Modern vs. Midcentury Modern Bonus Content

Pieces & process

My video essay Modern vs. Midcentury Modern is out now!

I was pretty excited to make Renaissance vs. Medieval after Bauhaus vs. Brutalism. But the overwhelmingly positive response to Bauhaus changed my mind. I don’t know what the definition of “viral” is anymore, but 7,000 subscribers and 200k views in 2 months feels pretty special to me. I wanted to do something for the people who came to the channel, and the people in the comments seemed to want “more modern!”.

This video was A LOT harder for me to make, maybe because I made it quickly. I like to give art history videos a luxuriously long gestation period. I like to really think about the pieces, the themes, their impact on history, see how they pop up in my daily life. I marinate on color schemes, typography, and graphic design. I had a great book to guide me through Bauhaus; I had no such single resource for Midcentury. Plus, a lot of living people remember the heydays of modern and midcentury modern design. Some of those people comment on my YouTube videos. I know I can’t be as thorough as someone in their 60’s or 70’s who practiced critical thinking during the 50’s and 60’s. That’s why I’m so grateful for their comments! So, I tried to focus on which pieces connected with me, and why.

Here are a few notes on the pieces I chose (or did not choose):

1. Le Corbusier

Many commenters on the Bauhaus v. Brutalism video couldn’t believe I didn’t include Le Corbusier. Here’s why I didn’t:

1. He wasn’t trained at the Bauhaus and

2. His designs don’t inspire me.

I understand that Le Corbusier was a huge celebrity during his career. He certainly has the name for it. Tom Wolfe seems to have personal beef with Le Corbusier in From Bauhaus to Our House. I wonder if Le was the type of guy who really excelled at dinner parties (Wolfe certainly did). I just feel other designers and architects did modern design better than he did (like Frank Lloyd Wright). Plus, Le Corbusier published wildly anti-semitic writings before, during and after the Holocaust. I’ve got no patience for 2 things these days: fascism and AI. I just didn’t want to spend any extra time with this designer.

Additionally, I feel like Gen ai is really amped on for buildings that look like Le Corbusier’s, and anything that even looks remotely gen ai feels really alienating to me these days. I’m sure The Brutalist crew fed Midjourney Le Corbusier drawings.

Ew.

I did use the image of Villa Savoye. It’s lip service. It’s also just a great photo. I feel conflicted about it.

Also, I’m American, and Le Corbusier mostly created in Europe. I do like to choose pieces and designers with which I have firsthand experience. Which brings me to Brazil.

2. Brazil

I spent three months in Brazil, and I find Brazil’s flavor of midcentury modern design both thrilling and iconic. Most of Rio de Janeiro hasn’t been remodeled since they put in all the MCM stuff. This is still the sidewalk:

I visited Lina Bo Bardi’s Museum of Art in Parque do Ibirapuera, Sao Paulo. Standing under that block really felt like being on the cutting edge of something exciting, probably because it feels like it could crush you at any minute. The open way the museum displays art does feel futuristic, even though they built it over 70 years ago.

I find Bo Bardi to be an opinionated designer. She approached the soul of a building. The museum isn’t a museum of modern art, but it displays art in a modern way. She hosted politicians and artists in her glass house, which she built in a jungle, re-enforcing the theme that humans are part of nature, and that we are all connected to each other.

I was also fascinated that Brazilian designers mimicked American midcentury shapes by carving wood, which is much more difficult than shaping plastic. Brazil’s isolationist foreign policies made plastic rare there in the 50’s and 60’s. I find this Sergio Rodrigues Flintstones- looking chair endlessly delicious.

I also loved imagining a world (or at least a country) where plastic isn’t literally coming out of our noses.

3. Disney’s Tomorrowland

I like to include pieces people will recognize, like the Paris Metro or the tulip chair. I’m personally captivated by Tomorrowland, which I had the great fortune to visit several times. I make no apologies for Disneyland. It’s a great example of midcentury modern design! And I love any excuse to flip through vintagedisneyparks.tumblr.com.

I found myself feeling mysteriously happy while working on this video. There is something just so cheery and optimistic about midcentury modern designs: the colors, the imagination, the playfulness, the ethos and excitement of imagining a future. Not just a cute future, but a future, period. I feel unable to imagine the future sometimes, and midcentury modern design inspires me to dream.

Paid subscribers will get access to a curated collection of images I found but didn’t use for the video.

Special shout out to fellow Substacker

Austin Winfield

at

Mid-Century Mondays

for his excellent research on the Tulip Chair.

See you next time.