At between four and five feet in length, an elegant early-1900s Steinway & Sons baby grand piano will undoubtedly steal the show if you’re thinking of yielding some precious real estate to one of these American classics, but maybe you’re simply shopping for art to warm the bare walls of your new apartment or weekend home.įor your living room, maybe you’ve already hunted down portraits by Gered Mankowitz, a celebrated 1960s-era photographer who spent his life capturing iconic images of music’s biggest stars. Whether you’re playing them or merely displaying them, vintage musical instruments, when cared for properly, can be a wonderful addition to any space. Pay tribute to a history of rich and diverse musical traditions that have taken shape all over the world by decorating your home with a collection of antique and vintage musical instruments. Finding the Right Musical Instruments for You There were Young Turks such as Paul McCobb - who designed holistic groups of sleek, blonde-wood furniture - and Milo Baughman, who espoused a West Coast aesthetic in lushly upholstered chairs and sofas with angular steel frames.Īs the collection of vintage mid-century modern American furniture on 1stDibs demonstrates, this period saw one of the most delightful and dramatic flowerings of creativity in design history. Robsjohn-Gibbings switched gears, creating items such as the tiered, biomorphic Mesa table. Materials were re-purposed: the Danish-born designer Jens Risom created a line of chairs that used surplus parachute straps for webbed seats and backrests.Īs the demand for casual, uncluttered furnishings grew, more mid-century designers caught the spirit.Ĭlassically-oriented creators such as Edward Wormley, house designer for Dunbar Inc., offered such pieces as the sinuous Listen to Me chaise the British expatriate T.H.
Harry Bertoia and Isamu Noguchi devised chairs and tables built of wire mesh and wire struts. George Nelson and his design team created Bubble lamp shades using a new translucent polymer skin. Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen, who had experimented extensively with molded plywood, eagerly embraced fiberglass for, respectively, pieces such as the La Chaise and the Womb chair. Materials developed for wartime use became available for domestic goods and were incorporated into mid-century modern furniture designs. New building techniques, such as “post-and-beam” construction, allowed the International-style schemes to be realized on a small scale, in open-plan houses with long walls of glass. The lean, functionalist “International Style” architecture of Le Corbusier and Bauhaus eminences such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius had been promoted in the United States during the ’30s by Philip Johnson and others. Postwar American architects and designers were animated by new ideas and new technology.
The style, which emerged primarily in the years following World War II, is characterized by pieces that were conceived and made in an energetic, optimistic spirit by creators who believed that good design was an essential part of good living. Organically shaped, clean-lined and elegantly simple are three terms that well describe mid-century modern American furniture.
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