Mid2Mod: MoMA

Showing posts with label MoMA. Show all posts

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Designing Modern Women

The Museum of Modern Art in New York currently has an exhibition called Designing Modern Woman: 1890-1990, which features women who profoundly influenced design in the 20th century. The installation is drawn from the MoMA collection, including work by the famous and the unsung, such as Loïe Fuller's turn of the century theater contributions, furniture and design by Charlottle Perriand, Lilly Reich, Eileen Gray, Eva Zeisel, Ray Eames, Lella Vignelli, Grete Jalk, Greta Magnusson Grossman, Gae Aulenti, the architecture of Denise Scott Brown, textiles by Noémi Raymond, Anni Albers and Eszter Haraszty, ceramics by Lucy Rie, industrial design by Margaret E. Knight and Karin Schou Andersen, Marianne Brandt, and graphics by Helene Haasbauer-Wallrath, April Greiman, Luba Lukova, Lina Bo Bardi, Magda Mautner von Markhof and Bonnie Maclean.

As the links above indicate, I've posted about several of these women, but some of the items in the exhibit with which I wasn't familiar have caught my eye and make me want to explore the lives of the women I don't know. Perhaps you'll feel the same.

After all, had you ever really given much thought about what went into designing the flat-bottom paper bag? Or that the first machine to make them was designed by a woman in an era when very few women were industrial designers?

The exhibition runs through September 21, 2014.

From moma.org and huffingtonpost.com

Flat-bottom paper bag
Designed by Margaret E. Knight
huffingtonpost.com

Flatware
Designed by Karin Schou Andersen
huffingtonpost.com

Poster for the Yardbirds and The Doors
Designed by Bonnie Maclean
huffingtonpost.com

Monday, May 12, 2014

Yasha Heifetz and the legitimizing of modern lamps

When Marcel Breuer designed and furnished a house for an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he intentionally left out lamps. In an interview in November of 1949, he said that he could not find a well-designed modern lamp...and that, anyway, lamps were unnecessary. "The light is more important than the lamp," he said.

In February of 1950, lamp designer Yasha Heifetz (not to be confused with Jascha Heifetz, the violinist) countered that built-in lighting was "flat and static," and he set out to prove the value of a good lamp. With the MoMA, in 1950 he co-sponsored a national lamp design contest, hoping to change the opinions of Breuer and other modernist purists about domestic lighting.

Over 600 competitors entered, submitting almost 3,000 designs. Heifetz, Breuer, the museum's director René d’Harnoncourt, the museum's director of the department of architecture and design Philip Johnson, lighting designer Richard Kelly and others acted as jurors.

Some of the competitors were Richard Schultz from Knoll, as well as Frank Greenhaus and Kevin Roche, both of whom worked for Eero Saarinen, along with Alexey Brodovitch, art director for Harper's Bazaar. Fifteen winners were announced in 1951, and Heifetz immediately began producing ten of the winning designs. Breuer was won over and started ordering lamps for his clients. The modern lamp had gained legitimacy.

The Heifetz Manufacturing Company of New York started in 1938. Their primary product was table lamps, but they also made ashtrays, wood and metal sculptural items and some furniture. Over the twenty-five years that Heifetz was in business, he estimated that the company produced approximately 4,000 pieces and that he designed about half of them, the most popular of which had abstract bases made of ceramic, wood or metal. Some depicted the stylized human form, while others depicted animals or were kidney and melon-shaped.

From modernmag.com