Mid-Century Modern Design vs Organic Design
Organic Design was influenced by Mid-Century Modern Design — grew out of and fed the broader postwar mid-century idiom.
Mid-Century Modern Design
The postwar furniture idiom of organic, sculptural forms in molded plywood, fiberglass, and bent metal — Eames, Saarinen, and Nelson turning new materials and mass production into warm, livable modern objects.
- Molded plywood and fiberglass shells in compound curves
- Organic, sculptural seat-and-back forms that follow the body
- Slender splayed dowel or wire ('Eiffel') leg bases
- Honest expression of new industrial materials and construction
- Comfort and sculptural form tuned for affordable mass production
Organic Design
A strand of postwar modernism built on flowing biomorphic shells and continuous curves, launched by MoMA's 1940 Organic Design competition and embodied in Saarinen's enveloping Womb chair.
- Continuous biomorphic shells uniting seat, back, and arms
- Swelling, rounded contours derived from nature and the body
- Foam-upholstered fiberglass forms that envelop the sitter
- Rejection of rectilinear tubular-steel geometry
- The chair conceived as a single sculpted gesture
At a glance
| Mid-Century Modern Design | Organic Design | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1945–1969 | 1940–1960 |
| Discipline | Industrial Design | Industrial Design |
| Region | United States, Scandinavia | United States, Finland |
| Family | Modernism, Mid-Century | Modernism, Mid-Century |
| Formal traits | organic, molded, sculptural, mass-produced | biomorphic, organic, sculptural, enveloping |
More comparisons
Advertisement