Sixties Couch Styles

The Danish Modern Dream

• More fairly designated the Scandinavian contemporary movement, what became popularly known as the Danish Modern style had been in active development since the early 1950s. Reacting in part to the cataclysmic destruction of old ways and styles by World War II, the contemporary movement explored the streamlining evident in aviation, experimented with new materials like plastic, plywood and vinyl, re-envisioned the spectrum of colors suitable for domestic decoration and tried out geometric and invented shapes to produce comfortable furniture. A couch designed by Alexander Girard, for example, featured fabric upholstery and a cast aluminum body (see Reference 1). Couches emerging from the movement tended to be lower and longer than their predecessors. Arms became optional or unupholstered. The classic Danish Modern newlyweds' couch had loose rectangular cushions, strapping instead of springs and a teak, rosewood or similarly-stained wooden frame and armrests.

Home, Hearth and Couch

• Although the 1960s were witness to widespread rebellions against the re-domestication of American society after the war, some of the premises attached to the 1950s glorification of home and hearth continued to reflect in furniture design. One of those premises was comfort. Simple, upholstered shapes welcomed the more relaxed behavior of all family members: children and parents watching television and teenagers lounging while talking on the phone. Couches requiring good posture, prolonged sitting in a single position or formality lost popularity in favor of washable surfaces, cradling backrests and a piece of furniture that could serve as an extra bed in a pinch. Couches became a fixture in the den, playroom or family room as well as more formal living rooms.

Spatial Considerations

• Recent media interest in the 1960s, like television series "Mad Men" and "Pan Am," uses production sets reflecting new trends in residential architecture as well as furniture design. As the 1950s fever of suburban expansion subsided, architects began expanding spaces and reinterpreting them in response to new, more casual living styles. In the 1960s, houses featured more open floor plans than their predecessors and introduced the notion of more ambiguous definitions of spatial use. The living room gave way to a conversation area, a dining area and perhaps more in a space undivided by walls. Furniture became important as the defining element of space-use. Couches with matching chairs and even couches in pairs sometimes provided the only lines of demarcation for the living room space.

Flexible Uses

• Although the British Museum of Design chose to use chairs, rather than couches or other furniture pieces, to illustrate design changes through a century, much of the ingenuity and experimentation going into chair design impacted on 1960s couches as well. One change was in the color vocabulary for couches. Big-statement pieces -- a long, low bright red or electric blue couch -- fit into the new spatial uses for furniture and visually centered a room characterized by pale walls, dark floors and a sense of open space. Simple slabs of color anchored an assortment of highly varied chairs, perhaps one with a leather-covered ergonomically designed frame and another of molded plywood or vinyl, a far cry from old-fashioned suites of matching couches and armchairs. Small-statement pieces -- boxy loveseats in neutral-toned leather or vinyl -- helped define smaller spaces or augment seating provided by a couch to accommodate casual party crowds. Although chairs may have proven the vehicle for greater innovation, design decisions made about couches in the 1960s are still visible in homes and offices today.