#postmodernism
Post #149
1989 house for sale - 9833 NW 9th Court, Plantation, Fla.
Love the glass block, the matching high-gloss black vertical blinds and ceiling fan, and the 80s art deco ceiling light hanging above the front door (reminds me of the one in Christin'e apartment in the Miami Vice episode “By Hooker By Crook”).
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Post #145
1988 condo for sale - 5893 Sunswept Lane #B, Boynton Beach, Fla.
So much 80s pomo perfection in this house…
You don’t see a lot of bedspreads and pillow-shams from 1988. Very cool!
Also, note the black/off-white/salmon color trio echoed on both the bedspread in the bedroom and the couch pillows in the living room. This was a popular motif from about 1986/1987 to the end of the decade.
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Post #143
1989 house for sale - 19707 Bay Cove Drive, Boca Raton, Fla.
Love the mirrored canopy bed!
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Post #142
1988 house for sale - 5470 San Marino Way, Lake Worth, Fla.
The postmodern mirrored Formica credenza/hutch/sideboard is the obvious 80s centerpiece here.
But here are some more “definitely 80s” elements in this photo: vaulted ceiling with popcorn texture, white walls & ceiling w/ light-color floor (minimalist color scheme), cut-pile plush carpet that shows vacuum marks and footprints like a striped lawn, vertical blinds, sliding glass door, clerestory window, dark brown framing around the clerestory window and the sliding glass door (it would be white today), lack of crown molding, lack of casing around the doors and windows, and geometric shape to architecture (there is nothing “rounded” about this room.)
This room is a great blank canvas for some of the Memphis-Milano furniture like Phil the Shill had on Miami Vice (season 2, episode 11.)
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Post #141
The clock in the top photo is emblematic of the “neo 50s” look that was popular during the 80s…the same ethos that made 50s-style diners popular. And who else remembers the neo-50s ice cream parlors with the checkerboard floors, Wurlitzer jukebox, half a sawed-off vintage Cadillac hanging on the wall, and mirror and neon everywhere?
By neon artist Bill Buth out of Tucson. He sells his wares on Etsy under the name BillieBoi.
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Post #140
1984 house for sale - 3672 NW 23rd Court, Boca Raton, Fla.
Note how the cut-pile plush carpet, which was the mainstay of the 80s, has a memory for vacuum marks and footprints. It’s like a striped lawn.
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Post #139
Ell Design clock, current for sale on eBay as item #151598951028.
“Good Design - Joyful Life.”
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Post #138
The Atlantis condominium, located at 2025 Brickell Avenue in Miami. Designed by Arquitectonica in 1980, with construction completed in 1982.
One of the most strongly postmodern residential towers ever built, it shows a very clear Memphis-Milano influence. This is what you would get if Ettore Sottsass and Piet Mondrian had a love child.
Note especially the primary color scheme (red, yellow, blue) that was one of the definitive themes of the 80s, along with the abstract geometric shapes.
Also note the red Le Corbusier chairs in the lobby. Along with the Cesca chair and the Wassily chair, the Le Corbusier chair was one of the 1980s’ most widely-reproduced pieces of 1920s/1930s Art Deco furniture. The Le Corbusier chairs were also made in a matching couch, and in every concievable color combination of leather and metal framing (the original was black leather w/ chrome frame.) Despite the squarish look, they’re reputed to be sinfully comfortable.
The Atlantis was featured on Miami Vice as part of the opening montage before every episode, as well as being used as one of the interior sets in season 3, episode 22 (“Viking Bikers from Hell”). The exterior was also seen briefly in the movie Scarface.
The second-to-last photo – don’t you wonder where that ladder leads? Is that where the little mouse goes up into his giant piece of cheese?
Photo credit to Robin Hill for the last photo. That’s taken standing on the red spiral staircase in the “Sky Tower” cut into the middle of the building (highlighted in photo #4.) I would totally chill in that jacuzzi during a hurricane, drinking a Little Mermaid to match the building (extra rum!)
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Post #137
1986 house for sale - 1583 SW 6th Terrace, Boca Raton, Fla.
I’m a sucker for chrome vertical blinds.
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Post #135
1980 house for sale - 8768 Escondido Way E., Boca Raton, Fla.
LOVE the lumadome in the bathroom…but it’s weird to have vertical blinds in your shower stall.
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Post #134
1986 condo for sale - 2 Eastgate Drive #A, Boynton Beach, Fla.
Note how the parallel lines motif permeated the graphic design of the 80s, particularly in the sphere of corporate logos.
One can also see the visual similarity to Shutter Shades, venetian blinds, and those black louvers they used to put over the back glass of 80s sports cars.
This is closely related to the grid motif (think Tron); both used forced perspective to allow 2D computer graphics to simulate a 3D environment. We’ll come back to the grid motif in a later post.
My good friend Kate over at Mirror80.com has astutely pointed out that sunsets - symbolic of “the good life” - were a recurrent design theme during the 80s.
The last photo is one of the Nuon Klocks (“nuon, the new neon!”) by Gemini Display Ltd. out of Elk Grove Village, Illinois. A catalog showing all their designs is available back in post #26.
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Jeff Koons, Art Magazine Ads (Art in America), 1988–’89
Lithographs on paper; 91.5 cm × 71.2 cm
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