Millennium Modern, the Style of Contemporary
May 11th, 2010 by admin
I have always tried to slice and dice a piece of furniture or decorative arts by associating a style and sub-style with the item. I find it’s a way to understand where the design was coming from and what influences made it adaptable. Chinese Chippendale seems as incongruous a combination of designs as faux-bamboo. Today’s designs have evolved from somewhere, and I like the term Millennium Modern as identifying late 20th Century to the present.
The interior designer Geoffrey Bradfield coined the term. I believe he was trying to put a name on a style that just was classified as “contemporary”, but lacked a style period name. Art Nouveau isn’t quite Victorian, but guess what period preceded it? Art Deco became Midcentury-Modern; Millennium Modern takes us to the present. Millennium Modern takes Neo-classical and free form designs, and injects form and materials. It is a period born in the 1960s and still evolving with today’s designers’ creativity unleashed by this style’s open boundaries.
What brought me to this blog topic was a situation where I was about to receive an outstanding consignment of “this stuff”. I have every inventory item clearly broken down by a style and sub-style, class and sub-class. What to do with this merchandise, when my only option in my database would be: Art Moderne/1940s. It doesn’t sound right for these items and it really is individually a highly developed form of design. The term Millennium also clearly delineates an applicable time frame too. I always believed the year 2000 would separate us into the 21st Century, with unimaginable decorative arts design and technology. We have late 17th Century, Baroque; late 18th Century, Georgian; late 19th Century, Art Nouveau; late 20th Century, Millennium Modern?
When you go to my web site, I am now using the style classification “Post-War Design” for items I believe are original designs from the 1960s to the present. It encompasses American, European, and Asian designers. I have always defined period styles as a time era of an original design form. Presently there is no one encompassing term like Art Deco, Georgian, or Victorian that is a commonly used term for this style period. Millennium Modern sound good and so does Post-War Design, but if anyone can come up with a better title for this period, I would love to hear it.
Mikki Murphy wrote on 08/24/10 at 5:28 am :
I really like Post War Design moniker, but I do wonder if people with children fighting in the Middle East might think you’ve forgotten we’re still fighting a war. A big, seemingly unending war. That said, were you unable to use “Millennium Modern”? It does as you say, encompass late Mid-century and could very well envelope the time frame to 2050. You asked for two cents. Maybe Silenium? Since “Silicon Valley” and the Ipods of the world are still impressing their stamp on the generation that invested and the generation dangling ear buds because of it’s impact. Or how about I-Century? HA! I’ve decided I like that…it just came to me…even though I can hardly see any stuffy “duo-polist” auctioneer saying it.
admin wrote on 08/24/10 at 6:13 am :
I can’t thank you enough for your great suggestions for naming this present period; they all say something about our times.
I would caution your assumption that the “stuffy “duo-polist”" wouldn’t utter your phrase. They would say or do anything to confuse, beguile, or cajole, a buyer (and a seller too).