10 Things You Need To Know About: Mid-Century Modern

This is a term that has been used (and abused) so much over the last ten years that I thought it might be good to have a look at true mid-century modern design to help you work out what’s real and what’s just pinched a few straight lines and called it mid-century when there’s nothing remotely mid-century about it. It has become a popular marketing description and a phrase that is bandied about often with little or no regard to the original.

1 When was it? Well, as you can imagine there’s some dispute about the exact time frame but it’s roughly between the 1930s and 60s although purists would, of course, reduce that to the end of the 40s and through the 50s. It started to grow after WWII with new technologies (Charles and Ray Eames honed their plywood techniques with wooden leg splints for the US Navy that would eventually end up as the LCW chair) and mass migration to urban areas and smaller living spaces.