THE VELVET-SILK
CAFÉ
In a café environment presented as part of an exhibition on women’s
fashion in Berlin, the general public had their first chance to try out
cantilevered tubular steel chairs with no back legs, literally consuming modern culture with their coffee. The immersive experience
1927
Partial recreation of environment designed
by Lilly Reich (German, 1885–1947),
with tubular-steel furniture designed by
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (American, born
Germany. 1886–1969), and sponsored by
German textile manufacturers and retailers
as part of the exhibition Die Mode der Dame
(Women’s fashion), Berlin
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opened the consumer imagination to new conceptions of free-flowing space and to the sensuous appeal of the materials. Highlights
of glinting metal, black leather, and smoky glass added to the interior’s rich textural palette. Lilly Reich’s waving fabric walls dissolved
conventional distinctions between structure and decoration, inside
and out, masculine and feminine, fashion and architecture.
After a period of acute material shortages and political instability,
the café signaled the recovery of Germany’s textile industry. Reich’s
choice of yellow, black, and red—the colors of the liberal Weimar
Republic, established in 1919—linked the café with the young state’s
sense of social renewal and cultural innovation. The venue appealed
to the active, independent New Woman, like Reich herself, identified by her cropped hairstyle and modern dress. Reich was the first
woman to join the Deutsche Werkbund’s board of directors and had
run a successful design studio since 1914, specializing in clothing,
interiors, and commercial exhibitions. She brought this extensive
expertise to her fifteen-year partnership with Mies van der Rohe,
and the café was a crucial testing ground for subsequent projects
Views of the original Velvet-Silk Café
such as the Villa Tugendhat in Brno (1929) and Philip Johnson’s New
York apartment (1930).
Reproduction furniture for the Velvet–Silk Café is provided by Knoll.
Left: Quilted jacket in yellow shantung silk,
designed by Reich in 1926
Right: Living room of the Villa Tugendhat,
Brno, former Czechoslovakia, designed by
Reich and Mies van der Rohe in 1929
THE FRANKFURT
KITCHEN
The Frankfurt Kitchen was designed like a laboratory or factory and
based on contemporary theories about efficiency, hygiene, and workflow. In planning the design, Schütte-Lihotzky conducted detailed
time-motion studies and interviews with housewives and women’s
groups. Each kitchen came complete with a swivel stool, a gas stove,
built-in storage, a fold-down ironing board, an adjustable ceiling
light, and a removable garbage drawer. Labeled aluminum storage
bins provided tidy organization for staples like sugar and rice as
well as easy pouring. Careful thought was given to materials for
specific functions, such as oak flour containers (to repel mealworms)
and beech cutting surfaces (to resist staining and knife marks).
War and inflation precipitated a housing crisis in all major German
cities, including Frankfurt, where the response was an ambitious
program known as the New Frankfurt. This initiative encompassed
the construction of affordable public housing and modern amenities throughout the city. At the core of this transformation were
about 10,000 kitchens designed by Grete Schütte-Lihotzky and
constructed as an integral element of the new dwelling units.
The Frankfurt Kitchen is the earliest work by a female architect in
MoMA’s collection. Reminiscing about her decision to study architecture, Schütte-Lihotzky remarked that “in 1916 no one would have
conceived of a woman being commissioned to build a house—not
even myself.” During the interwar period, she became involved in
designing affordable housing and worked with another Viennese
architect, Adolf Loos, on planning settlements for World War I veterans. During World War II her career was interrupted by four years
in prison for her activities in the anti-Nazi resistance movement.
1926
–28
Frankfurt Kitchen from the GinnheimHöhenblick Housing Estate, Frankfurt,
Germany, by Grete Schütte-Lihotzky
(Austrian, 1897–2000)
E-1027: HOUSE
BY THE SEA
Eileen Gray came to architecture late, after achieving significant
success as a furniture and interior designer in Paris. Her first major
1929
Furnishings designed by Eileen Gray
(Anglo-Irish, 1878–1976) and architecture
designed by Gray in collaboration with
Jean Badovici (Romanian, 1893–1956), in
Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France
work was a small vacation home in the south of France for the
architect-editor Jean Badovici. The name E-1027 was a cipher for
their intertwined initials, representing the collaborative nature of
the project, and they lived there together for a number of years.
Badovici advised on specific details and publicized the finished
work, but the overall conception, and its compelling synthesis of
architecture and furnishings, was Gray’s.
