Handmade Modern: Mid-Century Inspired Projects for Your Home

Handmade Modern: Mid-Century Inspired Projects for Your Home Review

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Seventy–two step–by–step projects for modern do–it–yourself home and office design, by world–renowned designer Todd Oldham.

Love the look of mid–century, modern, retro design, but don't feel like dropping two weeks' pay on an Eames chair? Todd Oldham shares his passion for mid–century modern homes with over 72 do–it–yourself projects for anyone who loves crafts and longs to add character to every corner of their home.

Each project is charted through step–by–step photos and instructions until the fabulously mod end. Other projects include home–computer face–lifts, Xerox wallpaper, aluminium lighting fixtures, and cosy shoe–storage systems. In additional to Todd's brilliantly engineered projects, the book comes complete with a tutorial on modern home design in the form of sidebars and short essays throughout –everything from that now–famous Eames chair to the case–study houses of the 1950s.

Handmade Modern promises to revolutionise the way the reader looks at his or her own home and capacity to beautify a space. Chic, accessible, and fun, this is the achievable new look of modern home design.

Classic Modern: Midcentury Modern At Home

Classic Modern: Midcentury Modern At Home Review

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This gogeously illustrated book is the only major work to document the hip and inventive design of the mid-twentieth century, a period that today reigns unchallenged among style setters as well as a new generation of home owners and collectors. There is no hotter style today than the cooler than cool work of modern designers and archtitects from the 1940s and 50s. Endlessly inventive and emminently livable, mid-century modernism has an optimism and confidence born of postwar abundance, and a spirited elegance that appeals powerfully fifty years later. In CLASSIC MODERN, design expert Deborah Dietsch introduces readers to the basic tenets of modern design and explains how the simple yet inspired forms typical of this style were so readily disseminated into mainstream American culture. Filled throughout with enticing examples of mid-century pieces from such timeless designers as Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, Arne Jacobsen, and George Nelson, this beautiful book recaptures the excitement of the period's brilliant designs.

Mid-Century Modern: Interiors, Furniture, Design Details (Conran Octopus Interiors S.)

Mid-Century Modern: Interiors, Furniture, Design Details (Conran Octopus Interiors S.) Review

The 1950’s house was a scientific triumph, designed in a laboratory and tested on inhabitants of all ages before being built for the masses. Never had homes been so thoroughly contemporary, with antiques and period styles entirely banished. Mid-Century Modern explores the interior decor of this seminal decade, concentrating on all aspects of a home's decoration—walls, flooring, surfaces, lighting, and, of course, furniture. Case studies examine beautiful present-day homes that exhibit mid-century style in an exemplary way, and suggest ideas for taking the 1950’s look—complete with collector's pieces—and mixing and matching it with elements from other eras.

Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s

Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s Review

This highly praised celebration of '50s design recalls the wonders of boomerang-shaped coffee tables, the funky curvaceousness of biomorphic furniture, the industrial sleekness of cool metals, and other design delights. "Will undoubtedly foster a new appreciation of furniture from the '50s."--Chicago Sun-Times.125 4-color photographs and 100 black-and-white photographs.

Palm Springs Modern: Houses in the California Desert

Palm Springs Modern: Houses in the California Desert Review

Palm Springs is famous as a mecca for the international jet set. But the city has also attracted its share of eccentrics and mavericks who have left an architectural legacy that remains unsurpassed for its originality and international influence. Palm Springs Modern examines the impact that architects and designers have had on the desert oasis, primarily from the 1940s to the 1960s, when they created one of the most important concentrations of modernist architecture in the world.

Palm Springs came into its own architecturally after the war when it became a haven for such modernists as Richard Neutra, who was already practicing the International Style in Los Angeles. Many other distinguished architects have left distinctive marks in the desert: Albert Frey, John Lautner, E. Stewart Williams, William Cody, John Porter Clark, and Craig Ellwood. Palm Springs Modern features examples of mid-century modernism at its most glamorous, some of them the residences of prominent figures who commissioned weekend getaways in the desert including Frank Sinatra, Walter Annenberg, and Raymond Loewy. Adèle Cygelman's insightful text, a foreword by architectural historian Joseph Rosa, contemporary color photography by David Glomb, and the celebrated archival black-and-white work of Julius Shulman all capture the distinctly modern allure of America's famed desert playground.

The New Gilded Age: The New Yorker Looks at the Culture of Affluence (Modern Library Paperbacks)

The New Gilded Age: The New Yorker Looks at the Culture of Affluence (Modern Library Paperbacks) Review

The New Gilded Age: The New Yorker Looks at the Culture of Affluence (Modern Library Paperbacks) Feature

• ISBN13: 9780375757150
• Condition: New
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The New Yorker caters to America's upper classes; it's the kind of magazine meant to be accompanied by a glass of pricey Merlot. Over the years its elitism has waxed and waned. Ex-editor Tina Brown worked valiantly to inject a dose of pop-cultural crassness into its ivory-tower sensibilities: profiling celebrities and publishing fashion issues where models stared out from every page, looking chilly. When David Remnick took over in the late '90s, the magazine shifted, grew quieter and more circumspect, and the old guard breathed a collective sigh of relief.

