20th Century Furniture and Design

The 20th century was defined by industrial advancements and technological leaps: the invention of the automobile, the airplane, modern means of warfare, and the Internet led to radically new ways of living and moving, all of which 20th-century designers responded to. The “machine age” of the 1920s brought about a new culture of industrially influenced design fueled by the invention of mass-produced materials, while the aftermath of WWII ushered in a humanist countercurrent that embraced natural materials and the handmade object. Setting the stage for today’s “golden age of design,” the final decades of the 20th century witnessed experiments in form (e.g., Postmodernism), the “CAD (computer aided design) revolution,” and the first all-optic fiber cable.