While strongly influenced by Le Corbusier’s new architecture, Gray
reacted against formulaic modernism “conceived for the pleasure
of the eye more than for the well-being of its inhabitants.” She spent
two years at the E-1027 site studying the movements of the wind
and the sun to develop a house attuned to its setting, and personally
supervised the construction. The basic form of the house is a white
rectangular box raised on stilts, but within this deceptively simple
exterior, Gray layered the progression from land to sea on the sloping site. Through thoughtful planning and the complex integration
of sliding doors, storage walls, and multifunctional furniture, she
created a sequence of flexible spaces that could be expanded or
contracted as required. Every detail was envisaged from the user’s
viewpoint—in terms of his or her bodily experience, comfort, and
convenience—in order to counter what she saw as “the atrophy
of sensuality” in much modern architecture.
Plan of E-1027, 1929
METAL IS MODERN: 1929
EQUIPMENT
FOR LIVING
“ METAL plays the same part in furniture as cement does in architecture. IT IS A REVOLUTION,” declared Charlotte Perriand in 1929.
Furniture and exhibition designs developed
by Charlotte Perriand (French, 1903–1999)
in collaboration with Pierre Jeanneret
(Swiss, 1896–1967) and Le Corbusier
(French, born Switzerland. 1887–1965)
At the time she was working on a model apartment for that year’s
Salon d’Automne in Paris, which would introduce the public to the
new line of “home equipment” that she had been developing in
collaboration with the architect Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre
Jeanneret. The trio’s iconic tubular steel furniture was showcased
in an interior with a textured glass floor lit from beneath and a
glass-panel ceiling. The whole created a vision of deluxe modernity.
“While our chair designs were directly related to the position of
the human body,” Perriand would recall in her autobiography, “they
were also determined by the requirements of architecture, setting,
and prestige.”
Two years earlier, Perriand had approached Le Corbusier about
working in his Paris studio, just days after he had returned from
participating in the Stuttgart exhibition Die Wohnung (The dwelling),
Chaise Longue (LC/4) in the Architecture
Room, the first permanent space for
architecture at MoMA, designed in 1933
by Philip Johnson
feeling the need to catch up with the developments in modern
German and Dutch furniture he had seen there. Sight of Perriand’s
stylish metal furniture at the 1927 Salon d’Automne convinced him
that she was the person to develop this side of the practice, despite the fact that he had initially rebuffed her with the memorable
put-down, “We don’t embroider cushions here.” She stayed in the
Exhibition setting designed by Charlotte
Perriand at the Internationale Raumausstellung,
Cologne, 1931
office for the next decade and, like Eileen Gray, became a founding
member of the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM), an avant-garde
design group established in 1929.
Model interior at the Maison Clarté apartment
building, Geneva, designed by Le Corbusier,
Pierre Jeanneret, and Charlotte Perriand, 1932
A RESOLUTELY
MODERN
BEDROOM
While still a student at Harvard University, Philip Johnson joined the
throng of international visitors to the 1927 exhibition Die Wohnung
(The dwelling) in Stuttgart, Germany. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and
Lilly Reich’s design of the show inspired Johnson, as did their other
1930
Part of interior remodeling of Philip
Johnson’s apartment at 424 East 52nd
Street, New York, designed by Ludwig
Mies van der Rohe (American, born
Germany. 1886–1969) and Lilly Reich
(German, 1885–1947)
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work in Germany, so he commissioned the couple to design his first
New York apartment in 1930. Writing to his mother, he explained,
“It would be the first room entirely in my latest style in America. . . .
I think it would be the cheapest possible kind of publicity for my
style. The whole would be elegant but so simple.” Johnson was at
the start of his career as founding director of MoMA’s Department
of Architecture. He clearly viewed the apartment as a touchstone
for his curatorial practice and as a laboratory for ideas of how to live
simply in the modern age, with contemporary design.
Reich and Mies simplified the existing interiors, combining plain
white walls, sisal matting, and a limited range of tubular steel furniture with navy blue silk curtains hung from floor to ceiling to define
the spaces and to hide extraneous architectural detailing. The
lessons Johnson internalized from this reductive yet texturally rich
scheme informed both his own practice as an interior architect and
his approach to exhibition content and presentation. The installation
of Machine Art (1934), for example, made refined use of subtly contrasting surface treatments, curtains, and lighting to focus attention
on displays of contemporary industrial design.
