THE AMERICAN FAMILY and its changing housing requirements was the focus of the Woman’s Foundation conference held in 1946 in Rye, New York. Sociologists, architects and pediatricians divided the average forty-year marriage of an American couple with 2.17 children into four phases: the first two or three childless years, “the early stage”; “the crowded years,” the ten years of child-bearing; “the peak years,” (years twelve to twenty-seven), which began when the youngest child was about seven; and finally, “the later” or last fifteen years when the youngest child leaves home and the family downsizes.
In 1950, the architect Oskar Stonorov designed a roofless full-size model of a “cutaway” house with 3-foot walls, which was displayed at Gimbels department store in Philadelphia. According to Life magazine, the exterior of the house was unimportant. It could be a “prim colonial,” simple “ranch house” or “stark modern.” The emphasis was on the interior and the criterion was to meet the changing needs of the family during the “crowded” and “peak years.” These were the years when family income was highest, and also when the family’s demand on housing facilities was at its heaviest.
Stonorov’s plan was for a three-bedroom one-storey house. To simplify housekeeping and child supervision, especially when the children were young, the kitchen was combined with a playroom. The living room and dining room were out of the mainstream of house traffic. The house had a study/guest room, lots of closet space, desks and tables for studying and hobbies, radiant heat, but no basement. On the exterior, Stonorov included a carport and a terrace. The architect estimated that the house would cost between $17,000 and $20,000 to build.
Unlike Stonorov’s design, most new suburban houses were too small to accommodate formal spaces, such as a dining room. Instead they followed the formula established by Frank Lloyd Wright in his Usonian homes of the 1930s, incorporating the dining and living spaces into one open-plan room. Wright’s series of small affordable homes for the “common people” were simple one-storey structures created in response to the economic depression. By the 1950s, the open-plan living area was seen as modern and innovative, ushering in a new informal lifestyle. Like Stonorov’s “cutaway” house, the emphasis was almost always on children and their requirements. In Marcel Breuer’s “House in the Garden” exhibit at MoMA, the children had an enclosed outdoor “play yard” reached through glass doors from the “playroom” which adjoined the children’s bedroom. The floor plan was described as “expandable.” When the children were young the parents’ bedroom was next to theirs, but as they grew older, the parents could move to their own private suite in the roof area above the garage at the opposite end of the house; their room became a guest bedroom.
Pictograph of the life cycle of an American marriage from Life, 1950.
Ground plan of Marcel Breuer’s “House in the Garden” MoMA exhibit (1949).
Even small houses, such as this Eichler house constructed in 1951 in the San Francisco Bay area, included a playroom.
The challenge for suburban homeowners of the 1950s was to create comfortable and attractive interiors in the new multi-purpose living areas. Fortunately, there was plenty of ready advice to be found in the articles and how-to columns of newspapers and lifestyle magazines. According to Furniture World, the leading furniture trade magazine:
There are at present twelve shelter and general books for the homemaker, with a total subscription of twenty-six and one quarter million. Think of it—each month these millions of women are paying out cold cash for what amounts to a postgraduate education in the art of home-making.
In 1951, the Levitt Company sponsored an amateur home-decoration contest for the first five-hundred buyers of their new $9,000 ranch houses. It was judged by four New York interior decorators. The criterion was to make a small house look “spacious and uncluttered” which, according to the judges, “is a knack which the average housewife should learn.”
Life magazine went to Levittown to record the event. First prize went to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Mel Gervey. The judges praised the sectional chairs against the stair wall “in perfect proportion to the height and size of the living room” and the bamboo screen which concealed the entrance to the kitchen and bedrooms. They also liked the two color shades of paint, which enlarged the room.
Among the houses judged, 35 percent had modern interiors, 20 percent were traditional, including the second prize winner, and the remainder was an eclectic mixture “which in many cases turned out to be an unsuccessful hodgepotch.”
Mrs. Gervey’s prize-winning living room in her 1951 Levittown house as featured in Life, 1952. Judges admired the textures produced by the “nubbly” fabrics and the copper, brick and glass objects, which “add sparkle to the muted color scheme.”
