It continues to inform the stacking school chairs found in buzzy restaurants that describe their cuisine as “Modern British”, coffee table books on brutalism and Bauhaus arranged in hotel lobbies, and a Quaker-like reverence for Falcon enamel kitchenware. Much like the reign of the millennial aesthetic (crowned the “tyranny of terrazzo” earlier this year by The Cut) middle class modernism isn’t going away. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of those who feature in the photographs on The Modern House website are white, while the agency has come under fire for the lack of diversity on their own 25-strong team of sales representatives and appraisers.
#The tyranny of terrazzo free
With almost 300,000 Instagram followers hungry for inspiration, their appeal is largely to a millennial fanbase, who are of a generation young enough to embrace their modernist aesthetic free from its connotations of postwar hardship.Īnd there’s more to it. When else has an estate agency had so much influence on the loaded class politics of the contemporary visual realm? The Modern House aesthetic draws fastidiously from a Northern European notion of good taste, championing minimalism and austerity as something you can buy into, a commodity rather than the result of necessity or scarce means. The far-reaching influence of The Modern House suggests that this is an estate agency that appeals to a wider demographic not in spite of their explicit connection to commerce-but precisely because of it. While publishing aspirational interior photographs in an editorial context is nothing new, directly connecting such a clearly defined lifestyle to the sale of a property is largely unprecedented. These homes became divorced from the original utopian aims of improved housing for all, and their history reduced to little more than a footnote in a sales brochure.Ī post shared by The Modern House on at 2:49am PDTĬhoice detail shots hone in on the artfully arranged furnishings and objects that mark this out as a home refined by the subtle seduction of middle class modernism. Following the introduction of the Right to Buy scheme under Margaret Thatcher in 1980, much council-owned property moved swiftly from the state to the private market.
It was the era of social housing, when local authorities invested in the idea of shared space and communal living.įast forward to today, and a house formerly designed for the London County Council can sell for more than a million pounds. Many were designed in the wake of the destruction endured during the Second World War, a time of austerity and scarcity.
The original ideology of these modernist and brutalist objects and buildings remains at odds with their contemporary use. Kensal House Estate, 2015 © Miguel Santa Clara But on the screen, as in life, it is often what is cropped out that reveals manifold contradictions. Arguably, this is a form of branding that fits within the contemporary tendency to digitally ‘curate’ our own lives into the carefully cropped squares of Instagram. Understated design, with its unbranded garments and wares, is used as a signal of taste for those in-the-know. It’s not all inaccessible: even Ikea now sells reworked versions of Alvar Aalto stools and Hans Wegner armchairs. This language has been championed by popular publications such as Cereal and Kinfolk. Note the resurgence of British brands, once dowdy, now considered chic: Margaret Howell smocks (that can sell for up to £600) Aesop toiletries in pipette glass bottles nostalgic HAY home accessories vintage Ercol furniture. As the late David Graeber wrote, “There is a reason why the ultimate bourgeois virtue is thrift, and the ultimate working-class virtue is solidarity.”Ĭornerstones of this middle class modernism are raw materials, such as linen, clay and stone, elevated to new status and returned to sale at a high price. This widely influential style of middle class modernism transverses the realms of architecture, design and art, and has become a broader visual trend that appears to celebrate humility-but in fact has become a compelling marketing strategy used to sell us a consumer lifestyle. Welcome to the new mode, that I call “middle class modernism”, where the aesthetics of restraint have replaced the flamboyant interior design made popular by home improvement shows such as Changing Rooms in the 90s. Many will recognise these images in thrall to mid-century furniture and brutalist architecture, accented by the earthy elements of the natural world.
Then, a rosewood dining table surrounded by tubular steel chairs, a bowl of fresh fruit in the middle. Next it was a sunlit flight of concrete stairs descending from a raised walkway. It started with a teak cabinet, minimally decorated with a vase of dried flowers and a hand-glazed mug. Alexandra Road Estate, 2019 © Miguel Santa Clara
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