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Mid-century accommodations Opened in 1946 as the “2400 Court,” a reference to when Motor Courts proliferated Kingsway (the main route leading in and out of Vancouver at the time), the 2400 rebranded itself as a “motel” in the early 1960s when more luxurious motor hotels (or, motels) began popping up along the busy thoroughfare. By the 1970s, new highway, bridge and Read more...
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Mid-century & vintage furniture Upon entering a La MOD you’ll discover an array of eclectic mid-century modern & contemporary furnishings as well as lighting, accessories and more, all at varying price points. Located in the Uptown Design District. Read more...
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Mid-century accommodations Originally built in the 1950s as a retreat for the production crew of the classic film “A Place in the Sun,” starring Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, this lush one acre property boasts sixteen mid-century bungalows (rustically furnished, with kitchens, for long term and short term stays) which form an inviting enclave around a pristine pool and spa. Read more...
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Mid-century/desert modern buildings The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway was called the “eighth wonder of the world” when it opened in 1963, a major feat of engineering which took nearly 15 years from design to completion and later was designated an historical civil engineering landmark. Preeminent modernist architects Albert Frey & Robson C. Chambers and John Porter Clark were enlisted to Read more...
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Tiki Culture/Polynesian Pop For Tiki Culture enthusiasts this is a pilgrimage you’ll want to consider. One of the original two giant Maoi statues that graced the entrance to the Stardust Hotel & Casino’s Aku Aku Polynesian-themed restaurant back in the 1960s and 70s was relocated to Sunset Park in Henderson, just a few miles south of The Strip. Built by Read more...
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Vintage mid-century & Hawaiiana On Oahu’s windward side there’s a handful of nice shops that specialize in mid-century collectibles and Hawaiiana. Ali’i Antiques has 2 stores located in Kailua; the first sells mostly antiques and collectibles of the European variety but their second shop is strictly Hawaiiana! From Tikis, advertising art and Polynesian restaurant ephemera to furniture, jewelry and Aloha Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings The Pawa’a neighborhood was one of Honolulu’s most modernized districts back in the 1960s and although one could easily spend hours taking in the entire area’s Tropical Modernist offerings we like Amana Street and its immediate vicinity as a great place to start. Corresponding photos are above… click on building names below for Google Map locations. Walking Read more...
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Hawaiiana & mid-century collectibles If you can envision a busy garage sale, thrift store and flea market all rolled into one, then you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect when you walk into Antique Alley. Located in a nondescript grey building on Queen Street across from Office Depot, this place is a treasure trove jam-packed with vintage Read more...
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Mid-century & vintage furniture In the Sunny Dunes Antique District there are a pair of large Antique Malls that shouldn’t be missed. Each boast multiple vendors offering a varied selection of mid-century and vintage fare including home furnishings, accessories, art, jewelry, collectibles and more. The Sunny Dunes Antique Mall is located at 507 East Sunny Dunes Rd. and is jammed with some Read more...
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Mid-century architecture museums One of our favorite buildings, The Palm Springs Art Museum‘s Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion, started off as a bank in 1961; the Santa Fe Federal Savings & Loan to be exact, designed by noted modernist architect E. Stewart Williams. After years of disuse, The Palm Springs Art Museum purchased the vacant property in 2011 and mounted a Read more...
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Mid-century residential buildings The waterfront block of Argyle Ave. and its surrounding area – especially Bellevue Avenue – between 21st and 22nd Streets in the Dundarave/Ambleside area of West Vancouver was rezoned for apartment buildings in 1959 so it’s no wonder it boasts some of the sweetest mid-century modern construction in Metro Vancouver. With names like “The Crescent,” “Villa Maris” and “The Read more...
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Mid-century brutalist buildings Designed in 1965 by noted architect Arthur Erickson (along with Geoffrey Massey) for the Canadian forestry company of the building’s original namesake, MacMillan Bloedel, the two offset 27-story towers that comprise Arthur Erickson Place (as it was renamed in 2022) was a landmark of minimalist modernism at the time it went up in 1968. The towers’ primary Read more...
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Mid-century vintage bars Located just a few blocks east of the Fremont East Entertainment District, downtown, Atomic Liquors is the oldest free-standing bar in Las Vegas, dating back to the end of the Second World War when it opened as Virginia’s Café. The 1950s cold war era brought nuclear bomb testing to the Nevada desert just outside the city, and with Read more...
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Vintage mid-century antiques This jam-packed shop has been providing Vancouverites with a great assortment of vintage mid-century furniture, home accessories and collectable items since 1988; long before it was trendy to do so. Your one stop shop on The Drive – the wonderfully bohemian Commercial Drive! – for modernist, retro and vintage sofas, tables, chairs, kitchenware, Fiestaware, lighting, clocks, glassware, pottery, Read more...
