Space age and pop
Plastic in bright colours, balls and capsules, fashion in paper and metal: faith in the future and pop culture moved into the living room.
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957 the space race began, and it gave designers a new picture of the future. Furniture and lamps became round, enclosed and shiny, like capsules and satellites. Eero Aarnio's Ball Chair of 1963, Verner Panton's chair in a single piece of plastic and Joe Colombo's units for entire homes are among the icons of the time.
At the same time a youth culture grew up with its own music, fashion and spending power. In London Mary Quant popularised the miniskirt, and shops such as Biba and Habitat sold cheap, colourful furnishings. Pop art took up the images of advertising and comics, and designers did the same: inflatable chairs, cardboard furniture and lamps that looked like toys.
Towards the end of the 1960s came criticism. Radical groups in Italy such as Archizoom and Superstudio questioned the whole idea of good design, and the oil crisis of 1973 made plastic expensive and faith in the future weaker. But many of the period's moulded plastic furniture pieces are still in production.