Mid-century modern architecture was a twentieth-century architectural style characterized by clean lines, muted curves, a lack of ornamentation, large windows, functionality, and open floor plans intent on making indoor and outdoor living spaces complement each other. Part of a wider artistic movement encompassing architecture, graphic design, and product development, mid-century modern design had its heyday in the post-war period of the 1950s and 60s. The style was a continuation of the larger modernist movement, which had roots in the Industrial Revolution at the end of the 19th century, and also in the post-World War I period.

The Stahl House, Los Angeles, CA. Designed by Pierre Koenig

During the 1930s and 40s, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius - German devotees of the Bauhaus school of modern design - had fled Nazism to teach at schools in the United States, like the Illinois Institute of Technology and Harvard Graduate School of Design. Their work pioneered the international style of modernism, alongside other luminaries like Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Alvar Aalto.

The influence of such giants of design laid the groundwork for a mid-century design movement that would expand from academia to the wider real estate market. The movement's emergence coincided with the baby boom following the Second World War, when the demand for residential housing and construction in the US was at an all time high. Eventually, the movement grew beyond middle-class suburban homes to include the design of taller buildings and landmarks in East Coast metropolitan centers like New York City and West Coast cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles in California. 

Lennox Health Greenwich Village, New York, NY. Designed by Albert C. Ledner