THE VELVET-SILK CAFÉ

1927

Partial recreation of environment designed by Lilly Reich (German, 1885–1947), with tubular-steel furniture designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (American, born Germany. 1886–1969), and sponsored by German textile manufacturers and retailers as part of the exhibition Die Mode der Dame (Women’s fashion), Berlin

Views of the original Velvet-Silk Café

Left: Quilted jacket in yellow shantung silk, designed by Reich in 1926Right: Living room of the Villa Tugendhat, Brno, former Czechoslovakia, designed by Reich and Mies van der Rohe in 1929

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In a café environment presented as part of an exhibition on women’s

fashion in Berlin, the general public had their first chance to try out

cantilevered tubular steel chairs with no back legs, literally con-

suming modern culture with their coffee. The immersive experience

opened the consumer imagination to new conceptions of free-flow-

ing space and to the sensuous appeal of the materials. Highlights

of glinting metal, black leather, and smoky glass added to the inte-

rior’s rich textural palette. Lilly Reich’s waving fabric walls dissolved

conventional distinctions between structure and decoration, inside

and out, masculine and feminine, fashion and architecture.

After a period of acute material shortages and political instability,

the café signaled the recovery of Germany’s textile industry. Reich’s

choice of yellow, black, and red—the colors of the liberal Weimar

Republic, established in 1919—linked the café with the young state’s

sense of social renewal and cultural innovation. The venue appealed

to the active, independent New Woman, like Reich herself, identifi-

ed by her cropped hairstyle and modern dress. Reich was the first

woman to join the Deutsche Werkbund’s board of directors and had

run a successful design studio since 1914, specializing in clothing,

interiors, and commercial exhibitions. She brought this extensive

expertise to her fifteen-year partnership with Mies van der Rohe,

and the café was a crucial testing ground for subsequent projects

such as the Villa Tugendhat in Brno (1929) and Philip Johnson’s New

York apartment (1930).

Reproduction furniture for the Velvet–Silk Café is provided by Knoll.

THE FRANKFURT KITCHEN

1926–28

The Frankfurt Kitchen was designed like a laboratory or factory and

based on contemporary theories about efficiency, hygiene, and work-

flow. In planning the design, Schütte-Lihotzky conducted detailed

time-motion studies and interviews with housewives and women’s

groups. Each kitchen came complete with a swivel stool, a gas stove,

built-in storage, a fold-down ironing board, an adjustable ceiling

light, and a removable garbage drawer. Labeled aluminum storage

bins provided tidy organization for staples like sugar and rice as

well as easy pouring. Careful thought was given to materials for

specific functions, such as oak flour containers (to repel mealworms)

and beech cutting surfaces (to resist staining and knife marks).

War and inflation precipitated a housing crisis in all major German

cities, including Frankfurt, where the response was an ambitious

program known as the New Frankfurt. This initiative encompassed

the construction of affordable public housing and modern amen-

ities throughout the city. At the core of this transformation were

about 10,000 kitchens designed by Grete Schütte-Lihotzky and

constructed as an integral element of the new dwelling units.

The Frankfurt Kitchen is the earliest work by a female architect in

MoMA’s collection. Reminiscing about her decision to study archi-

tecture, Schütte-Lihotzky remarked that “in 1916 no one would have

conceived of a woman being commissioned to build a house—not

even myself.” During the interwar period, she became involved in

designing affordable housing and worked with another Viennese

architect, Adolf Loos, on planning settlements for World War I vet-

erans. During World War II her career was interrupted by four years

in prison for her activities in the anti-Nazi resistance movement.

Frankfurt Kitchen from the Ginnheim-Höhenblick Housing Estate, Frankfurt, Germany, by Grete Schütte-Lihotzky (Austrian, 1897–2000)

Eileen Gray came to architecture late, after achieving significant

success as a furniture and interior designer in Paris. Her first major

work was a small vacation home in the south of France for the

architect-editor Jean Badovici. The name E-1027 was a cipher for

their intertwined initials, representing the collaborative nature of

the project, and they lived there together for a number of years.

Badovici advised on specific details and publicized the finished

work, but the overall conception, and its compelling synthesis of

architecture and furnishings, was Gray’s.

