Most of us know that the past couple of years have been tough. The recession, though not as crushing as the Great Depression, has taken its toll. We found ourselves mired in debt as our retirement savings evaporated and the worth of our homes shrank. The term”toxic asset” (an oxymoron if there ever was one) entered the mainstream. In brief, some people have found ourselves feeling just like those bad inhabitants in Gericault’s painting The Raft of the Medusa — adrift in frightening seas without a safe haven in sight.
Nevertheless, as we start out 2012 I find myself curiously optimistic. It now appears to me if the previous few years have been about McMansions, faux castles and”irrational exuberance,” our next act ought to be about starting afresh from the last time we exhibited true optimism.
Maybe it’s because I’m more conscious of those great homes today, or maybe it’s that we’re all reacting to yesteryear, but for all the reason I’m looking with new eyes at mid modernism. With true lightness and joy, these homes express a genuine optimism that tomorrow will be better than today; our children’s world will be better than our own.
It appears therefore that we’re able to take that mid-century modern soul and unite it with today’s more sustainable and effective processes and materials to attain something all together new and exciting. The very first step is to learn from these homes. So below are some of the lessons that I’ve discovered. What about you?
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Steinbomer, Bramwell & Vrazel Architects
1. Float Along. Modestly sized, mid-century contemporary homes were often mild, thin and screen-like and would only gently touch the ground. More often than not these homes had an impermanent quality that belies their inborn ability to do more with less.
2. Take Flight. Proceed, reach for the stars, aim for the skies, don’t settle for what’s easy but handle what’s hard. The mid-20th century proved to be the dawn of the Jet Age and the Space Race, and we had a faith in ourselves which we can do anything. And our homes surely looked every bit as though they were ready to take us all there.
Klopf Architecture
3. Reach Out. A roof shouldn’t just shelter the enclosed space, it ought to reach out and extend out to the landscape to define and shield an outdoor area too. And in so doing control how the sun moves and warms the inside space.
Ainslie-Davis Construction
4. Be Not So Common. A little and small ranch, as ordinary as could be from the 1950s, is expanded in a manner that respects the original structure while having the lightness and brightness of mid-century contemporary. This time around with glass and other materials to get a more efficient arrangement.
Tracy Stone AIA
5. Make No Tiny Doors. Well-built, efficient and easy to use, large doors are easily obtainable. Whether slipping, telescoping, folding, overhead or other, large doors can join the inside and out and blur the distinction between both such as never before. And while we’re at it, no grilles, grids, muntins, etc.. Just glass. Big, beautiful, clean, energy-efficient glass.
Gary Hutton Design
6. Enjoy Moving Barefoot. Connecting insides with exteriors and using low maintenance and sustainable materials for our flooring will let us live the casual and informal life we want. And our bedrooms want that outdoor connection. So designing the home to enable that.
7. Create Not Open Strategies. No longer do we find Dad from the room reading the paper and smoking his pipe while Mom is in the kitchen preparing the dinner while the children are in the living room watching Howdy Doody. Now we need spaces that promote togetherness and interaction. However, too open could be stifling as too closed. So create separate zones and regions. Change levels and ceiling heights. Make it so that you can pop your head up, see what’s going on, and go from there.
Ainslie-Davis Construction
8. Maintain It Family Friendly. Let the children write on the walls (they will anyway) in a place that’s open and on perspective. No hiding , just art work and messages everyone will be proud of.
Brennan + Company Architects
9. Keep It Simple. No fussy acanthus leaves. No more corbels or ogees. Just clean, spare and simple shapes, lines and forms. With color, bright and bold and gorgeous color that adds a smile to your face and joy in your heart.
More photos of mid-century contemporary style
Tracy Stone AIA
10. Insert a Pop-Up. Prevent that overly horizontal, 8-foot-tall and boring ceiling plane. Like the top of a 1960s micro-bus camper, pop it up and put in any clerestory windows to increase spaciousness and allow the sunshine in.
Crate&Barrel
Classic Century Sauce Boat – $47.95
11. Do not Stop at the Architecture. Our world is full of beautiful, simple, clean and practical objects like this sauce ship in Eva Zeisel. It is durable, easy to use, enjoyable to check at, cheap and omnipresent — what good and true of mid-century contemporary.
More: 5 Beautiful Mid-Century Modern Homes
Lessons of the Eameses
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