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California's Eichler homes, the Streng homes of the Sacramento valley, Palm Springs' Alexanders, and similar mid-century modern classics have much in common. They offer architecturally designed serenity; clean, simple lines; open and unpretentious living; and the characteristic blending of interior and exterior spaces that become one with the surroundings.
They also provide excellent opportunities to create personal statements, punctuated by both visual appeal and comfort, through a great variety of interior furnishing options. Today, with the success of industrialization and mass production, furnishings for mid-century modern homes are readily obtainable, and run the gamut in terms of quality and price points.
Free of ornamentation, Eichlers and other modernist homes are often likened to blank canvases, waiting to be transformed and personalized into a reflection of their owners. Determining the selections that best embellish any particular canvas is an individual process, and often a step that homeowners find challenging.
With good taste, a sense for design, and attention to staying true to the architecture, the possibilities are limitless yet obtainable. Whether one seeks out an original Eames chair, a Bertoia lounge reproduction, or a low and simple Scandinavian teak sideboard, today all of these pieces and more are a simple mouse click or short drive away.
So how does one go about furnishing the spaces they inhabit in a way that is functional, meets individual needs and personalities, and yet complements the modern home's architectural integrity and aesthetic? Before trying to address that question, it might be helpful to look through the window to the past, and at the modernist legacy left behind by the design professionals who played such an important part in this movement we now call modernism.
"I can remember, we never took the position that people had to throw out their old furniture and buy 'modern' for their Eichler," says former Eichler Homes design consultant Matt Kahn. Kahn, a longtime Eichler homeowner and Stanford art professor, reminds us of the philosophical inclusiveness employed by Eichler and his various design teams.
"An Eichler home does not impose itself that way," he says. "We would combine the old with the new. I can remember a home where we placed a Sarrinen-Knoll table with a large white oval top in a master bedroom with two Victorian oval-backed chairs next to it. They were antique dark mahogany and black horsehair and bought from a classified newspaper ad. It was a beautiful statement in both harmony and contrast."
Kahn, often with wife and weaver Lyda Kahn, was an integral part of the original team responsible for selecting art and furnishings for Eichler's model homes. Their work can be seen in many vintage photographs captured by Ernie Braun, whose unforgettable images embellish Eichler's original marketing brochures.
"Eichlers are a proclamation of openness, originality, and permissiveness," says Kahn, pointing to the freedom of expression that Eichlers and homes of similar architecture provide. "If you make mistakes, then make them. Outgrow your mistakes. It is your house. The essential thing is the fundamental orientation towards purpose, and expression of that purpose. If what you put in your house does this, it belongs."
According to Kahn, Danish modern furniture of teak -- in fact, many similar pieces are still manufactured today -- were also part of the Eichler vocabulary and can work especially well against the original mahogany walls featured in many of these homes. "Such pieces made by Hans Wegner, shown alongside of Bertoia and Eames, as well as genuine Windsor chairs and Japanese Tansu chests, belonged together and worked together," Kahn points out.
So, does owning a mid-century modern home mean that its owner is 'aesthetically prohibited' from incorporating a beloved family heirloom into their home? Not necessarily, admit many professional designers -- though they urge caution, planning, and organization as key success elements. One has to make an individual decision about how he or she wants to live in the home and what works best for them. Some may choose to create complete modernist havens that look as if they are from the pages of 'Dwell' or 'Metropolitan' Home magazine, while others may take a more eclectic approach. Yet these divergent methods can work, and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Interior designers and architects can be helpful in guiding one through this process, and there are 'tricks of the trade' that can successfully and tastefully combine the old and the new, the modern and traditional. Most design professionals agree that it all comes down to organization without chaos, unification around a common theme or color, and developing a focal point.
While it was common for past generations to buy an entire matching set of furniture for the living room from a single source, many homeowners today have been liberated by eclecticism -- taking chances by selecting individual pieces that work together. Contemporary designers encourage this approach and caution against taking the easy way out by giving in to the temptation of simply rolling over and saying, "I'll take that living room over there."
Vagn Jensen, owner of Danish Concepts of Mountain View, a showroom packed with lovely Scandinavian teak pieces, agrees with the cautious and deliberate approach to buying furniture. "Quality furniture lasts a long time, so it's important to take your time and get exactly what you like and will be happy with," he says. "I actually prefer that our customers begin by getting one piece, and living with it before they decide what else would fit in best."
Since open Eichler family and living rooms must often serve multiple purposes, most designers encourage homeowners to think about ways to organize their objects, textures, and colors into zones, or functional areas. Viewed from this perspective, Kahn likens furnishing a modern space to choreography, with a working interplay of objects and spaces.
