Word: koenig
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...investing in the midcentury now. For if ever one decade were in love with another, the '90s is crazy about the '50s. This is not the '50s of Happy Days or Pleasantville, where people are decent but unsophisticated. This is the sleekly glamorous decade of architects Richard Neutra, Pierre Koenig, John Lautner and Albert Frey and designers Charles and Ray Eames. This is the decade when the rest of the world looked with envy at American products, homes and life-styles. Some people consider it the golden age of American design in this century...
...reflects a backlash against the TV-in-every-room consumption of the '70s and '80s. For thirtysomethings with a little money to throw around, more has proved to be less. "The whole modern movement started to provide graceful living for people no matter what their economic status," says architect Koenig, who built his first house in 1950 for $5,000. "It was not a style, not a passing fancy; it was a social movement...
...political has now become personal. Dan Cracchiolo, an executive at movie producer Joel Silver's company, bought Case Study House 21, a sister to the much photographed No. 22 that Koenig designed in 1960 as part of a series of houses commissioned by Arts & Architecture magazine to show off new materials and building techniques. Says Cracchiolo, who spent a year working with Koenig to painstakingly return his home to its original glory: "This house is about simplifying your life, about storing things away a little more and choosing a minimal amount of things to be shown. It's just enough...
...with low or no budgets can indulge their interest in the '50s in the photo-filled pages of magazines like Metropolitan Home, Elle Decor and Wallpaper* (which, like TIME, is owned by Time Warner). A slew of books have come out this year, including lush coffee-table tomes on Koenig, Frey, Lautner and the photographer most closely associated with the era, Julius Shulman...
...repackaging them for easier and faster consumption. Witness the mini glam-rock revival rippling through the culture just this month. Regard for the Contemporary style, as this breed of modernism is often known, has risen steadily, however. "After living in one of these homes for a week," says Koenig of his designs, "people can never go back to a conventional house with little windows...