'Contemporary': The Architecture and Interiors of the 1950s.

This opulently illustrated book is not only about the '50s - it is of the '50s. Each chapter starts with a too wide type-measure and the bold sans-serif typeface typical of The Architectural Review of the period, and with a 'fist' pointing in the caption to the illustration on the opposite page. A whole page is given to illustrating a Review cover of Charles Eames chairs. Lesley Jackson, Keeper of Art at Manchester City Art Galleries, believes that the Modern Movement in architecture was limited to the 1920s and '30s the 'style without a style' and that 'Contemporary' evolved in a direct line from it. My impression was that in the '50s the term 'contemporary' was used as an obvious way of describing an architectural approach that eschewed historic styles. After setting the scene with the pioneer designs - Tugendhat, Villa Savoye, Falling Water and so on the author concentrates for 60 pages on American houses because 'it was in the USA in the 1950s that many of the most significant early post-war developments took place in both architecture in general and in domestic architecture in particular': a fact at least partially refuted in later pages with English housing (Pow-ell & Moya's Pimlico Estate) and Hertfordshire schools and new towns all under way in the '40s.

This book provides a splendid, well-illustrated (except no plans or sections) survey of the period. Where architects are in charge in the 1950s all goes well: buildings, interiors, and furniture; but when it comes to wallpapers, ceramics, carpets and fabrics, fields where architects haven't made much impact, standards fall off, except of course, in Scandinavia. And there are new facts to glean. I never knew that Felix Samuely designed the skeletal framework to hold the ex-Chartres stained glass for Wallace Harrison's church at Stanford, Connecticut. Nor of the patronage of John Entenza, purchaser and editor of Arts and Architecture, who launched a Case Study House programme of 36 modern houses in the '40s to prevent the public returning after the war to the 'false ideal of the Cape Cod dream cottage'. The author doesn't make clear how the houses were financed, but his architects, among others, were Neutra, Wurster, Ellwood, Koenig and Saarinen, the last collaborating with Charles and Ray Eames to design a house for Entenza himself, adjacent to the world-famous Eames house. This is a book for the old to revel in nostalgia - it was the decade the Modern Movement flowered. Much of the best is here, with faint knocking on the door of what is to come (Corb's Ronchamp). Those were the days, we thought they'd never end. But they did. So give the book to the young in the hope they will learn to get it right next time round.