While strongly influenced by Le Corbusier’s new architecture, Gray

reacted against formulaic modernism “conceived for the pleasure

of the eye more than for the well-being of its inhabitants.” She spent

two years at the E-1027 site studying the movements of the wind

and the sun to develop a house attuned to its setting, and personally

supervised the construction. The basic form of the house is a white

rectangular box raised on stilts, but within this deceptively simple

exterior, Gray layered the progression from land to sea on the slop-

ing site. Through thoughtful planning and the complex integration

of sliding doors, storage walls, and multifunctional furniture, she

created a sequence of flexible spaces that could be expanded or

contracted as required. Every detail was envisaged from the user’s

viewpoint—in terms of his or her bodily experience, comfort, and

convenience—in order to counter what she saw as “the atrophy

of sensuality” in much modern architecture.

E-1027: HOUSE BY THE SEA

Furnishings designed by Eileen Gray (Anglo-Irish, 1878–1976) and architecture designed by Gray in collaboration with Jean Badovici (Romanian, 1893–1956), in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France

Plan of E-1027, 1929

1929

METAL plays the same part in furniture as cement does in archi-

tecture. IT IS A REVOLUTION,” declared Charlotte Perriand in 1929.

At the time she was working on a model apartment for that year’s

Salon d’Automne in Paris, which would introduce the public to the

new line of “home equipment” that she had been developing in

collaboration with the architect Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre

Jeanneret. The trio’s iconic tubular steel furniture was showcased

in an interior with a textured glass floor lit from beneath and a

glass-panel ceiling. The whole created a vision of deluxe modernity.

“While our chair designs were directly related to the position of

the human body,” Perriand would recall in her autobiography, “they

were also determined by the requirements of architecture, setting,

and prestige.”

Two years earlier, Perriand had approached Le Corbusier about

working in his Paris studio, just days after he had returned from

participating in the Stuttgart exhibition Die Wohnung (The dwelling),

feeling the need to catch up with the developments in modern

German and Dutch furniture he had seen there. Sight of Perriand’s

stylish metal furniture at the 1927 Salon d’Automne convinced him

that she was the person to develop this side of the practice, de-

spite the fact that he had initially rebuffed her with the memorable

put-down, “We don’t embroider cushions here.” She stayed in the

office for the next decade and, like Eileen Gray, became a founding

member of the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM), an avant-garde

design group established in 1929.

“

METAL IS MODERN: EQUIPMENT FOR LIVING

Furniture and exhibition designs developed by Charlotte Perriand (French, 1903–1999) in collaboration with Pierre Jeanneret (Swiss, 1896–1967) and Le Corbusier (French, born Switzerland. 1887–1965)

1929

Chaise Longue (LC/4) in the Architecture Room, the first permanent space for architecture at MoMA, designed in 1933 by Philip Johnson

Exhibition setting designed by Charlotte Perriand at the Internationale Raumausstellung, Cologne, 1931

Model interior at the Maison Clarté apartment building, Geneva, designed by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, and Charlotte Perriand, 1932

While still a student at Harvard University, Philip Johnson joined the

throng of international visitors to the 1927 exhibition Die Wohnung

(The dwelling) in Stuttgart, Germany. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and

Lilly Reich’s design of the show inspired Johnson, as did their other

work in Germany, so he commissioned the couple to design his first

New York apartment in 1930. Writing to his mother, he explained,

“It would be the first room entirely in my latest style in America. . . .

I think it would be the cheapest possible kind of publicity for my

style. The whole would be elegant but so simple.” Johnson was at

the start of his career as founding director of MoMA’s Department

of Architecture. He clearly viewed the apartment as a touchstone

for his curatorial practice and as a laboratory for ideas of how to live

simply in the modern age, with contemporary design.

Reich and Mies simplified the existing interiors, combining plain

white walls, sisal matting, and a limited range of tubular steel furni-

ture with navy blue silk curtains hung from floor to ceiling to define

the spaces and to hide extraneous architectural detailing. The

lessons Johnson internalized from this reductive yet texturally rich

scheme informed both his own practice as an interior architect and

his approach to exhibition content and presentation. The installation

of Machine Art (1934), for example, made refined use of subtly con-

trasting surface treatments, curtains, and lighting to focus attention

on displays of contemporary industrial design.

A RESOLUTELY MODERN BEDROOM

1930

Bedroom, Philip Johnson’s apartment, 1930

View of the exhibition Machine Art, MoMA, 1934

Part of interior remodeling of Philip Johnson’s apartment at 424 East 52nd Street, New York, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (American, born Germany. 1886–1969) and Lilly Reich (German, 1885–1947)

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CHILDREN IN THE MODERN HOME

1925 –56

Teach your children that a house is only habitable when it is full

of light and air, and when the floors and walls are clear,” urged Le

Corbusier in 1923. Some architects advocated the communal care

of children, minimizing the need to plan dedicated spaces for them

within the home. There was general consensus, however, that the

interior environments in which children were raised were a crucial

formative influence on their physical, emotional, and intellectual

development. Playrooms and open-plan family rooms became

increasingly important features of affluent postwar homes, reflect-

ing more casual lifestyles and greater informality between adults

and children.

