Coveteur
The MidCentury Furniture Designers
You Need to Know
Know your Aaltos from your Eameses.
Illustrations
Meghann Stephenson
In our ongoing efforts to become more adult and generally ~together~, one of the most screaming examples of our interminable immaturity is that most of our apartments are still (still!) decorated with cast-offs from old roommates, boyfriends, and parents. A particularly atrocious (yet probably very comfortable) chintz sofa is a daily reminder that we have yet to become real, functioning people.
But we’re slowly moving up in the world, and while much (too much) of our income is immediately thrown away at sample sales, the wiser among us are beginning to swap last season’s extras in favor of thought-out interior decoration. And, yeah, for the most part, we want our apartments to transform into shrines of mid-century modern design…whatever that means. Which is exactly the problem. It’s time we actually take responsibility and figure out exactly what the buzziest of decor trends actually is.
And that is how we ended up quizzing Anthony Barzilay Freund, editor in chief and director of fine art at 1stdibs.com, on all things mid-century modern. He set us straight: “There actually isn’t one prevailing look, but they all share this idea of optimism, the post-war idea of a new day, and harnessed new technologies and the potential of brighter homes. Mid-century modern designers tried to create a new aesthetic that spoke to the modern age,” he told us. “It was finally coming out of the 19th century and fully into the 20th.”
And because not all mid-century design looks like Eames (although Ray and Charles are certainly important), we asked him to outline the most important mid-century designers to know. And we know most of these pieces cost waaaaay more than your average cast-off, but do as we’re doing—peruse the list, and pick a few favorites to keep filed away for when it’s time to make a major investment.
Alvar Aalto
(Finland, 1898-1976)
“A Finnish architect and designer, Alvar Aalto is credited with popularizing Scandinavian modernism in America and beyond. In both his buildings and in his furnishings—which range from chairs, tables, and lighting to table- and glassware—Aalto’s sensitivity to the natural world and to organic forms and materials tempered the hardness of rationalist design.”
Charles and Ray Eames
(USA, 1907-1978; 1912-1988)
“Husband-and-wife Charles and Ray Eames were the embodiment of the inventiveness, energy, and optimism at the heart of mid-century modern American design. Furniture designers, filmmakers, artists, textile and graphic designers, and even toy and puzzle makers, the Eameses believed that design should be an agent of positive change. They are the happy, ever-curious, ever-adventurous faces of modernism.”
Paul Evans
(USA, 1931-1987)
“A leading light of the American Studio Furniture movement, Paul Evans was inspired by seemingly contradictory forces: traditional ‘folk art’ forms, and the latest materials and technologies. Evans primarily worked in metal, not wood (which was favored by such fellow studio designers and Bucks County, Pennsylvania, neighbors as George Nakashima), and his best-known works are cabinets faced in high-relief, patinated steel mounts with metal glyphs, which read like brawny patchwork quilts.”