Retro: A Guide to the Mid-20th Century Design Revival

by Adrian Franklin

Retro may be cool, but why are we now in the middle of a love affair with objects and designs from the mid-twentieth century? What unique qualities do they share that make them so special now?

Using one of the most spectacular displays of retro objects ever assembled, and covering all the bases - furniture, fashion, ceramics, technology, metal, graphics, plastic and glass - twentieth-century expert Adrian Franklin provides the answers.

Spanning the period from the 1950s to the 1980s and beyond, and with international coverage, the book identifies the designers, manufacturers, brands, innovations, technologies and materials that transformed the world during the period of mid-century modern and still cast their magic spell.

Authoritative, entertaining and beautiful, Retro is itself an object to be treasured.

256 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2011

About the author

Adrian S. Franklin (born 19 December 1955) is a British-born Australian sociologist, who is a professor of sociology at the University of Tasmania and a television and radio presenter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He was worked on several ABC radio and television programs as By Design on ABC Radio National and the television series Collectors where, with Gordon Brown and Claudia Chan Shaw, he was one of the panel of experts.

Franklin was born in Canterbury, England and holds a Master of Arts in Sociology from the University of Kent, and was awarded his PhD in Sociology from the University of Bristol in 1989 for his thesis Privatism, the Home and Working Class Culture. He held professorships at Bristol and the University of Oslo, before emigrating to Australia as a reader of sociology at the University of Tasmania.