The Globe and Mail

Keen observers of popular culture will notice that postwar modern design has been making quite a comeback lately. Furniture designs have been reissued, magazines such as Wallpaper, Dwell, Modernism and Atomic Ranch are gaining readership and, perhaps most obvious to the general public, clean-lined suburban ranch-style homes are the new stars of many television and print advertisements, shilling for everything from cereal to automobiles to alcohol. But we're not talking ho-hum Scarborough bungalows here. The current fascination is toward the progressive "California" style -- long, low houses with asymmetrical rooflines, contrasting textures of stone, brick, wood and shimmering glass walls.