Design: Our Bauhaus

The influence of Cranbrook

Until a decade or so ago, what was considered good modern design in America was not American at all. It was the International Style, promulgated mostly by Weimar Germany's Bauhaus: sleek, austere functionalism that lent an impersonal, industrialized finish to everything from skyscrapers to fountain pens. Increasingly, however, we are realizing that the design that has most consistently appealed to us all along—buildings like Eero Saarinen's main terminal at Dulles International Airport, furnishings like the Eames lounge chair—had its genesis not in Weimar but in a relatively little-known...