2006-01-30

Retro Evil

You may have heard the term "mid-century*" bandied about of late.

It's accurate.

Can't fault it for that.

And it describes a design philosophy that brings images readily to mind.

Hideous images.

Rounded, pseudo-space age images, bizarre geometric doodles and sharp, jutting ranch house images.

I spent most of my childhood in just such a ranch. It held within it's walls metallic squigglies, gold-specked counter tops, smoked glass and wicker monkeys hanging in a room with red and black carpeting. Don't get me started on the murals - all the horrible murals.

These images that were brought to my mind today by the site Plan59 are definitely mid-century. And they're just plan scary. Scarier, even, than the murals that so marred my childhood.

OK. I'm off to wash my brain of this whole experience.


*also called the PostWar period (roughly 1945-1960)

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