The obsession with mid-century furniture design, explained
The obsession with mid-century furniture design, explained
If you’ve gone to a furniture store recently, you have probably come in contact with mid-century modern furniture, even if you don’t really know what that is. Furniture inspired by the designs from the 1950s is everywhere today. So why has mid-century design been so popular for so long? Krista Hessey explains.
Some prominent mid-century designers: Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, Isamu Noguchi, George Nelson, Harry Bertoia, Florence Knoll, Arne Jacobsen, Eileen Gray, George Nakashima, Alvar Aalto.
Today, shops like West Elm, CB2 and IKEA are full of mid-century-inspired pieces but there’s still a huge re-seller market too.
Scroll through Pinterest or Instagram and you’ll find thousands of posts tagged #MidCenturyModern.
The term is now a marketing tactic ubiquitous with modern style.
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I love this style. So beautiful and simple.
I prefer atomic and googie.
unnecessary shade thrown at noguchi
The chair in men in Black is an egg chair
I love this video. I love mid-Century furniture. It so exciting!
I don’t like any obsession. Obsession with one style is cause of lack of looking for something new, nicer, better. Being inspired it is something not copping yet but still not creating something totally new like a break through and this is a good thing. My opinion 🙂
very well done – although the Danish influence was not mentioned.
It is not very cosy
minute 3:00, what is shown ??
Cause it is Modern sleek lines and inspired by Frank Lloyd Write and his Concious Thoughts aligned with what inspires all decor/architecture creative minds…
Cause it defines the flow of the universe we are part of.
– a Quantum Physics answer, and Quantum Physics also took a Quantum Leap forward in that era.
The Golden Ratio always applies…
I buy and want more mid century guitars. Ah the red canoe 🛶 is from a book / movie
I really don’t get how people miss speaking about the effects of television and entertainment on people’s style choices. And also, if America is obsessed with something, the whole world will be obsessed with it sooner or later.
So this wasn’t produced by GlobalTV, right? This screams of a VOX video.
So much ugly stuff
Amazing that this video fails to mention the one thing that popularized Mid Century stye beyond all others in the past decade – the tv show Madmen. It was night and day when walking into furniture stores pre and post Madmen. The average furniture store didn’t carry any MC style pieces at all. I remember this well. As soon as Madmen hit, it was suddenly everywhere.
It’s the perfect mix of elegant, sophisticated quality and modern minimalism. My boyfriend and I are currently living in his grandma’s house that is filled with 50s furniture. We intend to keep a lot of the pieces, since they are still in amazing shape and do them up a little for when we build our own house.
I also feel like that singers like Lana del Rey kind of kicked off a bit of an aesthetic revival for American 50s and 60s style. It’s definitely a reason for me.
To me personally, I also feel in touch with my grandmothers, aunts and my mom, when I’m around old furniture. I feel like the 60s were so close to achieving real change in this world, but ultimately failed. We are in a similar situation right now, I believe. I feel like I can relate to this style in a strange way. I also like to dress a bit vintage sometimes and listen to old music, do my makeup like back then etc. I feel like I’m living a kind of freedom my female ancestors didn’t have and want to honor them. My grandma’s lives were made miserable through entitled men. I fell like they couldn’t really enjoy this era, because they were preasured so much, so I’m trying to live out today’s freedom for them.
2:38 are you telling me my school desk chair was designed by the Eames’?
Thanks for this 7 minute advertisement. I feel so much cooler, now.
it looks cool, minimalist, and is functional
Whats cool is i have sat in all of these
It’s just a great look and many of us are yearning to return to the society of the 50s and early 60s. MCM feels like home.
I live like mad men. It’s the best way to describe it from my dress to furniture. The Bauhaus is correct, it’s very close to danish modern which is truly 1930’s.
I’ve been obsessed with mid century modern since my teens before it became popular again.
so the answer is boomers yikes time to move foward then.
Frank Lloyd Wright.
Raised in a mid century house and furniture 50s, 60s and 70s. Got married, the country look was in at that time. Now, I want to go back to that era of time of mid century.
I love midcentury modern. All well made then. Such a difference in the dress at that time than today. Made in America, wow!
That wasn’t an egg chair sorry
The style is not a political statement , its not about the individual reaction but more a an encouragement to think outside the box and to accept change .
Great video ( except for the muscle car reference) with that said …anybody want to sell me their ugly old Eames chair? Lol
Be careful, you’ve made it sound like America was the MCM pioneer!? Sorry but quality well made MCM is Danish born and bred. This doco along with your furniture is Americacentric trash
Stunning
My parents had danish modern furniture, as it was called, when I was a baby, I love it. Born in1955.
😂 trying to assign science to what was just considered great designs. It was just good, simple as that. It looks and feels good!
Comfort / I’m not sure about that.
Okay… I’m old enough to say this…. NO… it wasn’t comfortable to sit it… or lay on…. extremely uncomfortable.
This is John Henry Eden signing off…………🇺🇸
MCM might be more popular now, but it’s still niche. Every furniture store I’ve been in sells "contemporary" crap that’s more inspired by shabby chic than anything and leather blobiture.
as an interior design student i just love mid century modern furniture designs but also art nouveau needs to come back !!
I love “mid-century modern” not only because it can be styled with almost any decor but because it reminds me of my grandmothers home who never updated it since the sixties and I 1000% appreciate she never did.
1933 to 59’ I think
Now everything is “made in…” its all over seas
Mid century modern mixed with boho is so so pleasing and laid back.
If you went to school in the 1960s, you will remember how G*d-awful those Eames chairs were. If you sat up, the back pushed you forward. If you slouched, your butt slid off the seat because of the plastic or slick finish on the plywood. Meanwhile, the top edge of the back cut into your back just below the shoulder blades.
The Eames’ made their original modern chair [not the lounge chair] by placing a very large blob of modeling clay on a bench in the hallway. Since they were looking for a universal shape, they asked everybody who ever came to their house to sit on the clay. Like the old song says: "short ones, tall ones, fat ones, small ones."
After a couple months, they had the shape they were looking for and it went into production. Voila!! It actually fit NOBODY!!! But being the intellectual design snobs and self-promoters they were, they sold it as a triumph. Of course they are great looking, but they S**K. In fact, I think the Eames couple was way over-hyped. And then Charles dumped Ray and shacked up with a student of his. And that was the end of their career arc.
Personally, I have never been a fan of the Eames recliner either. I find it overstyled and heavy. Wife and I have two original chrome and leather Stressless recliners from Ekornes. THAT is good design. And they fit perfectly with our restored/updated mid-1950s Vegas house.
Because it’s *timeless* … classic high quality modernism spanning most of the 20th Century, *N E V E R* went away among us designers …
To a large extent, I think the obsession is caused by the fact, that we still associate mid-century modern with something futuristic. It is a flashback of future once promised but never actually achieved. Failing to fulfill the visions of flying cars and space-travel, this is our way how to fill in that void. A way how to at least partially relive the future that never happened.
Where were the old clips taken from that was featured in this video? The one where a man was speaking?
Where are you shopping???
6:40 is exactly what it is.
Nostalgia ✔️
Good Design ✔️
Where can I find vintage or new made geometric shaped pillows?
mid-century is not bad… but I prefer ArtDeco