One of the problems that furniture designers of the period faced, and that the judges in the Levittown contest recognized, was the need for furniture designs that did not overwhelm the small, low-ceilinged rooms in new homes. According to a 1954 article on modern furniture in Life magazine, “The average house shrunk 200 square feet in the past ten years and most houses built today are small.”
Designers created low-slung furniture for smaller rooms with lower ceilings.
Museums throughout the nation saw it as their mission to educate the American public about the best in modern design. This was not an easy task in a country that largely preferred the traditional and cozy over spare, industrially inspired furnishings. In 1950, MoMA held an international competition for designers of mass-produced furniture that attracted three thousand entries. Life wrote that the winning entries were “practical but highly unconventional, the winners may jar many American tastes…” Edgar Kaufmann Jr., MoMA’s director who organized the competition, countered the criticism, saying, “Modern design for the home is more appropriately used to create an atmosphere of ‘the Good Life’ than of ‘a brave new world.’”
Edgar J. Kauffmann Jr., director of MoMA in New York, photographed with prize-winning furniture from their international competition for new furniture designs in 1950.
“If you look at these chairs, they are made of air, like sculpture. Space passes right through them.” Harry Bertoia, designer of the Diamond chair.
The American public’s suspicion of modernism was to some extent overcome during the 1950s, especially among young couples. In an article in Furniture World in April 1952, the writer noted that “today contemporary or modern furniture is designed to function in, and enhance the beauty of, the average American home and more than 60 percent of all the furniture sold in this country is modern.” Much of the new furniture design owed its aesthetic to new technology and materials developed during the war for the armaments industry, notably new ways of molding plastics and aluminum for military aircraft.
Two leading furniture companies in the United States, Knoll International and the Herman Miller Furniture Company, employed some of the most distinguished modernist designers in America. In the 1950s, Knoll International manufactured such icons of modernist design as Eero Saarinen’s Tulip chair, Marcel Breuer’s Wassily chair, all of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s furniture, and Harry Bertoia’s Diamond chair.
“Modernism means freedom – freedom to mix, to choose, to change, to embrace the new but to hold fast to what is good.” Edward J. Wormley, director of Design at Dunbar Furniture, who produced this sofa in 1957.
In 1946, the Herman Miller Furniture Company appointed the influential modernist architect George Nelson as its design director. This appointment established the firm’s national and international reputation as a leading manufacturer of modern furniture with the stated goal—according to its 1952 catalogue—of producing furniture “designed to meet fully the requirements of modern living.” Nelson designed many pieces for the company during his twenty-six-year tenure. He was also responsible for recruiting talented designers, most notably the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, and husband and wife team Charles and Ray Eames in the 1950s.
“A chair should not only look well as a piece of sculpture in a room with no one in it. It should also be a flattering background when someone is in it.” Eero Saarinen, designer of the Womb chair for Knoll International.
Living room with Saarinen’s Womb chair (1958).
This home-office desk by George Nelson incorporates wood and industrial materials in its design. It has a rectangular storage cupboard with sliding doors. A drawer folds out to reveal space for a typewriter. The metal perforated drawer is for files.
According to a Life article, “the chief complaint of those who liked contemporary furniture (50 percent being young married people on a budget) was that pieces by the best designers cost too much and that cheap modern looks it.” Herman Miller did attempt to remedy this situation by producing some affordable furniture, such as a twenty-six-piece “bargain-priced package” by George Nelson and Charles Eames. This consisted of sufficient furniture for a dining room, living room, bedroom and child’s room, all for $1,800. The article adds that a similar amount of traditional furniture “of comparable quality” would cost “$2,500 and up.” Eames used his knowledge of creating body-fitting plywood splints for the navy during World War II to design these simple, inexpensive, functional pieces made of steel, molded plywood and plastic panels.
Modern furniture tended to be too expensive for the average young couple, but designers such as Charles Eames and George Nelson did produce more affordable offerings.