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Mid-century Hawaiiana & collectibles If you’re looking for vintage Aloha shirts this is the place to come. Doing brisk business since 1980, Bailey’s Antiques and Aloha Shirts claim to have the world’s largest selection with over 15,000 shirts in stock, and we wouldn’t doubt it! Their Waikiki-adjacent location is filled with wall-to-wall vintage shirts dating back as far as the Read more...
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Mid-century vintage fashion Located in the downtown Arts District inside the mid-century modern Marks Garage building, this stylish shop carries a varied collection of retro fashions and vintage Aloha wear that never goes out of style, including men’s and women’s shirts, blouses, dresses, accessories and more. Refined 1950s classics and colorful, groovy prints from the 1960s and 70s can be Read more...
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Mid-century art/mid-century banks Tucked away above rows of greeting cards inside a busy downtown Vancouver drugstore at Granville & Dunsmuir streets endures a visually gripping mid-century mosaic mural by renowned Canadian artist & architect, BC Binning. For real! Commissioned as a feature wall inside this former Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce building (designed by influential architects McCarter & Nairne, in 1958), Binning’s mural – measuring Read more...
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Mid-century office buildings Designed by architects Ron Thom & Ned Pratt (1955-1957) to house the B.C. Electric Company – later to be merged with BC Hydro – this 23-story tower is a classic example of the International Style and, at the time, was said to be the tallest building in the British Commonwealth. Although tall – for Vancouver in the Read more...
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Mid-century residential buildings Designed by Ojars Kalns (CBK Van Norman & Associates) and built in 1965, with a fourth tower added [to the original three] north of Harwood Street in 1968, the iconic Beach Towers follow Le Corbusier’s “towers in the park” dictum where structures are set back allowing room for plazas, parking and landscaping. Kalns also elevated his buildings (on stilts) Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings & art Located along Vancouver’s downtown Burrard Street corridor, the Bentall Centre holds a bank pavilion and four towers (housing established businesses and law offices) which were constructed between 1965 – 1981. Bentall One (1967) and Bentall Two (1969) were designed by Frank Musson and Charles Bentall using New Formalist principals that boast graceful precast white concrete Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings/art Located at Queen Elizabeth Park, the Bloedel Conservatory’s triodetic dome consists of over 1400 acrylic bubbles and an aluminum frame supported by a Brutalist concrete perimeter; the first of its kind in Canada and all very futuristic when it opened to the public in 1969. Its designers, Underwood, McKinley, Cameron, Wilson and Smith, structural engineers Thorson & Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings Designed by Percy Underwood and completed in 1961, the Vancouver Parks Board offices are comprised of three low lying linked buildings finished with natural stone, Douglas fir and clerestory windows. Its split level interior boasts beautiful and well preserved wood paneling, custom designed lighting fixtures and vintage furniture, all designed by Underwood. Celebrated for its naturalistic approach Read more...
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Vintage mid-century fashion Boasting 3,000 sq. feet of retail space filled with an assortment of vintage wear, Bohemia Gallery’s mid-century collection can be found upstairs in “The Loft” where guys can choose from retro rat pack style suit jackets, ties and Aloha shirts while girls can find the perfect pill box hat to wear with their Bohemian Gallery swing coat. Read more...
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Mid-century & vintage collectibles Located in the historic Kocher-Samson building which was designed by modernist architects Albert Frey and A. Lawrence Kocher, in 1934, Bon Vivant is a boutique shop true to the building’s vintage, offering up lots of mid-century decorative accessories for the modern home. From colorful (and collectible!) vintage glassware and pottery, to retro lighting and select period Read more...
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Midcentury Modern Furniture An institution in San Diego since 1985, Boomerang for Modern relocated to their current 1,100 square foot showroom on North Palm Canyon Drive in 2020. This cozy space boasts a personally curated selection of top quality, vintage furnishings, lighting and accessories while also offering brand new classics from Herman Miller, Modernica, Flensted Mobiles and more. Boomerang for Read more...
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Vintage mid-century apparel Kind of like a vintage Ross Dress for Less, the Buffalo Exchange buys, sells and trades recycled clothing to and from fashion-backward hipsters, while also giving back to their local communities. Part of a unique chain with over 30 stores around the U.S., this location moved from the University district in 2014 after twenty successful years and Read more...
