Architects often sought to blur the line between indoors and outdoors in their new suburban homes of the 1950s. Homes built around an atrium or a courtyard were common, and even houses with live trees growing up through the floor and out the ceiling of homes were not unknown. Walls of glass and large windows with foliage backdrops and walls and floors of stone and brick brought the outdoors in and provided texture to the interior of the home.
In a small city loft with teeming traffic outside, these same materials, along with the strategic placement of plants and flowers, could create a feeling of space and connection to nature. Glass interior walls, or sliding glass doors between rooms, created a suggestion of the outdoors and provided more light.
From Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s by Cara Greenberg
All photos courtesy Eichler Homes of San Francisco & Marin County
