Modern Design Innovations - 1956

Monsanto House of the Future at Disneyland

I enjoyed misfits architecture’s article on the mid-fifties emergence of fresh new design, art, architecture, film, music and more. We are reminded that the Sydney Opera House, the Eames chair, Godzilla, Elvis Presley and the art of Andy Warhol all made their debuts in 1956.

Richard Hamilton’s famous pop art collage ‘Just What Is It That Makes
Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?’ 1956

House of the Future Peter and Alison Smithson

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Insect Looks Like A Flower

Orchid Mantis (Latin: Hymenopus coronatus) The Malaysian flower mantis, or orchid mantis, is a very rare insect. These mantises come in a variety of colors, ranging from pink to yellow to white. Original post

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— Massimo (mirror) (@rainmaker1973-m.bsky.social) April 8, 2026 at 10:31 AM

Via everlasting blort 

Sunday Links

Image: Sugestões. Arquitetura Decoração, 1956.

The image above is from a lovely collection of illustrations from a book of designs/plans for Modernist homes. Published in Sao Paulo in 1956. See more: Present & Correct

Calgary’s worst driver! I wanted to jump into this video and take the wheel. Via Memo Of The Air

Do not share with JD Vance

Do you remember when the internet came in the mail? I do. Via everlasting blort

Stilt Walking Farmers Because they were French they wore berets.

The multilingual wheel of missing emotions puts words to feelings we didn’t know we had. Via perfect for roquefort cheese

Contubernal Have any of you ever used this word? 

CatRank The definitive feline tournament. Via Memo Of The Air

How to plan the perfect aesthetic first birthday party for your sad beige baby.

Aptly named: Lake Street

The Man Who Stole Shakespeare’s Skull On a cold night in 1794, a young man set out to steal the Bard’s skull. Two centuries later, researchers are still trying to determine what happened that night. Via Strange Company

Bread  Hats

If vaccines vanish. How many people could die or be disabled in 25 years if vaccines for polio, measles, rubella or diphtheria were no longer available? Via Memo Of The Air

A message from the 1940s: “Of course they didn’t call it fascism. They painted it red, white and blue and called it Americanism.” Via Memo Of The Air

Online death certificate request

Your Name in Landsat Type in your name to see it spelled out in Landsat imagery of Earth. Via Feuilleton

That time when people thought they were made of glass

Catercise 

Music For Sunday Morning

Rosa Walton - Halfway Round The World

(Web Curios)

All You Fascists Bound To Lose

Bette Midler and friends sing the great Woody Guthrie song (with a few of the lyrics changed to fit our troubled times).

A Song That Hasn’t Been Heard In A Thousand Years

Watch musicians perform “Songs of Consolation,” a 1,000-year-old song set “to the poetic portions of Roman philosopher Boethius’ magnum opus The Consolation of Philosophy, an influential medieval text written during the 6th century.

(Open Culture)

Impromptu

*flashing images warning*

This animated short film by Spanish director María Lorenzo pays tribute to ‘the forgotten parents of film’ using devices such as zoetropes and thaumatropes.

(Aeon Videos)

Making a Perfect Scale RC Model of a Lobster Boat

This working scale replica of Peter Sripol’s lobster boat was created with 3D-printed modules. Files here.

(The Awesomer)

This Is Brilliant

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— Pierre Polyester (@canadian-critic.bsky.social) April 22, 2026 at 7:12 AM

Waterfront Property

(Duck Soup)