SPRING '06 SPECIAL FEATURE
The images of mid-century Modernism are iconic. Even to those who are completely uninterested in the world
of architecture and design, the flat-roofed houses with
their spare interiors and wall-sized glass windows that open onto
a perfect outdoors are immediately recognizable. So
too are the undulating lines of chairs and tables by Charles and Ray Eames and the graphic pop of George Nelson’s Marshmallow chair or his much-copied slat benches.
The roots of these well-known American modernist masterpieces, however, are found in the devastation of post-World War I Europe. A new visual language was needed for an era where traditions and the arts of the past were no longer relevant. And nowhere were these changes more evident than in the famed German school of design, the Bauhaus.
The institution’s intent? To create a classless guild who would design for mass production and for the needs of the people, while rejecting the traditional values of flourish and strong décor. Design was stripped bare to its basics: open floor plans, steel frames and simple, boxed shapes. It was pure utilitarian simplicity, quite the revolt from previous modes of architecture which relied heavily on gilt frames, ornate moldings and overwrought surface treatments.
It wasn’t until 1932 that Modernism reached the States as a movement, in the form of an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York titled "Modern Architecture.” However, designers like Frank Lloyd Wright had already been incorporating distinctly Modernist concepts into their work. Wright’s turn-of-the-century Prairie Houses, for example, were famous for their horizontality and low, clean, crisp lines. And as architects like Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe emigrated to America, that streamlined vision of design only developed more and more so. Gropius would have his greatest impact as a professor of architecture at Harvard University, while in 1954 van der Rohe built the ultimate symbol of corporate America – New York’s Seagram Building, a simple rectangular glass tower that soared 38-stories high. Breuer, for his part, designed a little complex called the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1963.
In areas like Palm Springs, the style took on a swanky, cool cachet, due in part to the laid-back California lifestyle and its proximity to Hollywood. Albert Frey, Richard Neutra, Donald Wexler, Stewart Williams – these were just a few of the architects who made names for themselves from this new mode of "desert modernism.” Projects varied from William’s low-lying residence for Frank Sinatra to the iconic "flying wedge” Tramway Gas Station by Frey. What they all had in common, of course, is a timelessness. Neutra’s Kaufmann house in Palm Springs, one of the locations of the following photo shoot, is as fashionable now as it was when it was built back in 1946. If you need further proof of its stylish currency, consider that Tom Ford’s house in Los Angeles is also designed by Neutra.
Beyond Modernism’s pioneers, there are successive generations of visionaries who keep to the pared-down vocabulary while pushing it in new directions: from John Lautner’s spaceship-like designs and Luis Barragán’s use of bright colors on Corbusier forms to modern-day works by Frank Gehry, Philippe Starck and Tadao Ando. How is it that Starck’s chartreuse-lit escalator for New York’s Hudson Hotel, Ando’s minimalist Milan headquarters for Giorgio Armani and Gehry’s massive, titanium warped forms for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao are all tagged as modern? By following that one dictum Mies van der Rohe coined so many years ago: "Less is more.”