Modernist architects and designers did not have a monopoly on

concepts of hygiene and practicality, but their use of pared-down

furniture and decoration, built-in features, and washable surfaces

stood up to the wear and tear of boisterous young people. In this

respect interiors paralleled developments in progressive education

that emphasized child-centered perspectives and learning through

play. Blackboard panels encouraged self-expression, and trouble-

some chalk dust was easily cleaned from floors and tabletops

covered with linoleum, glass, or cork. The easy-to-clean principle

was extended to simple, undecorated furniture and toys. Chromed

steel, plywood, and plastic—all modernist materials of choice—

could be kept spotless. Modern toys were also designed to promote

a new sensibility, whether by introducing miniature versions of

adult furniture or by encouraging constructive, exploratory play

with building blocks or cards that could be assembled and pulled

apart repeatedly.

Modernist furniture, interior designs, and toys for children

Child with furniture designed by Marcel Breuer, c. 1930–31

Little Toy, designed by Charles and Ray Eames, 1952

“

APARTMENT FOR A NEW YORK DESIGNER

1935–36

In Depression-era New York, where architectural commissions

were few and far between, the opportunity to remodel Marguerita

Mergentime’s apartment was a lifeline for Frederick Kiesler. At the

time he was experimenting with cast aluminum (normally reser-

ved for kitchen utensils and airplane parts), plastics, and industrial

glass, and prototyping new forms of furniture and lighting that

he hoped to put into wider production. The space was sculpted by

light diffused through translucent materials and bounced off reflec-

tive surfaces; a glass-block partition fractured the light, merging

spaces formerly divided into closed cubicles. The amoeba-shaped

nesting tables and swiveling “eye” of the sprouting floor lamp

reflect Kiesler’s interests in the era’s cinema and Surrealist art,

which he shared with Mergentime (a copy of Minotaure, the famed

Surrealist magazine to which she subscribed, can be seen lying on

the glass table).

Both Kiesler and Mergentime belonged to the American Union of

Decorative Artists and Craftsmen (AUDAC), an organization set

up in 1929 to unite “practical modernists, applying their art with-

in the limits of commercial practice.” Mergentime, a successful

textile designer, wanted a multifunctional environment that would

accommodate family life, studio space, and business-related en-

tertainment. Her home was a showcase for her own designs and

those of others in her professional network. The apartment was

indisputably modern—presaging the organic, formfitting design of

the 1940s and 1950s—yet it epitomizes a strand of 1930s American

design that MoMA marginalized in favor of the International Style.

Interiors and furniture by Frederick Kiesler (American, born Austria-Hungary. 1890–1965) for the home of textile designer Marguerita Mergentime (American, 1894–1942), 211 Central Park West, New York

Interior views of the Mergentime apartment, 1937. Photographs by Robert Damora. © Damora Archive

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ARTEK AND THE AALTOS

1935–39

Although best known for their organically shaped plywood fur-

niture (a humanist alternative to the tubular steel furnishings of the

period), Alvar and Aino Aalto had a far-reaching impact on the mo-

dern interior through Artek, their forward-thinking design company

and international retail operation. Artek (a synthesis of “art” and

“technology”) was cofounded in 1935 by the Aaltos together with

Maire Gullichsen and Nils Gustav Hahl, two similar-minded patrons

and critics. At its very core was a mission to promote an integrated

modernist approach to the design of interior spaces throughout

Scandinavia and beyond.

The first Artek store opened in Helsinki in 1936, showcasing home

furnishings, as well as modern artworks by Jean (Hans) Arp, Alexan-

der Calder, Pablo Picasso, and Fernand Léger, which were installed

in an adjoining gallery. By also offering glass and textiles designed

by the Aaltos and craft goods from around the world, the Artek

store broke down hierarchies between fine and applied arts in a

holistic approach to modern decor. Connected to a vast network of

modern architects, designers, importers, and wholesalers, Artek

distributed the Aaltos’ patently Scandinavian bentwood furniture

all over the world through retailers like Wohnbedarf (Zurich) and

Finmar (London).