The New Gilded Age collects essays and profiles from 1999 and 2000 and reveals Remnick's New Yorker to be obsessed with money and business--arguably less interesting than celebrity, but also deeper ways of looking at America and power. The title refers to the period of technological revolution symbolized by the rise of Microsoft, the booming of Silicon Valley, and the end of the belief that an Ivy League education will get you anywhere.

What's admirable about this New Yorker is its timeliness; the way, without seeming like a panicked "edge" magazine, it managed to document and acknowledge the shifting sands of the millennial moment. Standouts in this regard: William Finnegan on the protesters behind the 1999 WTO riots in Seattle; Ken Auletta following Bill Gates through various meltdowns as he comes to terms with the federal government's antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. These are painstakingly reported pieces in which style is submerged. The more audacious writers tend to be women. In "Everywoman.com," Joan Didion describes Martha Stewart in a flood of rapt lyricism:

This is not a story about a woman who made the best of traditional skills. This is a story about a woman who did her own I.P.O. This is the "woman's pluck" story, the dust-bowl story, the burying-your-child-on-the-trail story, the I-will-never-go-hungry-again story, the Mildred Pierce story, the story about how the sheer nerve of even professionally unskilled women can prevail, show the men; the story that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men.

In "Landing from the Sky," Adrian Nicole LeBlanc creates a portrait of a young Puerto Rican woman with too many kids and too much trouble. The writing here is exquisite and passionate: "Jessica created an aura of intimacy wherever she went. You could be talking to her in the middle of Tremont and feel as if a confidence were being exchanged beneath a tent of sheets."

Jessica's story seems far from the world of The New Yorker's target audience. When in "My Misspent Youth" Meghan Daum laments her poverty and credit card debt, then reveals she lives alone in a ,500-a-month apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side, you have to wonder: Did the poor thing ever hear of roommates? As both a document and celebration of such rarefied and privileged attitudes, The New Gilded Age is a rich, informative glimpse into America at the turn of the millennium--before the NASDAQ crashed and the dot-com kids went home to count their losses. --Emily White In keeping with its tradition of sending writers out into America to take the pulse of our citizens and civilization, The New Yorker over the past decade has reported on the unprecedented economy and how it has changed the ways in which we live. This new anthology collects the best of these profiles, essays, and articles, which depict, in the magazine's inimitable style, the mega-, meta-, monster-wealth created in this, our new Gilded Age.
        Who are the barons of the new economy? Profiles of Martha Stewart by Joan Didion, Bill Gates by Ken Auletta, and Alan Greenspan by John Cassidy reveal the personal histories of our most influential citizens, people who affect our daily lives even more than we know. Who really understands the Web? Malcolm Gladwell analyzes the economics of e-commerce in "Clicks and Mortar." Profiles of two of the Internet's most respected analysts, George Gilder and Mary Meeker, expose the human factor in hot stocks, declining issues, and the instant fortunes created by an IPO. And in "The Kids in the Conference Room," Nicholas Lemann meets McKinsey & Company's business analysts, the twenty-two-year-olds hired to advise America's CEOs on the future of their business, and the economy.
        And what defines this new age, one that was unimaginable even five years ago? Susan Orlean hangs out with one of New York City's busiest real estate brokers ("I Want This Apartment"). A clicking stampede of Manolo Blahniks can be heard in Michael Specter's "High-Heel Heaven." Tony Horwitz visits the little inn in the little town where moguls graze ("The Inn Crowd"). Meghan Daum flees her maxed-out credit cards. Brendan Gill lunches with Brooke Astor at the Metropolitan Club. And Calvin Trillin, in his masterly "Marisa and Jeff," portrays the young and fresh faces of greed.
        Eras often begin gradually and end abruptly, and the people who live through extraordinary periods of history do so unaware of the unique qualities of their time. The flappers and tycoons of the 1920s thought the bootleg, and the speculation, would flow perpetually—until October 1929. The shoulder pads and the junk bonds of the 1980s came to feel normal—until October 1987. Read as a whole, The New Gilded Age portrays America, here, today, now—an epoch so exuberant and flush and in thrall of risk that forecasts of its conclusion are dismissed as Luddite brays. Yet under The New Yorker's examination, our current day is ex-posed as a special time in history: affluent and aggressive, prosperous and peaceful, wired and wild, and, ultimately, finite.

Cliff May and the Modern Ranch House

Cliff May and the Modern Ranch House Review

Cliff May’s modern homes epitomize the indoor-outdoor lifestyle characteristic of the American Dream, fusing the open plan/open living philosophy with the traditional ranch house. Starting in the 1930s, the modern ranch house took the country by storm, migrating from California to Arizona, and Cliff May was the chief proponent of this style. His long, low designs managed to be both modern and traditional, celebrating a casually elegant, indoor-outdoor lifestyle, and drawing inspiration from California’s Spanish Mexican ranchos while embracing the latest technological gadgetry. With their low profile, large carports and garages, patios, and expansive horizontality, May’s modern ranch houses became synonymous with the nascent California lifestyle and were enthusiastically promoted by the popular Sunset magazine throughout the U.S. He personally designed and built more than 1,000 homes and commercial buildings, and over 18,000 designs are attributed to his office, including the Robert Mondavi Winery and the offices of Sunset.Complete with new color photography, Cliff May and the Modern Ranch House celebrates the best of May’s work, from his start building homes during the Depression to how he evolved a brand of regional modernity that fulfilled the public’s desire for informal living in the 1950s and 1960s.