Modernism

Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism is the first exhibition to look at the contribution of Jewish designers, architects, patrons, and merchants in the creation of a distinctly modern American domestic landscape. The story told in this exhibition gives remarkable insight into Jewish assimilation into American society. At the same time, Designing Home goes beyond a simple exploration of physical Jewish contributions to the history of modern architecture and design—an impact that continues today—to examine broader cultural and social themes.

In the aftermath of World War II, the hub of world Jewry shifted from Europe to America. We look at the cultural context in which many Jewish émigré architects and designers from Europe in the 1930–40s were welcomed and embraced into the creative communities that sprang up around the US—including Black Mountain College, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, and even in the Bay Area at Pond Farm in Guerneville. The exhibition and its public programs look at the intersections between Jewish social ideals and modernism’s own progressive commitment to egalitarianism.

Organized by The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, with Guest Curator Donald Albrecht, Designing Home features more than 120 objects organized around five key areas. The first area features furniture and products as well as textiles, ceramics, graphics, and a variety of book and record covers by designers such as Alex Steinweiss, Paul Rand, and Elaine Lustig Cohen. These pieces are presented within an immersive environment of life-sized photographs of period home interiors.