Aino Aalto was a driving force in Artek’s success until her death in

1949. As head of Artek’s interior design division, she was responsible

for significant public and residential interior commissions. Her hand

is present in nearly all of her husband’s architectural projects, and

she also achieved acclaim for her own designs for children’s furni-

ture, kitchens, and textiles.

Artek storefront, Helsinki, Finland, 1939

Brochure for Artek-Pascoe, New York

View of the exhibition Aino and Alvar Aalto, MoMA, 1938

Furniture, interiors, and exhibitions designed by Aino (Marsio) Aalto (Finnish, 1894–1949) and Alvar Aalto (Finnish, 1898–1976)

TOKYO–NEW YORK: VERNACULAR MODERN

1940 –54

In the 1930s and 1940s, various designers explored new combina-

tions of European, American, and vernacular Japanese approaches

to the modern interior. The transmission of Japanese influence to an

American or European context, or vice versa, was often ambiguous

and filtered through cultural preconceptions. Nevertheless these

exchanges informed ambitions to create interior design for inter-

national markets that was capable of negotiating the global and

local with sensitivity to the coexistence of contemporary crafts and

industrial production.

In Japan and then New Hope, Pennsylvania, the studio of Noémi

Raymond and her architect husband, Antonin Raymond, was a train-

ing ground for esteemed designers such as Junzo Yoshimura and

George Nakashima. Working together collaboratively, they aspired

to blend the pared-down aesthetics of modernist design with a

commitment to craft and semi-mechanized techniques. Perriand,

who reached Tokyo in 1940, shortly before Japan’s entry into the

Second World War, was one of a string of Europeans working with

a Japanese government program to reinvigorate the crafts and

to develop industrial design practice. For Perriand, the experience

underlined a disciplined simplicity in furnishings, the flexible use of

modest interior spaces, and the potential for quality production

achieved by the imaginative adaptation of traditional materials and

artisanal methods.

Exhibition installations, furniture, and textiles designed by Charlotte Perriand (French, 1903–1999) in collaboration with Junzo Sakakura (Japanese, 1901–1969), Noémi Raymond (American, born France. 1889–1980), George Nakashima (American, 1905–1990), and Junzo Yoshimura (Japanese, 1908–1997)

MoMA AND MODERN LIVING

1940 –51

MoMA, like several other American museums, had been concerned

with the promotion of modern design for use since the 1930s, but

it was in the 1940s and 1950s that its famous Good Design program

matured, starting with the competition Organic Design in Home

Furnishings in 1940. The aim was to discover a group of designers

capable of creating a “useful and beautiful living environment for

contemporary life,” and the term “organic” was defined as a “har-

monious organization of the parts within the whole, according to

structure, material, and purpose.” Visitors to MoMA’s exhibition

of the winning entries were encouraged to lounge on the furni-

ture as part of the Museum’s commitment to educating the public

about new developments in the modern interior. Other design

competitions soon followed, accompanied by a flurry of influential

design exhibitions and the presentation of complete furnished

houses in the Museum’s Sculpture Garden. Design for Use, USA

(1950–52) toured Europe to broadcast so-called Good Design (of

the American variety) with the sponsorship of the United States

State Department.

This program forged new connections between designers, man-

ufacturers, retailers, and consumers, launching the careers of

numerous world-famous designers, among them Charles Eames,

Eero Saarinen, and Hans Wegner. Less celebrated were the many

talented women whose designs were frequently shown anony-

mously or under their husbands’ names. It has taken some fifty

years to give Ray Eames, Clara Porset, and Noémi Raymond their

rightful due in this respect.

Entry panels submitted to the Organic Design in Home Furnishings, International Low-Cost Furniture Design, and Lamp Design competitions at the Museum

RAY AND CHARLES EAMES: WHAT IS A HOUSE?

1946 –56

For prolific designers Ray and Charles Eames, the ideal home,

beyond providing shelter, should also “aid as a background for life

in work.” With this flexible functionality in mind, the couple designed

their 1949 house as part of the experimental Case Study Houses

program, launched by Arts & Architecture magazine in 1945. Using

only pre-fabricated, readily available materials, including sheet

steel and plate glass, they rapidly and inexpensively constructed

two colorful, box-like structures—one containing living spaces, the

other their busy studio—which face each other across a courtyard.

Inside, the sun-filled environments are open and airy. Outfitted with

the Eameses’ own lightweight plywood furniture and decorated with

whimsical bric-a-brac from around the world, the widely published

interiors epitomized a Californian lifestyle that was adaptable and

informal. Despite its playfully cozy appearance, the home’s decor

was carefully staged, and social gatherings for clients and design-

world luminaries were highly choreographed affairs. In this fashion,

the Eames home acted as a laboratory-like extension of their Los

Angeles office, blurring the distinction between their private life and

their work.

