This is a great article about modern furniture...

Habitats
Living with Modern Furniture
The "new" aesthetic, from Bauhaus to Eames

by Nell Porter Brown

Elizabeth (Dean) and Heinrich Hermann live in a nondescript ranch house in Concord, Massachusetts, that was built as affordable housing for returning World War II veterans. Its simple, functional lines perfectly suit the couple’s mix of mid-century modern furniture, which includes a red, upholstered “wire diamond” chair by Harry Bertoia, an elegantly proportioned Danish sofa by an unknown designer, and a high-backed, padded black-leather chair by Charles and Ray Eames. “When I sit on or handle an Eames chair, I think, ‘I could never be as brilliant as they were,’” reports Elizabeth, Ph.D. ’96, a professor of urban design, architectural history, and landscape architecture at Rhode Island School of Design.

Such enthusiasm for modernism is common among professionals in the visual fields (Heinrich, Ph.D. ’95, is an architect and historian of modern architecture). “But most people have never liked modernism,” Elizabeth allows. “North America is very traditional and many people thought modern design looked too industrial or cheap—in the case of ranch houses—or that it was trying to be too intellectual. Despite the fact that my architect grandparents had a modern home [in Wellesley, Massachusetts], my own family members are sometimes reluctant to sit on my furniture.”

In New England, at least, that sentiment is changing. Normand Mainville owns Machine Age in Boston, the region’s largest mid-twentieth-century-furniture store. He says that most of his customers are designers, artists, and architects, but that a growing segment of younger buyers of all types is also excited by the modern aesthetic. Some of them live in former industrial spaces, like lofts, and want furniture that fits that style, and others live in small apartments where efficiency is essential. “When I moved in and opened the store 15 years ago, people said that Boston was too provincial for this kind of furniture,” he says.

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