It’s on TV commercials where it instantly signals universally acceptable good taste; it’s in your doctor’s office and your dentist’s waiting room, silently exuding a reassuring stability; it’s in furniture chain stores where it’s popular for its easy-to-assemble, pick-andmix aesthetic. Yet it still maintains its elite status. Plenty of it was on show in Objectspace gallery’s recent The Chair exhibition in Auckland and still is in the eponymous environments of Jane Ussher and John Walsh’s lavish Rooms book.
It’s mid-century modern and it’s the style that won’t die. It is, in fact, still gathering momentum.
It’s easy to find, but slightly harder to define, although, of course, the name “midcentury” is a bit of a giveaway.
Let University of Auckland heritage design expert Linda Tyler try: “Anything that’s made in the 1950s to about 1970 and which displays new technologies and bold use of materials and frequent deployment, usually, of bright colour and primary colour.
“Even though there are things that are made well into the 70s and 80s that are copies of mid-century modern, there’s something about the older things from the 50s that have this special aura about them.”
She sees a contemporary parallel with the impending influence of AI on design. Just as AI is enabling new things to be done in the visual arts and
