2024: A Space Odyssey

Traces of these new aesthetic impulses can be found in the American architecture of the 1950s, defined by the "Googie" style (a name that comes from a café designed by architect John Lautner that was called Goggie's). John Lautner, who was obsessed with futuristic, minimalist architecture, such as the Chemosphere built in Los Angeles, embodied this movement, along with other builders such as Wayne McAllister (the Hollywood Roosevelt in L.A.) and Eero Saarinen (inventor of the Tulip chair for Knoll). All of them advocated capsular shapes and curved edges, in line with the aesthetic codes of the conquest of space, eradicating the impression of gravity. Imbued with the idea of the future in space, their buildings seemed to hang in the air, often resembling flying saucers. These architects, followed by designers, embraced a new range of materials such as laminated glass, asbestos, plywood, fibreglass, stainless steel and plastic. Ecological issues were not yet at the forefront, and America was thriving on the certainty of its model of over-consumption; the future belonged to it, it still thought.

This assertive futurism in the quest for beauty was constantly interwoven with a pop aesthetic, as if the world of objects in the 1960s oscillated between two aesthetic registers, one associated with extrapolation and the other with the materiality of a life open to liberating experiences. Designers of this era, such as the Dane Verner Panton (the Panton Chair), Eero Aaranio (the inventor of the Ball Chair), and the Italians Joe Colombo and Vico Magistretti, who are now cult figures, were all looking for modular, flexible systems in an era that was both pop and futuristic. Even fashion, seeking to liberate the waspish waistlines of women's silhouettes, opened up to unlikely materials such as aluminium, plastic and Plexiglas, like the outfits of Pacco Rabane, André Courrèges, with his "Moon girl" collection, or Pierre Cardin, with his "Space Age" line.

Gone but revived, this "Space Age" is now blowing through the aesthetic imagination of the early 21st century, less because of a nostalgic impulse than because of a stylish reinvestment in the future. For the future of the 1960s was far more generous and sophisticated than today's dried-up forms, conveyed by algorithms and artificial intelligence, emptied of the soul of the whimsical, poetic aesthete of sixty years ago.

This eccentric yet dignified poetry is to be found in the Prisunic collection published a few months ago by the Monoprix brand, featuring armchairs by Odile Mir and lamps by the Italian designer Gae Aulenti. If the future belongs to those who rise up early to reject aseptic, hard, cold and devitalised objects, the "space age" could be one of the most solid faces of what awaits us in our homes and architectural spaces. Objects to dream about, to contemplate, on earth..

Find the right property for you with Engel & Völker, in Paris, à Deauvilleand on the Riviera