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Mid-century popular culture For years organized crime got no respect, but lately Las Vegas has been embracing the mob’s role in the city’s evolution with places like The Mob Museum and The Mob Bar doing brisk business. If you believe the local lore – that mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was a visionary and driving force behind the genesis of what would become Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings Designed by CBK Van Norman in 1955, the Burrard Building was the first office high rise to go up in downtown Vancouver using new post-war modernist design and building techniques… at least on its trendy Miesian exterior. The interior holds a more traditional, less open floor plan, which the B.C. Electric/Hydro building improved upon when it went up the following Read more...
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Mid-century Danish Modern If you like Scandinavian mid-century modern then you’ll definitely want to visit By Design Modern, Western Canada’s largest purveyor of vintage Danish Modern furniture. Beautifully restored sofas, tables, chairs, cabinets, desks and more by prolific and award winning designers like Arne Jacobsen, Jens Risom and Finn Juhl are all personally sourced in Denmark on regular buying trips so you know what Read more...
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Tiki culture accommodations If Tiki Culture is your thing then the Caliente Tropics hotel is the place for you. Built in the mid 1960s when Polynesian-themed A-Frames were popping up everywhere, this hip yet unpretentious large-scale, renovated, affordable motor Inn boasts one of the biggest swimming pools in Palm Springs as well as a great southern location with endless mountain, palm Read more...
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West coast modernist houses Following the completion of the Lions Gate Bridge by Monsarrat & Pratley in 1937 – which linked Vancouver to the North Shore – residential construction in the Capilano Highlands and surrounding environs began in earnest and continued through the 1950s and 60s when the area saw a boom in West Coast modern post & beam and ranch Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings Within a few blocks of the magnificent Hawaii State Capital building are a handful of other mid-century modern structures that are magnificent in their own right. Listed in no particular order with corresponding photos above… click on addresses below for Google Map locations. Hawaii State Capital Building (415 South Beretania St.) – Designed by Belt, Lemmon & Lo, with John Carl Read more...
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Contemporary mid-century furniture Custom made-to-order retro-inspired chairs, TV stands and sideboards is what you’ll find at Carte Blanche Furniture, a Canadian manufacturer whose line of mid-century contemporary designs can be found in limited quantities at retailers The Living Lab in North Vancouver and Wire Home Furnishings in Richmond. Carte Blanche’s retailers deal mostly in contemporary designs that will likely leave most Read more...
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Vintage antiques & collectibles Routinely topping the “Best of Las Vegas” lists for Antique stores in the city, the Charleston Antique Mall is essentially a massive flea market. But what a flea market! There are stalls upon stalls of vintage treasures including retro fashion, furniture, art, ceramics, jewelry, glassware; the list goes on. Vendors are friendly and some have awesome Read more...
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Mid-century/vintage furniture If you’re a discriminating modernist in the market for high-end mid-century collectibles, this is the place to be. You’ll find a curated collection of vintage eye candy in their spacious Palm Canyon Drive showroom, including home furnishings, original artwork and loads of accessories by designers like Frankl, Paulin, Castiglioni and more. Christopher Anthony Ltd. also offers their own Read more...
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Mid-century/desert modern buildings It could be said that Palm Springs was ground zero for the rapid emergence of mid-century modern civic architecture in the post-war years. In few places was the inventive manner in which new building materials and construction techniques put to such extensive use, and by such an accomplished group of architects, as it was on the Palm Read more...
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Desert modernist buildings Located in the Coachella Valley‘s central community of Palm Desert, the College of the Desert is well worth the 30 minute (or less) drive from Palm Springs for a chance to see desert modernism at its best. Designed in the late 1950s by noted architect John Carl Warnecke (the Hawaii State Capital building) in a unique collaboration Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings On the north side of West Hastings Street’s 1100 block, downtown, just past the Guinness Tower, sit three mid-century buildings constructed in the 1960s-70s by developer R.C. “Dick” Baxter. Known at the time as Columbia Centre, Baxter’s business complex boasted restaurants, offices, a hotel and was once located on prime waterfront property until Coal Harbour’s shoreline was Read more...
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Modernist comfort stations Located at dozens of beaches and parks throughout Oahu, the majority of Hawaii’s “comfort stations” – aka restrooms, changing rooms, toilets etc. – were built during the post war boom years of the 1950s & 60s which gave local architects an opportunity to incorporate the period’s predominantly modernist esthetic into what would otherwise be overlooked utilitarian structures. Read more...
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Mid-century vintage fashion Community Thrift & Vintage in historic Gastown is actually comprised of two stores; their Unisex location at 11 West Hastings Street (see map), and The Frocke Shoppe for ladies wear, around the corner at 311 Carrall Street. Both shops carry a modest selection of nice vintage clothing & accessories from the 1940s to the 1990s, and although Read more...