Tag: review

Richard Neutra VDL research house upstairs external

Richard Neutra’s VDL Research House

Richard Neutra’s VDL Research House is surely the building whose history best captures the life of its architect.

Named “VDL” after the wealthy Dutch industrialist Cees H. Van der Leeuw, Neutra’s early benefactor, it served as the architect’s own home and studio for much of his career.

The George Nelson Ball Clockr

The post-WWII period was a new starting point for many people. The Americans embraced the decade of optimism by following the new trend of buying new objects to replace the old ones which brought bad memories of the difficult period.

Isamu Noguchi: The Freeform Sofa

Isamu Noguchi was a sculptor-designer with a predilection for the language of biomorphism that is clearly represented in the Freeform Sofa designed in 1946.
The sculptural background hugely influenced his works as furniture designer as it is also clear with the Freeform that looks as made of two large stones even with a dynamic and light appearance.

Mid Century Modern Icons: The Eero Saarinen Organic Chair

Eero Saarinen is internationally recognized as one of the American modernist designers that most of all contributed to reinvent the domestic and industrial design and spaces. Not only Saarinen was known and appreciated for his architectural works but he had a fundamental role within the furniture designs of the 1940s.

Hans Wegner: The Halyard Chair

The use of contrasting materials as rope, painted and chrome-plated steel, sheepskin and a linen-covered cushion to design the Halyard Chair have not precedents in the mid century modern design.
Hans Wegner goal while designing this chair was not to prove the textural interplay of the materials used but his ability to create practical and innovative furniture in any other material than wood.

Charles and Ray Eames: Lounge Chair And Ottoman

Initially made as a one-off prototype design, the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman quickly became fashionable and well-liked by a wider public after the design was improved and eventually put into production. It was seen as a 20th-century rebirth of the old English Club Chair.

Arne Jacobsen’s Swan Chair

The original Swan chair was designed by Arne Jacobsen as part of a project for the Radisson’s Royal Hotel in Copenhagen that also included the Egg chair. Arne Jacobsen’s design consisted of a curved hard plastic seat on a polished aluminium stand.
The aluminium swiveling base was not part of the original design for the Swan chair. It previously had a set of cross-shaped legs made from laminated beech wood.

Mid Century Architecture: The Jones Residence

When the architect had to design this house in a wooden area -his own home- he chose for a particular rigours style.
Like most of the mid century modern houses, also this one was designed to make blurry the limit between inside and outside. The rectangular and single-level architecture together with the floor to ceiling windows used as external walls, provide views of the wood from most of the rooms.

George Nelson Studio: The Ball Clock

Because of its unique design, the Atomic Clock became one of the most recognizable pieces of the mid-century design. Its shape reminds of an atom’s molecular structure, resembling the modern age and technology innovations. The missing numbers may also indicate the representation of time as a metaphysical state in which it passes without reference.

I Want Neutra! A Mid Century Architecture Love Story.

The photos in this article come from my favorite architecture and design magazine -Case Da Abitare. It was taken in one of the houses built by Richard Neutra in the so-called “Neutra Colony”- a group of mid-century homes built at Silver Lake (L.A.) in 1959.
The new owner of this piece of Neutra mid-century architecture is Eli Bonerz; buying this house was a promise he had made to himself.