I magine a world where the iconic egg chair designed by Arne Jacobsen did not exist in today's modern interior world. This is a chair that has been replicated by many modern designers to this day, and still acts as a statement piece in any household that is lucky enough to own an original. Also imagine the mid century architecture such as Farnsworth House designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe not inhabiting the landscapes of the United States and beyond. Imagine Dutch artist Piet Mondarians never painting his Neo-plasticism styles Composition Paintings of the early 1940's. To help realise the importance of these designers in their role and impact on mid century design, one only has to look at the history books to see how things could have been a lot different. With the onset of WW11, and Germany's occupation of Denmark, modernism ideas and design were in threat. Prior to the outbreak of WW11, In July 1937, four years after it came to power, the Nazi party put on two art exhibitions in Munich. The Great German Art Exhibition was designed to show works that Hitler approved of - depicting statuesque blonde nudes along with idealised soldiers and landscapes. The second exhibition, just down the road, showed the other side of German art, modern, abstract, non-representational or as the Nazis saw it, "Degenerate". The Degenerate Art Exhibition included works by some of the great international names - Paul Klee, Van Gogh, Picasso, Oskar Kokoschka and Wassily Kandinsky. The exhibition featured 650 works of what the Nazis deemed "monstrosities of madness." The point was to shame the artists and convince all Germans that modern art was a perversion created by sick minds. Hitler had been an artist before he was a politician - but the realistic paintings of buildings and landscapes that he preferred had been dismissed by the art establishment in favour of abstract and modern styles. Modernism was not just an inferior or distasteful style. It wasn't even just non-Aryan. Modernism was a swindle – a dangerous lie perpetuated by Jews, communists, and even the insane to contaminate the body of German society. In terms of modernist architecture and design, ironically it is believed that Hitler was an amateur architect. He had once been refused admission to the Viennese academy's architecture school and liked nothing better on a Sunday afternoon than to pour over plans with eager to please Albert Speer, a young architect who had caught the Nazi bug. He would discuss the minutiae of cross-sections and tinker with designs, which he always referred to as "my building plans", as if Speer were merely the conduit for Hitler's grand visions. However, this all changed when propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels challenged Hitler's taste for sentimental nationalist architecture. And so, by chance, it was decided that the Third Reich's landscape was not to be the sleek, industrial modernism, but Hansel and Gretel gothic, and a bombastic classicism of inflated porticoes, pediments and columns, with all their cheap analogies with the Roman empire. This threat to the modernism way of thinking by the Nazi's forced Arne Jacobsen to abandon his office and go into exile to escape planned deportation. He fled Denmark, rowing a small boat across Øresund to neighbouring Sweden where he would stay for the next two years. During this time he would meet Finish architect and designer Alvar Aalto, whom helped set up an apartment for him and an arrangement which allowed Arne to continue his business in Copenhagen until his return after the war. Dutch artist Piet Mondrian was a painter that had developed from realistic images of landscapes and Dutch scenes to more abstract styles paintings. Born in the Netherlands, he moved to Paris in 1911, where he integrated himself into the Parisian avant-garde lifestyle. He had been inspired by the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, with their brilliant colours and intense brushwork and was influenced by the cubist paintings of Picasso. His art continued to develop until his paintings were reduced to simple geometric colours and shapes. Mondrian had fled Paris after the bombing, and he ventured to London. But London was also under attack, and he wasn’t there long before the air raids started to destroy the city. So he fled again to arrive in New York. German Born Mies van der Rohe decided to leave Germany while standing in a field in Wisconsin in late 1937. Years after designing the iconic Barcelona chair for the international expo for Knoll, for the first time he was nervous in his own country. The time had come to follow the millions before him and make his own, rather less noble escape from the Nazis. Mies packed what he could in a small suitcase, hurried on to a train to Rotterdam and took the steamer to New York. If Hilter had succeeded, maybe all creativity in the modern world outside of the Nazi Ideology would have been threatened. Hitler learned that if you control a culture’s past then you can rewrite their future. Art is culture manifested, a physical representation of a society’s historical narrative and ideals. Hitler wished to gain legitimacy and prestige through a show of power over the cultures that created these masterpieces. The ideas and foresight to create something that is an expression of one self may have had to live in ones mind or behind closed doors in the fear that it would have been rejected or worse still, executed for. However, art is imagination which in turn develops creativity. This urge can never be controlled and is the reason why these creative minds eventually flourished over a reign that aimed to keep them in the shadows. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke

Why James Bond first editions by Jonathan Cape increasing in price?

