Page 5 - 2 LAKEWOOD EDGE FEB 2019 FINAL_Lucid

this month: modern aesthetic l
I should buy some new and Nelson and Noguchi vision that defined their work. your parents’ stuff; you like way: Better to avoid newfan- HOME & PROPERTY

THE MIDCENTURY

MODERN CRAZE:

Clean-looking Furniture for a Dirty World

by Daniel Engber for a style that, in its origi- Design Within Reach offered said, according to the same, must mean they’re good for
nal formulation, lasted just a consumers mini-bios of the generation-skipping pattern us—and unspoiled by ill-con-
moved apartments decade, from 1947 to 1957? auteurs behind the style, and that defines so many other sidered innovation. We think
recently and figured I The classic shapes of Eames explained the minimalist retro trends. “You don’t like about our health in the same

furniture to fit the new space: began their broad resurgence Now everyone could be a con- your grandparents’ stuff,” she gled, processed food; better to
a lounge chair, a couple of in the early 1990s. That’s when noisseur, gabbing on about the told me. eat like our ancestors; better the name itself, midcentury
lamps, maybe a nightstand for the key purveyors of the style virtues of Mies van der Rohe’s It’s a fine, believable theo- not to suffer the new. modern (coined by journal-
the bedroom. I thought I’d find from the postwar years, Knoll Barcelona chair, or Edward ry. Yet as I talked with every- Taking the long view, ist Cara Greenberg in 1983),
a wide, even paralyzing range and Herman Miller, returned Wormley’s Janus. one I could about the rise and though, MCM hardly seems a hints at old and new at once.
of options, but everywhere I to making items for the home Even as Forbes was making fall of midcentury design, I perfect fit for these contempo- It lets us dabble in nostalgia
turned stores were pushing after a several-decade-long MCM the aesthetic of the cre- couldn’t help but notice cer- rary values. After all, it arrived while we maintain the sense of
variations on the same style: detour into office furniture. ative class, mid- and mass-mar- tain moral shadings to the in the postwar years, on a making progress; it helps us to
Unadorned, airy, lean and But it was a savvy, ket designers were churning trend—something more than raft of forward-thinking life- recall a time when the future
elegant—the sort of home style-minded business- out contemporary imitations. mere grandpa-chic. style innovations that are now seemed bright.
decor that would not be out of man—Rob Forbes, born in CB2 and West Elm mastered “Dirty world/clean lines,” in disrepute. Processed foods? Simple lines, organic curves:
place on an episode of “Mad Pasadena, Calif., and based the sleek-yet-simple look. one friend wrote on my Those were another source of These are calming shapes
Men.” A single vibe prevailed: in San Francisco—who made IKEA marched across the Facebook page. “Clean and crackpot, jet-age optimism. (“comfort food,” in Forbes’
midcentury modern. MCM both glamorous and United States slinging cheap, simple lines seem like part And in the early days, when words) that make invention
I quickly learned that at attainable. In 1999, Forbes MCM-adjacent Scandinavian of the aesthetic ethos of our MCM was first admired for its feel familiar. Is it any wonder
some point in the last 10 years founded Design Within couches and chairs. At the times,” another said. More “clean design,” the words con- that a similar aesthetic has
(since the last time I forayed Reach, a company that same time, designer-driving reporting turned up more allu- veyed the great convenience of revolutionized the world of
into furnishings) the cult of would disrupt the furniture marketing had spread even to sions to the essential cleanliness using new technology. “The tech? That Apple’s round-
MCM design, once intense business by bringing MCM superstores; Michael Graves’ of MCM. The same phrases pieces were literally marketed ed-corner chic beat out boxier,
but self-contained, had grown pieces directly to consumers. post-modern teakettles and came up in almost every con- as being easy to clean,” said button-heavy competitors?
into a mass religion. Long, Until that point, people had toasters were flying off the versation: Clean lines, clean Lily Kane, director of exhibi- I thought back to my friend’s
low couches and womb-style to buy their MCM through shelves of Target in 1999 shapes, clean design. tions for the R & Company Facebook comment—“clean
chairs now appear in high-end middlemen and showrooms; just as Forbes was launching Even Forbes had hinted at a design gallery. Now Kane finds lines/dirty world.” There’s
galleries and discount stores, now they could buy them via Design Within Reach. moral basis for the trend. “It’s herself amused by all the peo- something to that formula-
at the mall and in the auction catalog and have the pieces Of course, the availability so pure,” he’d said. “Once ple on her news feeds cham- tion. If we’re all strapped in
house. Search Craigslist and delivered from a warehouse. of MCM doesn’t explain its people convert and get it in pioning retro-futurist designs for a messy journey forward,
you’ll see a secondary market “It’s high-quality comfort desirability. In searching for their soul, they stick with it.” while they indulge in fantasies we may as well be sitting in
for the same material: vin- food,” said Forbes when I a “why,” I talked to Wendy Perhaps the clean designs of a farmstead past—making the soft and hopeful past. An
tage items from the 1950s and asked him to explain MCM’s Kaplan, who in recent years favored by our grandparents pickles, weaving blankets. “It’s Eames lounger with a curvy
modern knockoffs. There’s an appeal. It’s full of joy and curated a blockbuster show of have been subsumed into our like we want to lead a 19th headrest and a place to put my
opportunity for worship at optimism, not so serious, easy modernist design for the Los broader mania for things that century lifestyle in a midcen- feet? I’ll take it. n
every price point. to appreciate. What’s more, Angeles County Museum of feel natural and organic. If tury house,” she told me.
The ubiquity of MCM he said, each piece had a story Art. She had a simple expla- the simple shapes of MCM Maybe that’s the key: © 2019 Los Angeles Times
raised a question in my mind: to tell, which he took pains nation. Midcentury modern have been handed down to us MCM does seem like a style Distributed by Tribune
How did we get to be fanatics to spell out in his catalogs. fell in and out of style, she from an older generation, that meant for bridging eras. Even Content Agency, LLC.
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