The Birth of Midcentury Modernism
Midcentury modernism was one of the most celebrated design trends of the 20th century. At times minimalist and sophisticated, at others whimsical and family-friendly, it embraced simple shapes, open space, and modern mass-production technologies. These features made it accessible and affordable, and hastened its spread during the post-World War II economic, baby, and housing booms. While its popularity peaked in the 1950s and 1960s, it has undergone a resurgence in popularity in recent years. It again informs popular interior design styles in a major way. Although usually considered a post-war phenomenon, midcentury modernism is actually based largely on the innovations of architects and designers of the 1920s and 1930s. Let’s explore the people and circumstances behind the style’s creation, and its eventual massive popularity.
The Build-Up of Demand
From 1939 to 1945, World War II caused social and economic fractures worldwide. As people, cultures, and economies tried to heal during the post-war period, there was a great hunger to create a more integrated world community. Years of wartime austerity on the home front created pent-up demand for novelty. People wanted to learn new things, buy new things, and go to new places.
Millions of young World War II vets returned to the U.S. after the war ended. The enormous influx of young men resulted in a huge uptick in the numbers of marriages and children. This bumper crop of babies resulted in the baby boom that lasted from 1945 until 1964. Rapid demographic changes in the U.S. created a need for large amounts of new and affordable housing. New neighborhoods also needed schools, public services, and retail centers to support them.
The Post-War Housing Boom
The rapid expansion of the nation’s housing and transportation infrastructure significantly impacted the worlds of architecture and design. Millions needed affordable homes and home furnishings in a hurry. Large cities underwent extensive modernization and expansion. Undeveloped suburban lands were transformed into bedroom communities practically overnight. The designers of Middle America turned to midcentury modern (MCM) design principles to create practical, attractive, and affordable homes and furnishings for a huge and receptive audience. Millions of young homeowners with small children could now attain “the good life” thanks to cutting-edge design and advanced technology.
Uncle Sam to the Rescue
How could so many young people afford to buy new houses right after a huge, crushing world war? For millions, major financial aid from the U.S. government made the difference. Many vets took advantage of low-cost mortgage loans available to them via the G.I. Bill. Builders and developers saw that the there was a massive demand for houses, but limited supply. They mobilized to create huge new housing developments, even whole new cities. The homes in these neighborhoods had to be functional, family-friendly, and quick to build. Because there wasn’t room to fit everyone into crowded cities, inexpensive suburban land was developed.
Thousands of housing tracts appeared across the U.S. from the late 1940s to the 1960s. These neighborhoods showed up on the outskirts of major metropolitan areas. Thanks to the expansion of the national freeway system, another enormously expensive project underwritten by the federal government, suburbanites could live in spacious neighborhoods and still work in the city.
From Bauhaus to Our House
It’s not surprising that architects and designers responded to rapid social changes by developing new aesthetics, building materials, and technologies. But these ideas didn’t come out of thin air. They derived primarily from the design principles and innovations developed by European architects and designers in the 1920s and 1930s. The simple, stylish, practical designs of architects from Germany’s Bauhaus design school and elsewhere in Western Europe provided U.S. architects with inspiration.
The Victorian and Edwardian periods had elevated lavish architectural style to a high art. However, these styles were hopelessly passé by the 1920s. By that point, the most influential architects and designers were primarily European minimalists. They found decoration for beauty’s sake vulgar and bourgeois. These tastemakers believed form should follow function. They revered simple and practical designs, executed well, and made with quality materials.
A gathering of radicals & “degenerates”
The Bauhaus was a school of design, architecture, and applied arts founded by architect and designer Walter Gropius in 1918. A radical undertaking in its time, its goal was to encourage better living through modern design. Under Gropius, and later Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the Bauhaus sought to combine artistic expression with functionalism. Its designers studied and taught ways to make affordable and attractive furnishings widely available through mass production.
Staff members at the Bauhaus included prominent artists including Swiss-born Paul Klee and Russian-born Wassily Kandinsky. Innovators such as Hungarian-born Marcel Breuer taught furniture design. The Bauhaus was considered a hotbed of radicalism by many. Its artists and designers were even denounced as degenerates by Germany’s Nazi regime for their willingness to ignore established artistic paradigms.
The Bauhaus’s nonconformist ideologies attracted the wrath of government officials. The school was closed in 1933, shortly after Hitler’s rise to power. Several major Bauhaus figures—Gropius, Breuer, and Mies among them—moved to the U.S. during Hitler’s chancellorship. Here they taught and influenced a new generation of architects for decades to come.
Gropius in the U.S.
In 1937, Walter Gropius moved to the U.S.to teach architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. In addition to providing Gropius with a position at Harvard, the university agreed to let the esteemed founder of the Bauhaus build his architecture practice in the U.S. Shortly thereafter, Gropius designed a highly innovative but comfortable modernist home for himself, his wife Isa, and their teen daughter Ati in Lincoln, Massachusetts, a half-hour’s drive from Harvard.
The Gropius House, now a museum, was built in 1938. It was home to Walter and Isa Gropius until Walter’s death in 1969. They changed the home very little in their three decades there, which shows how forward-thinking Gropius was. It was still fresh, functional, and unusual in design and materials at the height of the midcentury modern era decades later. Below are views of the house as it looked in 2022.
