Exactly What is Mid-Mod … aka Mid Century Modern and Modernism?
If you are unfamiliar with Modern Style, just think of the Atomic Age Jetsons in their futuristic home or the sleek, high-end sophistication of the Rat Pack in front of the sweeping Sands Hotel sign in Las Vegas by architect and designer Wayne McAllister, and you’ll start to understand the style.
In the pre-World War II period, Modern architects designed revolutionary buildings which boldly rejected applied ornamentation and took their inspiration from the organic world and the machine age. Los Angeles became a magnet for many of these visionaries.
Following World War II, new technologies enabled architects to experiment with a palette previously unavailable to them. Mid Century Modern buildings built between 1940 and 1965 tend to have clean, simple lines, a minimum of decoration, lots of glass, a flat or angled roof-line and use materials such as Formica, aluminum, stainless steel, flagstone, or terrazzo. Signage often used neon and plastics with unique typefaces. Resins, plastics, metal alloys, laminates, and other new materials merged for the first time, creating some of the most astonishing and innovative design and architecture ever.
Parking their finned automobiles in sleek carports, Modern Postwar familes moved into tract homes and high art model homes with indoor/outdoor living spaces, open floor plans, exotic landscaping, and abstract furnishings. Wartime sacrifices were blown away, along with most walls, revealing a brighter, fresher, better world of tomorrow.
* Source: from the original Modern Committee brochure from the 1990s.
