Designing Home: Jews and Midcentury Modernism
Elaine and Alvin Lustig, Sunset Office, 1949. Collection of Elaine Lustig Cohen. “A man’s house is his art,” Daniel S. Defenbacher, director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, proclaimed in 1947: “At least a house is the nearest to art that most men will ever come.” 1 Writing about the Walker’s new Idea House, a full-scale, fully furnished residence intended to persuade Americans to adopt modern architecture and design for their domestic environments, Defenbacher staked out an agenda that was personal and artistic. Built two years after the end of World War II, Idea House featured innovative glass-walled facades, gleaming appliances, smooth plywood furniture, and built-in storage units that captured the nation’s fascination with new materials and technologies. Americans could afford these innovations through an unprecedented postwar economic boom that promised good design for all Americans, especially returning veterans and their families, who, through the recently passed GI...