Design~Recline: Modern Architecture and the Mid-Century Chaise Longue

Modernism did not invent the chaise longue, but the form flourished in the modern period as it was appropriated by architects such as Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, Alvar Aalto, and Charles and Ray Eames and reworked as a new solution for modern living. Design~Recline introduces chaise longues designed between 1928 and 1955 by these architects. The exhibition then examines in a fresh way the now well-known tenets of modern architecture, from the radical use of new materials and technology to concepts of indoor–outdoor living and issues of sickness and health.

Literally and figuratively flexible, the chaise longue represented an appropriate form for use in mass-produced housing and elite private commissions alike. Yet the ideology and mythology of the modern movement often failed to live up to its oft-quoted premises. The nine architect-designed chaise longues here form the evidence by which to investigate the contradictory assumptions of architecture’s modern movement.

This exhibition is organized by Robin Schuldenfrei, Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, and the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Intern in the Busch-Reisinger Museum. A brochure accompanies this exhibition.