Selling Good Design: Promoting the Modern Interior

Designers now have at their fingertips an invaluable reference: an illustrated history of modern furnishings and interior design from period rooms of the early twentieth century. Ikea, eat your heart out: Macy's, Lord & Taylor and others designed exhibits in the 1920s with mock living rooms, bedrooms, and even kitchens to display and sell modern furnishings and decorative objects.

Marilyn Friedman's text and accompanying period photographs describe in detail the exhibits held by Macys, Lord & Taylor, B. Altman, and Wanamaker's to popularize modern design. Macy's, in particular, worked closely with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to select designers and display works of modern design by Gio Ponti, William Lescaze, and Paul Frankel as part of the exhibits. More than 120 photographs illustrate period furnishings and decorative objects by European and American designers, providing a visual feast for interior designers, art lovers, and collectors.