Discovering Our Love for Midcentury Modern Design
Ever since getting married, we’ve only lived in a full sized residence (i.e., with actual bedrooms, kitchen, living room, etc. — before that we were living in studio-like arrangements known as kos-kosan) once before moving to Singapore. We also knew that moving out of Jakarta meant that we are no longer chained to the Big Durian when it comes to permanent housing options. Since our parents live in either Bali or Lombok, it made all the sense in the world that our medium term plan is to get a plot of land, design a house we like, and build one. There is no rush, so we don’t have to limit ourselves in getting an already-built house. The objective, hopefully, is not to get ourselves tied into mortgage.
Since we knew that we had this medium term plan in the back of our minds, we decided that when moving to Singapore we would just get an unfurnished apartment unit to rent. It is not only slightly cheaper in the longer run, but you also don’t pay the premium of a unit that’s furnished with ugly furniture (which seems like most of the time — or could be our taste is peculiar). Our last apartment in Jakarta was furnished and there were a lot of items that we never used in the 2 years we lived there (e.g., the TV was installed non-optimally, the couch was not super comfortable, etc.) — so we thought this time we’d get our own stuff that we actually like, probably spend a little bit more on quality products hoping to get good longevity on them and if we ever move from Singapore we can just ship the furniture we bought to the future Bali house. Just to confirm, the Bali house does not exist yet — hopefully phase I of the plan will be executed in Q1 2023.
Long story short, ever since landing in Singapore back in December 2022 (gosh almost a year already!) we started looking at what this country has to offer in terms of furniture. Singapore being an island state in our observations has quite limited choices in terms of locally produced furniture — most seem to be imported and a lot of the things we saw is always on order and takes several weeks to arrive. Another topic for another blog post.
Anyhow, during the initial 1-2 months thinking of the furnitures that we wanted to get we immediately noticed that between the items we had our eyes on it seemed like they had a very similar design DNA. And only then we realised that we loved a certain design style: the Midcentury Modern!
So what is it? Gathering some materials from the worldwide web, Midcentury Modern seemed to refer to the design movement (in many different forms — interior design, product, graphic, architecture, etc.) that came about around 1940s to end of 1960s. This was mostly a post-World War II period. This could be debatable but from what we’ve read, the term seemed to have been coined by Cara Greenberg in the 1984 book Mid-century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s. In general, it is described that Midcentury Modern’s design aesthetics pushes for modernity in style and in construction — apparently aligned with the Modernist movement of the period. It is said that clean, simple lines and honest use of materials is key characteristics with minimum use of decorative embellishments. Here are some mood boards (Thanks to Pinterest!) that helpful enough to guide us through curating furnitures for our home.
Source: Pinterest
We’re thinking of doing a series of posts examining the above and how some of the pieces that we end up buying seem to reflect that so we’ll keep things general in this post. Reflecting on the above history of Midcentury Modern design, we did notice that a lot of the items during this period is also characterised by artists often experimenting with form and the use of techniques focusing on process and material in creating the pieces. One good example of this was the Eames Elephant by the Swiss company Vitra — this may seem like only a decorative process but the item that’s been around since the mid 40s is originally made to experiment with forming layers of plywood and if you examine closely the shape of the elephant you can only imagine how meticulous it was to stack and bend all those plywood. It may seem “normal” now with advanced woodworking machinery but it was quite ahead of its time. That very same technique seems to also be visible in the legendary Eames Lounge Chair.
Another amazing example of Midcentury Modern design are the pieces created by Isamu Noguchi. You may be familiar with the Noguchi table that is often the centrepiece of a living room in magazines or Architectural Digest — and rightly so, this piece is an intriguing examination not only in pushing the boundaries of the form factor of a coffee table but also the experimentation of different materials fused together to create such an iconic design so timeless that it remains sought after in the present day. The Noguchi lamps are also a testament to intricate design pushing the boundaries of its time — these are particularly interesting as we think they represent contradicting principles (simple yet sophisticated, structured yet fragile) in a design form that is timeless.
Once you get into the Midcentury Modern journey, you’ll realise that you’ve entered a world that existed roughly 50 odd years ago who tried to see through the crystal ball and foresee what the future might hold. This could be our interpretation but is seemed like at a certain point there was an obsession with space-like design that strikingly resembled a lot of form factors that we see in cartoon series like The Jetsons — which reimagined space-age life in the future. The series aired in the 60s so it seems like the link is not far fetched. If you see design pieces like the Panthella Lamp by Verner Panton (OK so this may be a bit newer than the Midcentury period — popping in the 70s but it does feel like they’re still influenced somehow), these are not your typical table lamp designs. But this is a vivid example where form and function melds together because if you’ve seen a Pantella Lamp then you’ll know the warm and soft light produced as a result of the geometric design and also the lights bouncing through the dome.
To continue the topic of form melding with function, another item we really like in the collection that is a testament of this is the Model 71 chairs. These are produced by a Danish company called JL Møllers Møbelfabrik and has been around since it was founded in 1944 until today. Like the Midcentury Modern design DNA, the company prides itself in clean, simple designs and the quality of materials and workmanships that lead to timeless Nordic design. Model 71 was initially produced in early 50s and nowadays you can find restored pieces (usually in teak or rosewood) with a variety of upholsteries, but the really cool versions in our opinion was the one with the woven paper cord model. This was allegedly made popular by Hans J. Wegner and the use of the paper cord was deemed very revolutionary at the time — both deliberate and exposed. Our Model 71 chairs need its own post but the gist of it was that the chairs represented, like other Midcentury Modern items at the time, an imagination of the future.
And that is exactly why we love the design form of Midcentury Modern: buying them in the present day is like peeking at artefacts from a bygone period that tried to peek into the future. There is something quaint, romantic, and meta about the whole concept. Don’t get us wrong, then intention here is not to be a purist snob in ONLY selecting Midcentury Modern pieces. We do have 1-2 Scandinavian design pieces (both artisan and mass-produced) — there is still very much a utilitarian approach when selecting our furnitures. The fun thing about the timeless-ness of the Midcentury pieces are, you can even try to find people really good at restoration and you can source really new-looking pieces that’s easily 50 years old. If you’re into sustainability, that means no new forests was cut down to produce it.
So hopefully that was interesting enough for you. There is obviously many design DNAs that are super interesting these days (e.g., Japandi!?) but somehow we found home in the Midcentury Modern design furnitures. Hard to now imagine life before we had them amidst our daily lives.
