Contemporary: Architecture and Interiors of the 1950s - Softcover

Jackson, Lesley

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14 ratings by Goodreads

9780714837574: Contemporary: Architecture and Interiors of the 1950s

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714837571 ISBN 13: 9780714837574

Publisher: Phaidon Press, 1998

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This text provides a definition and examination of the so-called contemporary style that dominated architecture and design from the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. In those years of increasing promise and prosperity, a fresh and liberating style was hallmarked by open-plan interiors and vibrant fabric design, manifesting itself in the picture window and the open plan; in vibrant fabric design and printed wall coverings; in new forms of furniture from Scandinavia and stylish light fittings from Italy; and most tellingly in the Contemporary kitchen with its fitted units and mod con appliances. Included is work by Charles Eames, Pierre Koenig, Arne Jacobsen and Lucienne Day.

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Review:

In the years after World War II, the theory-laden modern movement blossomed into popular "contemporary" design. Le Corbusier and Levitt, Brussels and L.A. reinforced concrete and Formica--all became part of a trend towards sleek, functional, pared-down design. This excellent book could have been a compendium of '50s architectural and interior memorabilia, and therefore a success with nostalgia buffs (who will also love it), but it is far more than that. Lesley Jackson has written an intelligent, entertaining book on the intersection of life and design in the postwar era. Chapters include "The Birth of the 'Contemporary' Style"; "The House"; "The Interior"; "Decoration and Fittings"; "Furniture and Furnishings"; and "Society Goes 'Contemporary.'" Its scope is broad, beginning with a beguiling, campy advertising photo showing a housewife at cocktail time, poised in her powder-blue cocktail dress, and her husband, who is reaching into a sleek, chrome-and-Formica credenza, perhaps the home of their record player. The book ends with Bras�lia, the capital city built between 1956 and 1960 that brought Brazil to the verge of economic collapse. In between are colorful looks at the houses and furniture of Ray and Charles Eames; the early European proponents of modernism; Frank Lloyd Wright's seminal Fallingwater; the various uses of concrete, stone, brick, and other materials for texture and color; the melding of interior and exterior space; the fun colors of prototypical Marimekko fabrics; the early idealism of designing for "the masses"; and the now almost quaint social optimism from which the pervasive culture of materialism emerged. --Peggy Moorman

About the Author:

Kate Malone is one of the most acclaimed ceramists of her generation. Her work has been featured in many exhibitions worldwide, most recently at the Art Form International in Palm Beach, Florida, with others opening in Santa Fe and Beverly Hills. Lesley Jackson is a freelance writer, curator, and design historian, and a member of the editorial board of "Crafts" magazine. She writes widely for newspapers and magazines.

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