US had exhibitions that educated the common folk making them aware of good and bad of Modern design.
George Nelson chair of 1958 fiberglass and flexible, others..
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| Pretzel Chair |
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| Coconut Chair |
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Marshmallow Sofa
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