The Playboy pad

> MARCH 1971 /MIAMI

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This sculptor's space turned the inside out with a living room that opens directly onto a deck and a forerunner of the infinity pool, two now-common concepts in contemporary architecture. Inside, the 1929 Barcelona lounge chair by Bauhaus J—!~ner Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is a time-¦chelor-pad classic of leather and steel.

DECEMBER 1973/TEXAS

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The tube is an entry portal, the tower has sleep­ing chambers, and the pod serves as a living room. A mash-up of sea vessel, spacecraft and straight-up phallic symbol, this lakefront struc­ture references Antoni Gaudi's fantasy buildings, Erich Mendelsohn's 1920s observatory for Albert Einstein and streamline moderne, the industrial-design manifestation of art deco.

THESE 0

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*' MODERN

AUGUST 1965/

In 1965 modern apartment conveniences meant recessedJUMg on

tape red|PHAIso ^PHmBTFme: a Danish modern teak wall unit to store books and vinyl and, between the chairs decorated with ethnic pillows, a side taMH^I opens to become a cocktail bar.

o SILHOUETTES. INTEGRATED ELECTRONICS.

Surfaces clad in gleaming metal and sleek leather.The visual vocabulary of the sports car also informs the design of that other machine for living, the Playboy Pad. From its inception playboy has espoused a bachelor lifestyle defined by classic luxuries and breakthrough technologies. With remote controls and push-button conveniences, the Playboy Pad was the unmistakably masculine lair where the sophisticated gent could impress his friends and seduce his women. Divorced from the traditions of married life, these new digs were completely of the moment, embracing cutting-edge architecture and mid-century-modern furniture to create a new and irresistible environment for men. Hef himself set the bar in his debut letter from the editor: "We don't mind telling you in advance —we plan on spending most of our time inside. We like our apart­ment." Streamlined and urbane, the single man's residence Hef envisioned was an antidote to the drabness of post-World War II white-picket-fence suburbia. And though it didn't yet exist for most fellows, Hefner had no trouble imagining it. In the fall of 1956 he commissioned floor plans and renderings for "playboy's penthouse

apartment."The open-plan window-walled spaces featured furnishings by industrial designers Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen and Florence Knoll. Bringing these masters' chairs and tables out of the executive suite and into the home, playboy introduced modern furniture to the modern man. Harry Bertoia's futuris­tic wire-mesh bird chair even landed on the cover of the September 1961 issue. By the mid-1960s life began to imitate the artistry of our immodest proposals for urban living, as men decorated apart­ments with jet-age designs that have since become mid-century classics.Two long-running pictorial series, A Playboy's Pad and Playboy by Design, detailed real living spaces and lionized the work of such legendary architects as Los Ange­les modernist John Lautner and interiors by Parisian designer Andree Putman. playboy gave early exposure to decades of architectural trends: 1960s Palm Springs modernism, 1970s organic fantasy homes and prefab housing modules, and 1980s industrial spaces rehabbed as lofts, playboy popularized remote-controlled lighting and sound, sleek wall units, concealed bars, conversation pits and spa bath­rooms. It turned Mies van der Rohe's

Barcelona chair and Isamu Noguchi's glass-topped coffee table into status sym­bols. On these pages we offer a selection of interiors that trace the ever-evolving bachelor design aesthetic that was pio­neered in the pages of playboy.

OCTOBER 1965 /PHOENIX

Dn the Western front, the mid-1960s brought earthy touches: cork and lava-rock walls and a concrete genie-bottle fireplace. To the right of the fireplace a contemporary pendant light and a round Eero Saarinen dinette set complement the curves of the carpeted conversation pit.

CONCEPTS

playboy's 1950s and 1960s plans for modern bachelor living included the Playboy Town House, above, with wood walls and recessed light­ing. Many of the futuristic interior designs-including the domed-roof grotto [right] and the circular bed below-echo the curves that were dis­played elsewhere in the magazine.

s modern office furnishings were

^grated into contemporary interiors. Forthis living dining space, a buffet is set at a Knoll racetrac' conference table with Eames aluminum ch^"=

SEPTEMBER 1970/FINLAND

Taking cues from Buckminst" house-not to mention UFDs-thi house prefigures the 21 ' craze. The interior fireplac

In 19B5, bafore flatscreens, size-fflaitered. The five-foot-tall projection TV had a component box so large it doubled as a table. Stainless steel columns pfovide a hideaway for high-tech speakers-and a bar.