If you like the idea of living a modern life then this is in part to the design foresight of Swiss architect Le Corbusier. When I first starting travelling around the globe, I was always fascinated with the architecture and grandeur of the historical landmarks that attract so many tourists. Their purpose at first glance was that of decoration and wow factor. To see the Acropolis of Athens for the very first time or the ancient pyramids of Egypt allows you to be transported to a time where the architecture was more about the aesthetics and statement of the building and not the practicality of it. This was not something I really thought about as a young traveller visiting these architectural masterpieces. It was always about the ornateness of it all. Le Corbusier started challenging the architecture of the Victorian age and contrasted it with what he believed to be the style and beauty of modern engineering. In his 1923 book 'Towards a New Architecture' he explained that there was no longer the money or practical need to erect or design historically souvenirs such as the Arc de Triumph in Paris but more a practical design architecture. Le Corbusier suggested that the architecture of the future should be aesthetic and clean, disciplined and frugal. For Le Corbusier it was not about the elaborate wall paintings and Boroc detailing seen in the likes of Rome, it was about true architecture which was about the quest for modern efficiency seen in the design concepts of a electricity turbine or aeroplane blueprint. Le Corbusier observed that the requirements of flight rid aeroplanes of all the superfluous detail needed for it to function. Le Corbusier used this principle in his architectural methods and suggested to place a statue on top of an aeroplane is just as absurd as placing it on top of a house or building. Le Corbusier asked himself if the function of a plane was to fly then what was the function of a house? Le Corbusier arrived at a list of simple requirements beyond which all other requirements and ambitions were romantic cobwebs. The function of the house was to provide shelter, a receptacle for light and sun and a number of cells for cooking, work and personal life. The private houses Le Corbusier had designed in and around Paris in the 1920's were unlike anything people had ever witnessed both inside and out. This is when Le Corbusier designed much of the furniture for these houses himself, often earning more money from it than his architecture. His iconic LC3 series and LC4 chaise lounge chair has not dated in the slightest, and still fits perfectly with the modern home today. This is mainly due to Le Corbusier's conviction that the binomial shape/function must be expressed in the three dimensional manifestation of any daily used and useful object. Although I agree with Le Corbusier's vision for modern practicality and efficiency for architecture and furniture design, I still think that there needs to be the ornate and grandeur present in any home interior. Le Corbusier did have a one dimensional approach when he wrote 'The city of tomorrow and it's planning' which detailed his vision to level many cities and rebuild it with high rises, solving over crowding and urban sprawl. What Le Corbusier failed to realise was that these high rises, although efficient can lose it's architectural beauty and aesthetic due to it's drab concrete structure under a grey sky. Whenever you look at modern architecture and design, Le Corbusier certainly has a place in the history books. When we look at furniture design especially, his concept of functionality and purpose still resonates to this day. The clean lines and natural curves of the Cassina LC4 Chaise Longue embodies stunning contemporary design and comfort . However, to live in a home where this style of design is all that is present, I feel can make it too cold and industrial. Ironically the fact that you can now mix this modern style with some ornate ceiling decoration replicating the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo (Maybe a bit ambitious) is what makes modern interior design so exciting and special. It has to be about expression and detail to ones tastes. Le Corbusier frowned upon the ornate and over exuberance of past architecture within the home, favouring clean lines and functionality. To me he was part of something that now allows both styles of architecture and design to be blended together to make the perfect home in the 21st Century. I wonder what he would of thought?