View of the exhibition Machine Art,
MoMA, 1934
Bedroom, Philip Johnson’s apartment, 1930
CHILDREN IN THE
MODERN HOME
“Teach your children that a house is only habitable when it is full
1925
–56
Modernist furniture, interior designs, and
toys for children
of light and air, and when the floors and walls are clear,” urged Le
Corbusier in 1923. Some architects advocated the communal care
of children, minimizing the need to plan dedicated spaces for them
within the home. There was general consensus, however, that the
interior environments in which children were raised were a crucial
formative influence on their physical, emotional, and intellectual
development. Playrooms and open-plan family rooms became
increasingly important features of affluent postwar homes, reflecting more casual lifestyles and greater informality between adults
and children.
Modernist architects and designers did not have a monopoly on
concepts of hygiene and practicality, but their use of pared-down
furniture and decoration, built-in features, and washable surfaces
stood up to the wear and tear of boisterous young people. In this
respect interiors paralleled developments in progressive education
that emphasized child-centered perspectives and learning through
play. Blackboard panels encouraged self-expression, and troublesome chalk dust was easily cleaned from floors and tabletops
covered with linoleum, glass, or cork. The easy-to-clean principle
was extended to simple, undecorated furniture and toys. Chromed
steel, plywood, and plastic—all modernist materials of choice—
Child with furniture designed by Marcel
Breuer, c. 1930–31
could be kept spotless. Modern toys were also designed to promote
a new sensibility, whether by introducing miniature versions of
adult furniture or by encouraging constructive, exploratory play
with building blocks or cards that could be assembled and pulled
apart repeatedly.
Little Toy, designed by Charles and Ray
Eames, 1952
APARTMENT
FOR A NEW YORK
DESIGNER
In Depression-era New York, where architectural commissions
were few and far between, the opportunity to remodel Marguerita
Mergentime’s apartment was a lifeline for Frederick Kiesler. At the
1935
–36
Interiors and furniture by Frederick Kiesler
(American, born Austria-Hungary. 1890–
1965) for the home of textile designer
Marguerita Mergentime (American, 1894–
1942), 211 Central Park West, New York
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time he was experimenting with cast aluminum (normally reserved for kitchen utensils and airplane parts), plastics, and industrial
glass, and prototyping new forms of furniture and lighting that
he hoped to put into wider production. The space was sculpted by
light diffused through translucent materials and bounced off reflective surfaces; a glass-block partition fractured the light, merging
spaces formerly divided into closed cubicles. The amoeba-shaped
nesting tables and swiveling “eye” of the sprouting floor lamp
reflect Kiesler’s interests in the era’s cinema and Surrealist art,
which he shared with Mergentime (a copy of Minotaure, the famed
Surrealist magazine to which she subscribed, can be seen lying on
the glass table).
Both Kiesler and Mergentime belonged to the American Union of
Decorative Artists and Craftsmen (AUDAC), an organization set
up in 1929 to unite “practical modernists, applying their art within the limits of commercial practice.” Mergentime, a successful
textile designer, wanted a multifunctional environment that would
accommodate family life, studio space, and business-related entertainment. Her home was a showcase for her own designs and
those of others in her professional network. The apartment was
indisputably modern—presaging the organic, formfitting design of
the 1940s and 1950s—yet it epitomizes a strand of 1930s American
design that MoMA marginalized in favor of the International Style.
Interior views of the Mergentime apartment,
1937. Photographs by Robert Damora.
© Damora Archive
ARTEK AND
THE AALTOS
Although best known for their organically shaped plywood furniture (a humanist alternative to the tubular steel furnishings of the
1935
–39
Furniture, interiors, and exhibitions
designed by Aino (Marsio) Aalto (Finnish,
1894–1949) and Alvar Aalto (Finnish,
1898–1976)
period), Alvar and Aino Aalto had a far-reaching impact on the modern interior through Artek, their forward-thinking design company
and international retail operation. Artek (a synthesis of “art” and
“technology”) was cofounded in 1935 by the Aaltos together with
Maire Gullichsen and Nils Gustav Hahl, two similar-minded patrons
and critics. At its very core was a mission to promote an integrated
modernist approach to the design of interior spaces throughout
Scandinavia and beyond.
The first Artek store opened in Helsinki in 1936, showcasing home
furnishings, as well as modern artworks by Jean (Hans) Arp, Alexander Calder, Pablo Picasso, and Fernand Léger, which were installed
in an adjoining gallery. By also offering glass and textiles designed
by the Aaltos and craft goods from around the world, the Artek
View of the exhibition Aino and Alvar Aalto,
MoMA, 1938
store broke down hierarchies between fine and applied arts in a
holistic approach to modern decor. Connected to a vast network of
modern architects, designers, importers, and wholesalers, Artek
distributed the Aaltos’ patently Scandinavian bentwood furniture
all over the world through retailers like Wohnbedarf (Zurich) and
Finmar (London).
