Ideas for Modern Decorating

Modern decorating is as much a way of living as it is a look. It involves commitment to space planning, clean lines, love of light and passion for shapes. There are several styles of modern decorating: modernist, minimalist, craftsman, art nouveau and pop.

Modern dcor for the masses was launched in the 1950s, as post-war America embraced a new style of linear shapes for case goods, sculpted chairs and, eventually, designs reflecting manufacturing and space. Does this Spark an idea?

Bauhaus Designers

The modernist style that came out of the German school of building---the Bauhaus---and the works of great architects Walter Gropius, Philip Johnson and I.M. Pei, influenced the interior design and the art worlds.

It was this influence that had the Eames brothers forming high-gloss steel and molded plastics into chairs that were poised against William-Morris wallpaper, blending technology and art.

The Barcelona chair, crafted by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich, was the result of a collaboration for the German pavilion at the 1929 Barcelona design fair. It became an icon that many imitators have tried to copy.

The 1950s

After the world wars, detailed, dark-stained furniture and the fussy curlicue designs that had needed so much dusting led way to the more modern, blond-finished wood and "linear" case goods---with nary a need for a dust rag.

Unfinished summer furniture evolved to bent rattan lounge chairs, which became all the rage with their tropical over-scaled prints stretched over large square pillows that formed the seat and back.

Lamps started to look like spaceships in orbit or columns with colored glass. The clock face of old was replaced by golden spokes without numbers---a backdrop for the stern, black hour dial.

Mid-Century and Beyond

Aqua was the color for the circular Moderne couch. Cabinets had sliding doors. Modern op-art doors became popular. Armoires were made of sleek and smooth rosewood. Plump padded chairs stood on chrome legs. Linoleum floors became de rigueur and rooms began to open up, creating lots of space, which homemakers with a passion for cool, clean rooms desired.

The Danish put their design into everyman's dining room, but the little dinette set--with its plastic top, chrome side trim and spindly chairs--was the rage in the kitchen corner. Home bars were fashionable now that cocktails were a suburban pastime. Heywood Wakefield step-end tables with drawers were the hottest spot for an oversized living room lamp and a cold Bloody Mary.

The Machine Age

Manufacturing was a way of life in America and the industrial age brought chrome and leather to the forefront of design. Storage was built-in and clutter was a thing of the past. The advent of the Shoshi screen as a room divider and the Noguchi coffee table created the quest for new Japanese flair. Soon, frosted glass and glass block walls brought in light while obscuring the view for privacy.

Loft-style living took off. Large spaces no longer hid foundational elements such as heat ducts, water pipes, steel roof trusses and columns. Other architectural design elements like cut-outs in walls, pass-throughs, and angular niche spaces were planned out. Designers decided to juxtapose new curves against the straight square lines and brought in African and Asian art and sculpture that looked like bodies, masks and faces.

Form Follows Function

The watchwords of 20th century design became "form follows function." Chrome appliances suddenly took the forefront with shiny, reflective, see-your-face in the side looks. Surfaces were clean. Formica was hot and things were pared down to the basics, saving precious space for rare decorations.

At pop-art galleries in New York, a dealer might display the front end of an Edsel as wall-mounted art. On the other end, the modernist bought up all the sleek 1920s art deco pieces he could find and pulled drapes off the windows to better show off his collection against a mercurial metropolitan skyline.