20th Century Classics

More recently, the designs of Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh have caught the eye of Mission enthusiasts. For the first 10 years of this century, Mackintosh designed buildings and furniture incorporating Mission’s rectangular lines and grids, softened by curved floral motifs adapted from Art Nouveau.


A landmark 1998 exhibition of Mackintosh’s work in Glasgow and New York helped bring this artist/designer back to public awareness. Now his influence can be seen in the work of many contemporary furniture designers. While Mission styles are usually executed in dark-stained oak, Mackintosh designs lean to lighter tones and more tightly grained woods. This lighter feeling is more compatible with the late 20th century taste for light-to-white color schemes.

The last decade of the 20th Century has enjoyed a renewed interest in the great furniture styles of the last 100 years. Despite their differences, the spotlight has shown equally on Modernist and Mission design. Both styles continue to inspire today’s furniture manufacturers. Both were equally groundbreaking styles, with lines pared back to essentials. And both are sure to have their fierce partisans and collectors far into the foreseeable future.

The Firs Great 20th Century Design

There’s something about Mission furniture that speaks strongly to the American sense of style. This early 20th century look has made a huge comeback in the last few years, perhaps because of its integrity and unpretentious dignity.

Mission style grew out of England’s late 19th Century Arts&Crafts movement, most closely identified with philosopher/ designer William Morris (whose wallpaper and fabric designs remain popular and in production).

Morris and his allies believed England’s Industrial Revolution was undermining not only traditional craftsmanship, but the quality of everyday life. They struck out against cheap materials, shoddy workmanship and the excessive ornamentation of late Victorian furniture.

Decorating Tips

Making a competent color choice for a room or home requires a plan for using color to systematically warm and highlight the prevailing theme being used as your home décor. By establishing a plan for color usage, you can easily guide and coordinate selections in order evolve a consistent color scheme that is pleasing to the eye while minimizing costs of changing fabrics, wall coverings, window coverings, floor coverings, accessories and furniture.

To begin the process of interior design, first develop a written plan whereby each room embodies an individual "theme" consistent with design and architecture of your home or living space. Make sure you carefully study the specific style, color scheme and carefully coordinate colors the colors of each element of your design. Be consistent in your choice of colors, styles and materials so as to avoid a "patchwork" that is indicative of bad planning.

By and large, interior design professionals and decorators seek to coordinate the entire design of the home project on paper. The idea is to place as much emphasis on planning as possible so as to make cost effective design determinations. Once the overall "style" theme has been determined, color scheme is developed, with its respective accents, fabrics, wallpapers (reproduced samples), accessories and furniture selections for the final design project. Increasingly, computer aided design programs available on the Internet are used to cost effectively allow the consumer to undertake interior design on their own, for a educational enrichment, entertainment and a richly rewarding development experience that avoids months researching books and decorating magazines.