Design Reads: Mid-Century Design From Copenhagen To California

Design: Mid-Century Modern | Hardie Grant North America, $19.99 | 176 pages, 111 color and b/w images

With the tagline “From Copenhagen to California,” and part of a series of collectable books parsing the essential themes of major design eras, this easily digestible reference guide to modernism from the 20th century trips across the globe, highlighting icons of the illustrious (and perennially popular) period. Spanning architecture, interiors, furniture, ceramics, glassware, textiles, and graphic art, the postwar boom of form and function comes into focus, from modernist precursors in section one’s early-century coverage to part two’s “peak” 1950-1962 time frame, culminating with highlights produced through 1973. Author Jenna M. McKnight, a former editor in chief of fellow Sandow Design Group title Architizer, sets the scene with her essay on how to recognize MCM, and then breaks out salient movements within the whole, such as the Bauhaus school, Brazilian mid-mod, the Swiss style, futurist Googie architecture, and desert modernism. Of course, the era’s greatest hits are duly compiled, from Arne Jacobsen’s Egg chair to the Eames house, George Nelson’s Ball clock to the TWA Flight Center by Eero Saarinen and Associates, the Helvetica font to posters by Alexander Girard. The enduring nature of all these is readily apparent—one could even argue that you’re more likely to find a Florence Knoll or Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chair in an office today than anything from the noughties.

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