WHAT KIND OF LIVING ROOM?

What kind of living room do you prefer? Me, I like ones with lots of light, like the one designed by Carl Larsson above. Actually, my source might have mislabeled this picture. It looks more like a sewing room to me, but its nice and cheery, and there are elements that would be nice in a living room. Click to enlarge.

Amazingly, after decades of modernism the classic American living room (above) still holds up as an ideal.  The problem is that this was created for the kind of tasteful New England interiors they were building in 1920, and it looks a little out of place in most modern houses.

 


Some people (above) should have their license to decorate revoked. Really, if you can't do it yourself you should plead with a friend to help you out. 

Maybe more chords would help.

Here's (above) a sculptor's living room. The furniture is islands of marble and there's a forest of tall, awkward sculptures. It's completely impractical, but I like the idea of a house that reflects the vocation of the owner.  One kind of house for the accountant and the blacksmith is tyranny.

Yikes! A modernist nightmare (above)! I'd go nuts if I had to live there.

Funny living rooms (above) are seldom comfortable.

Sometimes people's hobbies (above) dominate the room.

Am I imagining it, or are living rooms dwindling in significance these days? Nowadays living rooms are often showcase rooms and the real action takes place elsewhere, in the rec rooms and kitchens. Some people have even converted their living rooms into offices. 

Some living rooms are absurdly small now.

On the other hand, kitchens have grown enormously. They're cozy, social spaces now.  The kitchens shown above and below belonged to the sculptor, Alexander Calder.

This wall in Calder's kitchen looks like it's hewn out of rock, but I'll bet it's plaster or stucco.

Eames, the designer, favored the austere living room shown above. You can't get much more minimal than that. I think Steve Job's house was like this.

Here's (above) another view of the same room. The sofa is pushed out of the way by a big, wooden slab. I guess Eames liked slabs.

Most hippies had little use for living rooms. Sometimes they didn't even furnish them. For hippies, the important thing was the bedroom, and above all, the sacred water bed.

The exception was rich hippie futurists who were partial to fuzzy living rooms with soft, rounded edges. 

Come to think of it, hippie musicians liked living rooms, too. The rooms were dimly lit and had lots of funny furnishings. 

The last living room I saw and liked was the one in Woody Allen's "Play It Again, Sam." It recently played on the Turner channel. It was funky, but seemed like the kind of place where memorable events would happen.