Mid Century Modern Imagery from Frederick Barr

I’ve quietly continued to get inspired by the mid-century era yet in recent times I’ve not brought anything across onto the blog in correspondence with this. Today I felt it was about time I stopped hoarding my sources of inspiration and shared them with you all, so here we are with a collection of photographs that Fredrick Barr has lovingly curated over on flickr, which I’m sure many of you are going to appreciate.

This set combines two of my favourite things to find online: vintage film photography and considered/classic design of a timeless nature, so it was pretty inevitable that this project was going to be a hit with me. Frederick has been busy compiling these images for a number of years now so if you’re a fan of the mid-century era too I’d recommend the trip across to his collection as the array we have here merely scratches the surface.

I’m sure a good few of you will be quite astute at pointing out who has designed what below, but my favourite image has to be the fifth which features the Knoll showroom in Los Angles from 1960. Here we find the Barcelona chair of Mies van der Rohe and Eero Saarinen’s tulip chairs and tables, both of which are firm favourites in the OEN office and certainly on our wish-list. I couldn’t resist bringing the Eames into the fold again either, especially with the glow of the orange filter in the sixth. The other image that really caught my eye was the fourth of Joe Colombo’s Elda chair affectionately named after his wife, this was one of his first and most iconic objects he made and a design I have to admit I’ve not really researched before. It transpires that the Italian designed this item for Comfort who later passed the rights to Longhi, the company that still reproduce his design today.

It’s not surprising that these designers are as ever popular today as they were in their heyday, I think when you find character in the uncluttered you design something that can be truly appreciated across generations. If you’ve not paid Frederick Barr’s Flickr page a visit before why not make the click across now, it’s a great starting point for any research on iconic mid-century modern design, so for those interested I’ll leave the link just below.

www.flickr.com/modern_fred

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