Mainframe Modern
Taking his cue from “The Year of Miracles” – 1989 – by training his eye not on the fall of the Berlin Wall, but on the first global conferences confronting the precarious state of the planet, French philosopher of science Bruno Latour provocatively declared in 1991 that “Nous n’avons jamais été moderne” (“We have never been modern”). Wandering through our Mainframe Modern showroom or catalog, you may find yourself debating this declaration.
This auction’s veritable museum of modern furniture design – with pieces from Arne Jacobsen [17, 24, 33, 331, 388]; Milo Baughman [10, 83, 384, 533, 546]; Marcel Breuer [14, 16, 61, 264]; Philippe Starck [18, 75]; Isamu Noguchi [379, 389] and others – offers pieces that are as classically modern as the iconic Eames lounge chair and ottoman [441]. Chromcrafts’s “Star Trek” chairs [7] feel as comforably sleek on Earth as they did on the Enterprise (yes, they appeared in a number of episodes).
The twentieth century’s chemical revolution ushered in furnishings composed of plexiglass/lucite [70, 73, 75]; fiberglass [19, 77, 329]; chrome [87, 493]; plastic [321, 429]; terrazo [41/42]; and plywood [461, 465]. The new materials gave designers free reign to re–imagine even the most traditional of objects; who could ever have imagined a lucite rocking horse [74]!?
Devices always age more quickly than furnishings. Having grown up with that very same Braun FM radio [505] on our family’s kitchen table in the early 60s, and having snapped family photos with that same Polaroid camera [500], I can still recall the magical aura that surrounded these objects that now evoke only nostalgia.
Perhaps Salvador Dali’s melting clock [145] offers modernity’s best symbol of itself. Asked if it was inspired by the theory of relativity, Dali answered that it came from his having seen a Camembert cheese melting in the sun.
