When you Have Two Lovers

When you Have Two Lovers-- The Scandinavian-Post Modern love Affair.

A story on how Scandinavian Style Influences my home décor while my brain wants to live on a post modern spaceship.

If you love Ikea like I do -- the lights, the simplicity, the “follow the yellow brick road” path that’s sensible and easy. After all, it’s all about the flow, the bright lights, the legs lines and grain. No fuss- I mean half the store is allocated to storage. It’s a safe marriage, a practical choice. The simple no fuss aesthetic furniture fits into any room and the minimalism is so ever forgiving:

Then enters Post-Modern furniture design, which wants nothing to do with function, or practicality at all:

Why are they my favorites then? If they’re so different? 

One style was clearly made for utility, the other was made for... irony, perhaps? It’s a true battle of the wits- while PostMods say form beats function- can they actually be friends?  

Maybe.

While the Nordics (since the fifties) were totally grounded in functionalism -- being aware of what was around them, using what was needed and leaving the rest- the PostMods were likely stoned?

They focused on only the present moment and enjoying form, a type of home décor nihilism? Questions they asked were not about function but- what form can I make this table be and what limits can I push while still calling this furniture? This is where Post-Mod gets my goat.

                                                        (www.lofficielusa.com)

It’s all about leaving both the past and future behind while living in the present exciting and inspired moment- it’s daring, it clashes- it makes things edgy! While the furniture isn’t particularly comfortable,  you’re constantly intrigued by the layer, the dimensions, the outright folly of it all. But isn’t it so fun. Your couch becomes your cup of coffee, the architecture in your house becomes a play.

                                                                                   (yankodesign.com)

 Again, where postmodernism focuses on visual pleasure and validity, the thread running through Scandinavian design is functionalism, a requirement for survival. The focus is on need or function, not on decoration or beauty- basically the equivalent of a picky Virgo trying to marry a flamboyant Gemini! So who would you marry?

BOTH.

Today thankfully -- IKEA aside, but not always -- Scandinavian design is far from unsophisticated- now combining function as well as aesthetics. Predictability and beauty reign. It is a great demonstration of style and function can be seen in the Lamp:

 “The Story Of Scandinavian Design: Combining Function and Aesthetics — Smashing Magazine”