In response to the drabness of the war years, vibrant hues of pinks, lime-green, orange, reds, corals and turquoise became the signature decorating colors of the era. Mrs. Eisenhower, the popular First Lady, decorated the family quarters in the White House with her favorite shade of pink, which became known as “Mamie Pink.” The color became popular for a wide range of household objects, including refrigerators, linoleum flooring, dishware, plastic buckets, bathroom fixtures and bedsheets. Textile designers such as Alexander Girard of the Herman Miller Company designed bold, eye-catching patterns and textures to complement the curvilinear, sculptural forms of the new furniture.
This house illustrates the ideal use of plate-glass windows to frame a wooded vista. The venetian blinds can be used to regulate the light.
As illustrated in this magazine feature of 1954, designers created bold and colorful textiles to complement the new styles of furniture.
The large expanse of plate-glass windows employed in 1950s homes created a pleasing indoor-outdoor architecture, but they also created a new challenge. A different form of window treatment than that of traditional homes was required, such as curtains or window blinds to filter light and soften the precise geometry of large windows. The treatments also needed to ensure privacy and to counter the dark appearance of windows at night. New forms of lighting were introduced to take into account the correlation between indoor and outdoor spaces which, as Richard Kelly, a mid-century lighting designer explained, had “become so elaborately inter-related.”
Life magazine carried an article in August 1951 about a new suburban housing development in Walduck, New Jersey. One family, the Dibbles, “spend much of their time in their living room with their collection of classical records but none on television because they do not have a set, although most of their neighbors have.” The Dibbles were fast becoming a minority among homeowners. By 1951 the television set, while still a luxury item, was becoming a desirable feature of the American home. Seven and a half million television sets sold that year. The following year, a coaxial cable was installed across the country providing access to television signals in rural areas and small towns. By 1956, Americans were buying twenty thousand sets a day, with two out of three families owning at least one set.
Built-in television sets were part of the standard package of the 1950 and 1951 Levittown houses at a time when televisions were still a luxury household item.
In the early 1950s television sets were often discreetly concealed in traditionally styled cabinets.
The new television sets disrupted the traditional organization of the living room around the fireplace. Now the set itself became the focus of the room, requiring the same radial arrangement of seating as the fireplace, with several unobstructed vantage points around the room.
A family gathered around the television set.
In the living room of Marcel Breuer’s “House in the Garden” exhibit for MoMA, the television is positioned opposite the sofa for easy viewing.
Televisions brought about the introduction of new pieces of furniture, such as the portable TV tray table, an over-the-knees table for eating in front of the television, with a recessed center well to secure plates, and the roll-around “television plastic dinette set” with steel-tube legs and wheels. Chairs were put on three sides of the table with the fourth side left open to view the television set.
Television also created a fashion dilemma for both the hostess and women guests, who were often expected to sit on the floor after dinner to watch television. “This position is not graceful in a short, tight cocktail dress or practical in an elaborate evening gown,” explained Life magazine in a helpful article advising women of the new rules of dressing for dinner parties at home. It suggested that a practical solution was to wear colorful, comfortable “at home clothes,” made of velveteen, jersey or flannel. These could be either “full skirts, slacks or harem trousers … worn with dressy shoes, [and] plenty of jewelry.” Tops should “usually have necklines low enough to compete with anything on the television screen.”
Incorporating the new phenomena of television into people’s social lives required a new dress code for women, according to a Life article.
Women’s clothes should be comfortable, yet elegant, for lounging on the floor in front of the television.
Life’s article prompted a letter from an exasperated woman reader (February 19, 1951):
Pity me! My husband bought me a dishwasher so I could have more time to view the television entertainment we expect to enjoy when we finish paying for the dishwasher. Now, I see from “Clothes for TV watching” (Life, January 29), he has to consider the costume which I must wear to enjoy the TV. Help.
Kitchen designed by George Nelson for General Electric. According to an article in Life, new kitchens were designed to be colorful, attractive places “for family and friends … although standard white refrigerators, stoves and sinks still loom like chilly spooks from the spectral past,” 1954.