Dear AT,
What really is the difference between modern and contemporary design? Thanks, Jeremy
This is not a dumb question. As we have been creating categories in our Stores Guide for furniture styles, we have realized that the lines are very loosely drawn around all the terms that we use to refer to furniture.
"Contemporary" is particularly vague, and we would like to hear what others say. We see it as everything current that isn't any other style. It veers between traditional whimsy and modern cleanliness without fear of being called spineless.
Modern is more specific (but large), and refers to the design movement that came out of the Bauhaus Movement (Germany) just before WWII. It was inspired by new, machine based ways of manufacturing, and was meant to be affordable and democratic, sleek and clean, with no decoration. It is based on straight lines and minimal curves. It has had a number of incarnations, including Mid-Century Modern, and now European Modern ie. Philip Starck et al. At the risk of being boring, I'll stop. Anyone else? MGR
As someone "whose appreciation is just waking" (NYT, Oct 14, on Dr.Ryskamp) to modern design, I understood modern to also mean a return to nature of sorts in design, construction and spirit. Using wood, for instance, in its unadorned form highlighting its grain and inherent beauty instead of painting it or embellishing it in any other overt ostentatious form. Also I keep thinking of Frank Lloyd Wright and his architecture to integrate homes to the environment. So much to learn.
I also understood it to be following closely to the 'form follows function' school of design -- The lack of frills and superfluous elements and focusing on the root of the problem being solved. Take the Tulip table or the Noguchi Coffee Table, two quintessential modern pieces. Both serve their purposes perfectly without the addition of adornment, while all along maintaining a classic, simple, beauty.
The flipside is the glass, metal and particle board monstrosities you can pick up at the contempo-modernica-stylemart on Rt. X New Jersey. Viva Formica!