European Modernists: Mies, Le Corbusier, & Gropius
European-born architects including Gropius, Mies, and the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier developed a simple and undecorated aesthetic. It celebrated precise geometric forms, open spaces, clean lines, and minimal decorative elements. Modernist style choices continued in the buildings’ interiors. They were often simply, sometimes even sparsely, furnished. The modernists also advocated for the seamless integration of buildings with their surroundings. They saw functional, simple, and economical forms as more fresh and sophisticated. Their aesthetic decisions greatly influenced later midcentury architects and designers around the world.
Curvaceous Nordic Modernism: Aalto
Like the prominent designers at the Bauhaus, Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto espoused a functionalist style in the 1920s. By the 1930s, he was celebrating curvy and organic forms. He created them with materials including bent wood, poured concrete, and glass. These media allowed for unusual shapes and endless design variety. Though these materials were in common use by the 1950s, Aalto’s uses of them was revolutionary in the 1930s. His designs had enormous impact on other Nordic designers and on what became modern Scandinavian style. His work was also critical to the development of the midcentury modern style that blossomed in the 1950s and 1960s.
In 1939, Aalto’s Villa Mairea in rural Finland included a U-shaped garden with the world’s first kidney-shaped swimming pool. Thousands of later designers copied this shape to create their own midcentury modern pools and coffee tables. Aalto’s use of curvilinear elements in architecture and decor had an enormous influence on midcentury modernism and its rounded, organic shapes. These defined MCM style from the 1940s right into the 1970s and beyond. For example, Finnish glassware giant Iittala has produced Aalto’s iconic curvy glassware pieces since the 1930s. Aalto vases remain among the company’s best sellers.
Midcentury Modernism in the U.S.: The Influence of Frank Lloyd Wright
American architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright was a contemporary of the Bauhaus’s European design luminaries. Wright shared their devotion to seamlessly integrating buildings with surroundings, and made great use of views and natural light. He also emphasized functionality in his designs. His buildings and interiors of the 1920s through the 1950s often incorporated sleek, practical, and stylish custom furnishings. These were designed by Wright himself. He incorporated clean lines, curving arcs, large horizontal expanses of wood, and clever built-in storage and furniture features. All of these came to be associated with midcentury modernism.
Like the buildings designed by European architects of the early 20th century, Wright’s homes emphasized horizontality. This became a staple of midcentury design. His structures were meant to blend in with nature, feel human in scale, and work as natural extensions of their surroundings. However, Wright differed from the more minimalist European architects in an important way. He created more intricate and decorative furnishings and finishes for his homes, albeit in a usually restrained, flattened, geometric style.
Wright’s use of repeating patterns
Wright’s chairs, molded concrete tiles and blocks, and stained-glass windows are decorated with clusters of circles, squares, or angled patterns. These patterns have a gravity and solidity to them. They differ from more fluid styles of applied decoration popular at the turn of the 20th century. However, unlike the minimalist surfaces of the Bauhaus designers, Wright’s decorative elements interrupt the large flat surfaces. They make us want to stop and take in their intricacy. Wright’s work had a clear impact on the Art Deco movement in the U.S. in the 1920s and 1930s. He also helped inspire the horizontal emphasis found throughout later midcentury modern structures and furnishings.
Wright’s pierced, patterned, geometric “breeze blocks” were another important innovation that became important during the midcentury modern era. Made of molded concrete, breeze blocks were commonly incorporated into midcentury indoor and outdoor architecture. From the 1950s through the 1970s, these were in common use in the U.S. Wright first designed them for use in sunny western regions. There the blocks provided shade without impeding airflow. They also created see-through boundaries between the indoors and outdoors, and public and private spaces.
The Resurgence of Midcentury Modernism
Midcentury modernism is a relaxed, natural style, and one compatible with modern living. Its great resurgence in popularity in recent years isn’t surprising. During times of widespread uncertainty, simple and reliable pleasures bring comfort. Older people like revisiting the simple shapes and designs of their youth, and enjoy the memories they evoke. Younger people appreciate the versatility and affordability of MCM furnishings. They’re minimalist, yet often have sensuous curves, organic elements, and even a sense of wit and whimsy.
Midcentury modern furniture plays well with other styles, and can be dressed up or down. MCM fits a casual lifestyle, but has enough personality to keep from looking bland. Many original pieces from 60 to 70 years ago are still available for sale, often at quite reasonable prices. And, of course, modern reproductions are widely available at all price points.
A timeless, classic style
When we look at midcentury design, it’s easy to see echoes of classic shapes and materials from the 1920s and 1930s. The through-line from early 20th century modernist design principles to the glory days of midcentury modernism in the 1960s is clear. Today, we again see the midcentury influence in the work of countless designers. The modernists’ principles of design, first developed over 100 years ago, have truly stood the test of time.
To learn more about the midcentury modernism movement inspired by the modernist architects and designers of the 1920s and 1930s, see my article on Midcentury Modern Interior Design.
At top:
The Gropius House, a museum in Lincoln, MA, designed by Walter Gropius as his family home and built in 1938.
