Ultra Swank - Retro Adventures

Design • advertising • interior • architecture

Classic Hand Drawn Car Ads from the US

Found a whole bunch of really nice vintage American car advertisements from the 1950s and 1960s in the Ultra Swank Flickr Group. Wish Detroit still would do classic hand drawn illustrations like this today for their cars. Which is your favorite American mid century car and why?...

Case Study House #22
Written by Christopher in Architecture

Case Study House #22

Wednesday inspiration. The Stahl House, also known as Case Study House #22 was finished in 1959 and is most likely the most famous house from the CSH program with help from famed photographer Julius Shulman....

Swank Style Surprise Discovered
Written by Guest Writer in Interior

Swank Style Surprise Discovered

I had the occasion this past summer to stay in a Motel 6 here in the U.S. for the first time in many years. I was most pleasantly surprised at the new look of the room. It was simple, utilitarian, but perhaps best of all, something new in that it reminded me of mid-century America with a bit of a nod to Deco, 1950s “Space-Age”...

Time Travel With a DDR Designed Hostel in Berlin

If you ever wondered how it was like living in the old communist eastern Europe but were unable to do so before the wall fell? Here is your chance. In the heart of the former eastern side of Berlin lies a quite ordinary looking concrete apartment building that once was home to dozens of people, but today houses the quite unusual DDR-designed and inspired hostel…...

1960s Whitney Smith Designed Modernism Home

This lovely modernism designed home was built in the 1960s by architect Whitney Smith who was made famous through the Case Study Homes program in post WWII California. The house is located in Alhambra in the US and like many other Mid Century homes it was built in the typical ‘glass box’ theme with high ceilings and positioned conveniently on a hilltop, creating a spectacular...

Pan Am Lounge in Berlin
Written by Christopher in Interior

Pan Am Lounge in Berlin

In the depths of Europe a hidden gem just became exposed. Anyone familiar with the golden age of aviation is most likely also very familiar with the airline Pan Am, who set the standard of modern aviation and swank traveling since the 1930s and onwards. The airline had hubs around the world and the airplane crew obviously needed places to stay when they were not...

Sexist Vintage Ads – Even a Woman Can Open It

Not that we Ultra Swanksters condones being sexist, it just sometimes amazes me what kind of stuff advertising agencies were able to pull off around mid-century suburban America. Here are some fine examples of sexist vintage ads of the times that takes a punch at women only being good for being secretaries, housewives and objects of beauty. Even though the ads would surely never pass...

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