Inspiring Interiors from Armstrong 1950s

Rating:
Summary: Visual nostalgia for how we lived in the fifties.
Review: What sort of rooms did middle-class America live in during the fifties? Just have a look at the 250 room-set photos in this fascinating book. The advertising folk at Armstrong Tiles had the neat idea of showing the companies product as part of a room set to inspire home owners. These photos were used in their ads in the leading consumer magazines of the period. The photos are sharp, well-lit with no deep shadows, everything had to be visible and they capture the time between mom just cleaning the house and the folks arriving! I find the many kitchen and bathroom shots the most interesting, living in London during the fifties my parents would have loved to have such units and facilities. This book and the companion volume on the sixties, are a wonderful reminder of how we lived in the recent past. Although it does not detract from the photos the typography and presentation are rather bland.