Poststalgia for the Future
Posted in Discourse on Sun Sep 10, 06 by Kyle under Midcentury Modern and Industrious Production.
I came across a great new word recently, postalgia. A mashup of the verbal kind crossing nostalgia and the “post” prefix, as in postwar or post-Impressionism. (Notice how I so kindly declined to offer as an example the most abused “post”-ism buzzword of the late 20th century.) Fortunately, unlike some other unmentioned post-words you needn’t a postdoctoral degree to appreciate postalgia. According to the definition submitted to Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary by the neologism’s sci-fi writing creator Mark Shainblum postalgia is:
1. a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for a projected future that never was; i.e. as promised by Disneyland and science fiction of the 1950’s.
2. a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for a future era by a time-traveller in the past.
I couldn’t have defined it better myself. I encountered this new word while listening to a podcast of A Way with Words from KPBS on my ever-so-forward-yearning iPod and couldn’t help but think how appropriate the term is considering the Mid-Century Modern revival that is now sweeping the nation. The glowing idealism and faith in material and scientific progress of that era certainly seems appealing now in a time when things seem so much more complicated, unstable, and tumultuous. Considering it was a decade when there were only five megabyte hard-drives, idyllic four-person families, three major television networks, two genders, and one distant looming enemy threatening the US with nuclear annihilation, the 1950s seems downright stress-free and unambiguous compared with the poly-obbsessed, post-everything present.
So with mawkish utopian enthusiasm, let’s take a look back at some treasured postalgic treats from the 1950s that I’ve dug up for your scopic pleasure. You absolutely must watch the following three part YouTube video courtesy Industry08. Not only is the film replete with all of the gorgeous signature designer classics of the 50s in living color, it is also a great piece of cinematography and designer propaganda. It is so good it even made me, a diehard decadent, ornamental, and resplendently gilded 19th century enthusiast hanker for “functional simplicity,” one of the many watchwords among “look of casualness and elegance,” “lightness and strength,” and “bright, open, and inviting” to keep an ear out for while watching.
In some coming missive I’ll have to dig out and share some more visual tidbits touting the bright, beautiful, sanitary, and scientifically improved lives we are supposed to be living in the glorious future made possible by the miracle of plastic and American ingenuity. I remember pouring over such old “World of the Future” type books as a kid while the far more dystopian 1980s raged on outside and being fascinated by what was to come. Even though I was born too late to directly bathe in the dazzling optimism of that era I still find it a captivating period to think about. You can freely idealize and fantasize about an era you have never experienced, perhaps explaining why the grandchildren of the generation that originally created a style are often at the fore of reviving it to popularity.
For those who are vintage-source-challenged when it comes to the coming astounding and cheerful new world I found the perfect book that deals with just this topic a year or so ago at my college’s library. It’s called Where’s My Space Age?: The Rise and Fall of Futuristic Design by Sean Topham. Although I didn’t have a chance to read the essay at the time, it looks like a good pictorial look back at the more extreme and humorous side of space-age styling. I think it is the promise aspect of visions of the future that make them most appealing. It may be simplistic, but it is also elegant. Certainly a welcome emotional functionality in troubled times, with or without flying cars.