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Rebuilt from the ground up following a devastating fire in 1998, the Herold family's Eichler living room, with its soaring ceiling and striking fireplace, brings together contemporary furniture pieces with a pair of modern classics. The Eames Plywood Lounge Chair (left) and Eames Lounge Chair & Ottoman Set (center) wonderfully accent the fireplace -- the room's dramatic focal point. At far right, the Gudme Mobelfabrik Danish modern dining room set is another nice complement.
"If you make mistakes, then make them.
Outgrow your mistakes," says designer Matt Kahn.
"It isyour house..."
This modern living room features simplicity in lines, color, balance, and composition, and yet owner/designer Paul Hance resisted the temptation to achieve total symmetry. The red painting, slightly offset over the angular yet understated sofa, adds surprise and punch without overpowering the room. Composition is further unified by the Florence Knoll Parallel Bar lounge chairs through their shared use of brushed steel.
Recently purchased through eBay, this lovely George Nelson wall system blends in so well against the mahogany walls of this Eichler that it appears to be original to the home. Carefully placed behind the leather sofa and classic Noguchi table, it creates a complete living room setting for relaxing, entertaining, and storing art objects collected over the years by owners Jutta Melzig and Rainer Hoffman.
This furniture combination looks like a natural in this Eichler den situated alongside an open atrium: a Danish modern leather seating ensemble, delicate walnut and oak cocktail and end tables, and a Japanese Shoji screen.
By grouping objects together in one area, as this collector of pottery has done, the eye tends to view the entire collection as one large composition or object rather than many tiny ones.
Images courtesy of West Elm
Consistent with the simplicity and low elevations often seen in modern homes, these cube-based upholstered seats (above top) from West Elm provide lifestyle flexibility, uniformity, and an extra blank canvas that begs for embellishment. The simple nesting tables (above), also from West Elm, provide another example of multi-purpose flexibility and space-saving secrets used by today's designers.
Photos: Roger Allyn Lee, Jim Herold, Paul Hance, and Rainer Hoffman
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For example, a collector of pottery or other small objects may want to consider grouping pieces together in one area, rather than scattering them randomly throughout the room. According to experienced designers, this approach allows the eye to view the entire collection as one large composition or object rather than many tiny ones. It also helps to turn what could appear to be chaos into something with visual order and interest -- the whole becoming greater than the sum of the parts.
"Your pieces should not overpower the room," cautions Eichler owner and industrial designer Jerry Escobar. "If you have lots of things to display, you should create a visual piece en mass and organize them so the whole thing is like one unified piece of art."
Lifestyle and taste changes that have occurred since mid-century modern homes were built have also had a major influence on how today's homeowners select and purchase furniture. Neil Gomoluh, a designer and sales associate with Scandinavian Designs' Santa Rosa store, believes that being eclectic and coordinating the buying experience around special pieces already in the home is what today's home furnishing process is all about.
"Long gone are the days where everything in the house was the same," points out Gomoluh. "We have also found that Eichler owners tend to have an eye for design and will mix pieces with more confidence in their own judgment."
He also notes that "the digital camera was a great invention, and some of our customers will bring in photos or throw pillows to show what they have, and then we can help them coordinate something that will work with it."
Another common and successful design strategy is to select an object to serve as a focal point and then create a design around it. "A focal point is something in the room that draws your eye immediately upon entering," explains Severin Secret of JCA Architects in San Jose. "It could be a leather couch, a red Eames chair, a Nelson clock, or a special painting over the fireplace. It could also be a coffee table, such as something really unusual that you make the center of attraction by positioning neutral pieces around it."
Renewing or upgrading a modernist living room need not become all consuming or expensive either. Sonia Taylor, public relations manager for the West Elm retail furniture chain and catalog company, observes that "everybody wants to design their house with flair and show off their individual personality without having to spend $30,000 just to do their living room."
As a practical approach, she suggests that customers consider opportunities to purchase items that are multi-functional. "Our cubed sectional sofas, for instance, are extremely popular and flexible," Taylor says. "You can put them together, or set them apart. Ottomans also provide this opportunity. You can use them as a foot rest, or to sit on, or as a coffee table."
"And it's not just young people who are doing this," adds Taylor. "We often see customers in their 50s and 60s furnishing [this way for] a home office or a second house."
So as the journey towards renewing that living room begins, think back to the original intent of modernist design. Consider what it was all about, and what it means for today's living. Perhaps Eichler's original slogan says it best -- 'Discover life in an Eichler.' And remember Matt Kahn's words of caution: "You aren't discovering life by denying it."
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