Architecture for the Soul - More Mid-century Modern

More Mid-Century Modern is usually a good thing. At least from where I sit. Today, we follow up on a previous post with a few more residences, a Charles and Ray Eames bit, and general thoughts.

Previously, we discussed architects such as Richard Neutra, Pierre Koenig, Rudolph Schindler, and John Lautner. That said, let’s recap a few basic elements that you will see in Mid-Century Modern or MCM:

The Miller House in Columbus, Indiana, was an Eero Saarinen design completed in 1957 for corporate executive J. Irwin Miller and his family. As most of you know, the architect was not nearly as well known for residential architectural design as for his iconic commercial endeavors. In this case, ArchDaily pointed out that he:

Worked with interior designer Alexander Girard and landscaper Daniel Kiley to best fulfill the ideas he had in mind for the house and garden.

The additional input from the landscape architect and interior designer softened the project, creating a more livable residential environment. This metal and glass MCM masterpiece has long been on my bucket list. Take a look above.

Charles and Ray Eames changed the world. They were a “power couple” long before the phrase had been coined. This husband-and-wife design team helped form and shape the entire 20th century with their furniture and architecture. Just a few years ago, BBCCulture wrote that:

Their work remains the benchmark for all designers – not just for their aesthetic sense but for their irrepressible joie de vivre. Their mantras work just as well for any area of creativity: notice the ordinary; preserve the ephemeral; don’t delegate understanding; explain it to a child

The Eames Foundation now maintains the family home shown above, and tells us:

The Eames House, also known as Case Study House No. 8, is a landmark of mid-20th century modern architecture located in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was designed and constructed in 1949 by husband-and-wife Charles and Ray Eames to serve as their home and studio. They lived in their home until their deaths: Charles in 1978 and Ray, ten years to the day, in 1988.

I have made only one visit here, but I recall thinking that it would be very livable rather than simply existing as an architectural abstraction that happened to have been built.

The house is also a major functioning example?of the De Stijl?Movement in the United States. You are on track if the panels below remind you of a Mondrian painting. Piet Mondrian set out many principles of color, form, and orderliness to which De Stijl adhered.

Charles and Ray Eames did not fit the mold of the “unknown starving artists.” To the contrary, they were “rock stars” of design in their lifetimes. The design historian Donald Albrecht wrote:

Charles and Ray Eames were especially well suited partners for America’s progressive industries. Young and successful, the Eameses embodied a forward-looking perspective that fit well within the nation’s expanding capitalist economy.

Enough said.

Quite the opposite of the Eames’ was Greta Magnusson Grossman. The formidable L.A. Conservancy says:

Born in Sweden, she was a successful industrial designer creating furniture, lighting, and other designs, and she continued that work when she moved to the U.S. Once in California, she began taking on architectural projects, eventually completing at least fourteen homes in Los Angeles. Two of them were for Frances Nelson, sited on adjacent hillside lots above Cahuenga Pass, and are wonderfully intact to this day.

I was compelled to include this designer based on the amazing?Nelson Houses?mentioned above, completed in 1954. Once more from the L.A. Conservancy:

The Nelson houses reflect Grossman’s use of simple deck construction; unlike some other Modern hillside designs that step up or down a slope, the Nelson houses each sit on one level slab extending through the entire enclosed space, and are cantilevered out over their slopes.

They are shown below.

Le Corbusier was born in 1887 as Charles-édouard Jeanneret in Switzerland. One of perhaps two handfuls of architects who defined Modern Architecture in the 20th century, his work included architecture, urban planning, painting, writing, and furniture design, spanning the globe in reach.

In the post-World War II period, the need for housing in Europe to replace what was destroyed by the war was acute. Le Corbusier was commissioned to design the Unite d’Habitation in Marseille, France, shown below. It was completed in 1952. According to Arch Daily:

It was the first of a new housing project series for Le Corbusier that focused on communal living for all the inhabitants to shop, play, live, and come together in a “vertical garden city.

Writing two posts on Mid-Century Modern architecture and design reminded me of a few things. The style was, and is, really fun. The lack of formality minimizes pretension and maximizes comfort. Even today, odd as this may sound, MCM still symbolizes the future. And so it goes.

John Valentine 305-986-1046