Aino Aalto was a driving force in Artek’s success until her death in
Artek storefront, Helsinki, Finland, 1939
1949. As head of Artek’s interior design division, she was responsible
for significant public and residential interior commissions. Her hand
is present in nearly all of her husband’s architectural projects, and
she also achieved acclaim for her own designs for children’s furniture, kitchens, and textiles.
Brochure for Artek-Pascoe, New York
TOKYO–NEW YORK:
VERNACULAR
MODERN
In the 1930s and 1940s, various designers explored new combinations of European, American, and vernacular Japanese approaches
to the modern interior. The transmission of Japanese influence to an
American or European context, or vice versa, was often ambiguous
and filtered through cultural preconceptions. Nevertheless these
exchanges informed ambitions to create interior design for international markets that was capable of negotiating the global and
local with sensitivity to the coexistence of contemporary crafts and
industrial production.
In Japan and then New Hope, Pennsylvania, the studio of Noémi
Raymond and her architect husband, Antonin Raymond, was a training ground for esteemed designers such as Junzoˉ Yoshimura and
George Nakashima. Working together collaboratively, they aspired
to blend the pared-down aesthetics of modernist design with a
commitment to craft and semi-mechanized techniques. Perriand,
who reached Tokyo in 1940, shortly before Japan’s entry into the
Second World War, was one of a string of Europeans working with
a Japanese government program to reinvigorate the crafts and
to develop industrial design practice. For Perriand, the experience
underlined a disciplined simplicity in furnishings, the flexible use of
modest interior spaces, and the potential for quality production
achieved by the imaginative adaptation of traditional materials and
artisanal methods.
1940
–54
Exhibition installations, furniture, and
textiles designed by Charlotte Perriand
(French, 1903–1999) in collaboration
with Junz oˉ Sakakura (Japanese, 1901–
1969), Noémi Raymond (American, born
France. 1889–1980), George Nakashima
(American, 1905–1990), and Junzoˉ
Yoshimura (Japanese, 1908–1997)
MoMA AND
MODERN LIVING
MoMA, like several other American museums, had been concerned
with the promotion of modern design for use since the 1930s, but
it was in the 1940s and 1950s that its famous Good Design program
matured, starting with the competition Organic Design in Home
Furnishings in 1940. The aim was to discover a group of designers
capable of creating a “useful and beautiful living environment for
contemporary life,” and the term “organic” was defined as a “harmonious organization of the parts within the whole, according to
structure, material, and purpose.” Visitors to MoMA’s exhibition
of the winning entries were encouraged to lounge on the furniture as part of the Museum’s commitment to educating the public
about new developments in the modern interior. Other design
competitions soon followed, accompanied by a flurry of influential
design exhibitions and the presentation of complete furnished
houses in the Museum’s Sculpture Garden. Design for Use, USA
(1950–52) toured Europe to broadcast so-called Good Design (of
the American variety) with the sponsorship of the United States
State Department.
This program forged new connections between designers, manufacturers, retailers, and consumers, launching the careers of
numerous world-famous designers, among them Charles Eames,
Eero Saarinen, and Hans Wegner. Less celebrated were the many
talented women whose designs were frequently shown anonymously or under their husbands’ names. It has taken some fifty
years to give Ray Eames, Clara Porset, and Noémi Raymond their
rightful due in this respect.
1940
–51
Entry panels submitted to the Organic
Design in Home Furnishings, International
Low-Cost Furniture Design, and Lamp
Design competitions at the Museum
RAY AND
CHARLES EAMES:
WHAT IS A HOUSE?
For prolific designers Ray and Charles Eames, the ideal home,
beyond providing shelter, should also “aid as a background for life
1946
–56
Plywood furniture, film, and Case Study
House No. 8 (Eames House) in Pacific
Palisades, Los Angeles, designed by Ray
Eames (American, 1912–1988) and Charles
Eames (American, 1907–1978)
in work.” With this flexible functionality in mind, the couple designed
their 1949 house as part of the experimental Case Study Houses
program, launched by Arts & Architecture magazine in 1945. Using
only pre-fabricated, readily available materials, including sheet
steel and plate glass, they rapidly and inexpensively constructed
two colorful, box-like structures—one containing living spaces, the
other their busy studio—which face each other across a courtyard.