With their designs for molded plywood furniture, the Eameses

embraced new materials and means of mass production that re-

sponded to resource shortages with wartime ingenuity. After they

exhibited a number of their experimental chairs, tables, and storage

pieces at MoMA in 1946, the Herman Miller Furniture Company be-

gan to distribute and mass-produce molded plywood pieces based

on their prototypes.

Plywood furniture, film, and Case Study House No. 8 (Eames House) in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, designed by Ray Eames (American, 1912–1988) and Charles Eames (American, 1907–1978)

View of the exhibition New Furniture Designed by Charles Eames, MoMA, 1946, with Ray Eames at left

Stackable, molded plywood furniture designed by Charles and Ray Eames, reproduced in Arts & Architecture magazine, September 1946

KNOLL: FURNISHING THE WORLD

1948

Clients entering Knoll’s Manhattan showroom experienced an envi-

ronment of total modern design, very different from conventional

stores with stock piled high. A cord screen defined the foyer, pre-

senting a tantalizing view of the displays beyond without blocking

the free flow of the overall space. Through this simple sculptural

device, Herbert Matter alluded to the constructive, space-defining

potential of textiles in the modern interior. Instead of presenting

textiles in bins or rolls, Florence Knoll devised a trellis-like display

system for samples that both created an abstract composition of

texture and color and facilitated seasonal changeovers. Innovative

showrooms and exhibition stands with a strongly planned, architec-

tural feel were part of Knoll Associates’ winning midcentury formula.

Many subsequent clients recall the showrooms as the place where

they came to understand and appreciate the modern interior.

The company’s fortuitous combination of talented designers with re-

tail and manufacturing expertise opened up an international market

for modern home furnishings. The guiding force behind its success

was the architect-designer Florence Knoll, who had studied with

Eliel Saarinen and Mies van der Rohe and traveled widely in Europe

and Scandinavia. In 1946 she married Hans Knoll, and as his full

business partner immediately set about revamping the company’s

image and extending the family furniture company into contract

interior design. Struck by Matter’s graphic design and photography,

she plucked him from the studio of her friends Ray and Charles

Eames. Over the next twenty years, Matter directed Knoll’s visual

communication, designing the company logo, catalogs, advertising,

and display environments.

Knoll showroom, New York. Photograph by Robert Damora. © Damora Archive

Knoll showroom, Mexico City, 1961

Knoll showroom, 601 Madison Avenue, New York, designed by Florence Knoll (American, born 1917) and Herbert Matter (American, born Switzerland. 1907–1984)

Built in a spirit of postwar idealism, this compact and versatile space

represented a modernist blueprint for independent living and an

investment in citizens of the future. It was one of ninety-five such

units designed for Brazilian students at the Cité Universitaire in

Paris. Residence halls for different nationalities were set in a land-

scaped park on the site of a former military base, with shared dining,

cultural, and recreational facilities designed to foster international

exchange. Charlotte Perriand was brought in to develop a modular

scheme for the interiors of the Maison du Brésil with her longtime

collaborator Le Corbusier and Brazilian architect Lúcio Costa.

The design combined the use of durable industrial materials—alumi-

num, concrete, linoleum, Formica, and brightly colored plastics—

with the warmth of woods familiar to students from Brazil. Wall and

ceiling colors rather than floor-to-ceiling partitions defined zones

for washing, sleeping and relaxation, and study. Perriand’s multi-

purpose furniture designs were ideal for small interiors. The room

divider, for example, contained an integrated reading lamp, bedside

cubby, bookshelf, wardrobe, and personal storage area complete

with colorful plastic trays on sliding racks. The couch served as a

seating area during the daytime and as a bed at night. “I’m very

interested in the life of houses,” Perriand declared. “Everything is

created from within, if you will—needs, gestures, a harmony, a

euphoric arrangement, if possible, in relation to an environment.”

MAISON DU BRÉSIL: A STUDY BEDROOM

1959

Furniture and interior by Charlotte Perriand (French, 1903–1999); architecture by Lúcio Costa (Brazilian, 1902–1998) and Le Corbusier (French, born Switzerland. 1897–1965). Part of the Maison du Brésil, Cité Universitaire, Paris

Exterior view, reproduced in L’Oeil magazine, September 1959

Interior views, reproduced in L’Oeil magazine, September 1959

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