Mid-Century modern is an architectural, interior, product and graphic design that generally describes mid-20th century developments in modern design, architecture and urban development from roughly 1933 to 1965. The term, employed as a style descriptor as early as the mid-1950s, was reaffirmed in 1983 by Cara Greenberg in the title of her book, Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s (Random House), celebrating the style that is now recognized by scholars and museums worldwide as a significant design movement. Many consider Frank Lloyd Wright's principal movement of organic architecture combined with Arts and Crafts as an American jumping–off point for the aesthetic of Mid-Century Modern. However, one need only visit a Wright house interior to realize the Mid-Century modern movement in the U.S. was really an American reflection of the International and Bauhaus movements—including the works of Gropius, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. In Europe the influence of Le Corbusier and the CIAM resulted in an architectural orthodoxy manifest across most parts of post-war Europe that was ultimately challenged by the radical agendas of the architectural wings of the avant-garde Situationist International, COBRA, as well as Archigram in London. Pioneering builder and real estate developer Joseph Eichler was instrumental in bringing Mid-Century Modern architecture ("Eichler Homes") to subdivisions in the Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay region of California, and select housing developments on the east coast. George Fred Keck, his brother Willam Keck, Henry P. Glass, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created Mid-Century Modern residences in the Chicago area. Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House is extremely difficult to heat or cool, while Keck and Keck were pioneers in the incorporation of passive solar features in their houses to compensate for their large glass windows.

mid-century modern design

Figure 2 Tulip Chair by Eero Saarinen

Figure 1 Eichler Homes-Foster Residence, Granada Hills