Inside, the sun-filled environments are open and airy. Outfitted with
the Eameses’ own lightweight plywood furniture and decorated with
whimsical bric-a-brac from around the world, the widely published
interiors epitomized a Californian lifestyle that was adaptable and
informal. Despite its playfully cozy appearance, the home’s decor
was carefully staged, and social gatherings for clients and designworld luminaries were highly choreographed affairs. In this fashion,
the Eames home acted as a laboratory-like extension of their Los
Angeles office, blurring the distinction between their private life and
their work.
With their designs for molded plywood furniture, the Eameses
embraced new materials and means of mass production that responded to resource shortages with wartime ingenuity. After they
exhibited a number of their experimental chairs, tables, and storage
View of the exhibition New Furniture Designed
by Charles Eames, MoMA, 1946, with Ray
Eames at left
pieces at MoMA in 1946, the Herman Miller Furniture Company began to distribute and mass-produce molded plywood pieces based
on their prototypes.
Stackable, molded plywood furniture designed
by Charles and Ray Eames, reproduced in Arts
& Architecture magazine, September 1946
KNOLL:
FURNISHING THE
WORLD
Clients entering Knoll’s Manhattan showroom experienced an environment of total modern design, very different from conventional
1948
Knoll showroom, 601 Madison Avenue,
New York, designed by Florence Knoll
(American, born 1917) and Herbert Matter
(American, born Switzerland. 1907–1984)
stores with stock piled high. A cord screen defined the foyer, presenting a tantalizing view of the displays beyond without blocking
the free flow of the overall space. Through this simple sculptural
device, Herbert Matter alluded to the constructive, space-defining
potential of textiles in the modern interior. Instead of presenting
textiles in bins or rolls, Florence Knoll devised a trellis-like display
system for samples that both created an abstract composition of
texture and color and facilitated seasonal changeovers. Innovative
showrooms and exhibition stands with a strongly planned, architectural feel were part of Knoll Associates’ winning midcentury formula.
Many subsequent clients recall the showrooms as the place where
they came to understand and appreciate the modern interior.
The company’s fortuitous combination of talented designers with retail and manufacturing expertise opened up an international market
for modern home furnishings. The guiding force behind its success
was the architect-designer Florence Knoll, who had studied with
Eliel Saarinen and Mies van der Rohe and traveled widely in Europe
and Scandinavia. In 1946 she married Hans Knoll, and as his full
business partner immediately set about revamping the company’s
image and extending the family furniture company into contract
Knoll showroom, New York. Photograph by
Robert Damora. © Damora Archive
interior design. Struck by Matter’s graphic design and photography,
she plucked him from the studio of her friends Ray and Charles
Eames. Over the next twenty years, Matter directed Knoll’s visual
communication, designing the company logo, catalogs, advertising,
and display environments.
Knoll showroom, Mexico City, 1961
MAISON DU
BRÉSIL: A STUDY
BEDROOM
Built in a spirit of postwar idealism, this compact and versatile space
represented a modernist blueprint for independent living and an
investment in citizens of the future. It was one of ninety-five such
units designed for Brazilian students at the Cité Universitaire in
1959
Furniture and interior by Charlotte Perriand
(French, 1903–1999); architecture by
Lúcio Costa (Brazilian, 1902–1998) and
Le Corbusier (French, born Switzerland.
1897–1965). Part of the Maison du Brésil,
Cité Universitaire, Paris
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Paris. Residence halls for different nationalities were set in a landscaped park on the site of a former military base, with shared dining,
cultural, and recreational facilities designed to foster international
exchange. Charlotte Perriand was brought in to develop a modular
scheme for the interiors of the Maison du Brésil with her longtime
collaborator Le Corbusier and Brazilian architect Lúcio Costa.
The design combined the use of durable industrial materials—aluminum, concrete, linoleum, Formica, and brightly colored plastics—
with the warmth of woods familiar to students from Brazil. Wall and
ceiling colors rather than floor-to-ceiling partitions defined zones
for washing, sleeping and relaxation, and study. Perriand’s multipurpose furniture designs were ideal for small interiors. The room
divider, for example, contained an integrated reading lamp, bedside
cubby, bookshelf, wardrobe, and personal storage area complete
with colorful plastic trays on sliding racks. The couch served as a
seating area during the daytime and as a bed at night. “I’m very
interested in the life of houses,” Perriand declared. “Everything is
created from within, if you will—needs, gestures, a harmony, a
euphoric arrangement, if possible, in relation to an environment.”
Exterior view, reproduced in L’Oeil magazine,
September 1959
Interior views, reproduced in L’Oeil magazine,
September 1959