Mid Century Modern

Visiting The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum Japan was the highlight of my recent visit in Japan. There are two Noguchi museums in the world: one in Long Island City, New York and one in Mure, Japan. The one in Japan is located in Mure in Kagawa prefecture on the island of Shikoku (approximately 330 miles [...]

Isamu Noguchi (1904 – 1988) was a sculptor, architect, craftsman and designer. He was born in Los Angeles to Yone Noguchi, a Japanese poet and Leonie Gilmour, an American poet and writer. In 1906, his mother took him to Japan to be near his father. Noguchi spent most of his childhood in Japan where he [...]

Tramway Gas Station (now the Palm Springs Visitor's Center)
Albert Frey (1903 – 1998) was a Swiss-born architect who had contributed in introducing a modern architecture style that came to be known as “desert modernism” around Palm Springs, California. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, Frey was trained as an architect at the Institute of Technology in Winterthur, [...]

Ant Chair
Arne Jacobsen (1902 – 1974) was a multi-talented Danish modern designer mostly known for his architectural work and furniture design. In addition, Jacobsen showed his talent in designing consumer goods, lamps and textiles. Jacobsen was originally trained as a mason, but later pursued his studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in [...]

Panton Chair
Verner Panton (1926 – 1998) was one of the most influential Danish modern designers of the 20th century. Over the course of his career, Panton successfully introduced ground breaking interior designs, including furniture, lighting, floor covering, wall covering, and textiles using a variety of materials and vibrant colors.
 
Just like many others designers of the [...]

Alexander Girard (1907-1993) was widely known for his textile design which introduced vibrant colors and playful patterns to mid century modern design.  Girard was born in New York City to an American mother and an Italian father, but raised in Florence, Italy. Girard studied architecture in Europe. He returned to the United States in 1932, and started [...]

Eames Hang-It-All
A husband and wife team, Charles (1907 – 1978) and Ray (1912 – 1988) Eames are among the most influential designers of American design history. Together, they contributed in furniture design, architecture, film, art, exhibits, and graphic design.
 
Charles Eames studied architecture at Washington University for two years. Many sources claim that he was dismissed [...]

Paul McCobb Planner Group Credenza
Paul McCobb (1917 – 1969), furniture designer and decorator, contributed in bringing modular furniture into American household. Though he did not have any formal training in design, he established a studio in 1945 and worked as a decorator and display designer in retail industry.
 
By 1950, he began designing furniture and launched [...]

Sarrinen Tulip Table & Chairs – photo by m.bibelot
Eero Saarinen (1910 – 1961), a Finnish-born architect and furniture designer, studied sculpture in France and architecture at Yale University. He came to the United States in 1923 at age thirteen with his father, Eliel Saarinen. His father was a prominent Finnish architect who came to teach [...]

Photo by m.bibelotHarry Bertoia (1915 – 1978), an Italian-born furniture designer and sculptor, attended Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he later taught painting and metal crafts between 1937 and 1943. He then worked with Charles Eames in California to assist in developing Eames’s molded plywood chairs. In 1950, he joined Knoll [...]