retro-modern

adjective

Having design elements from the modernist movements of the 1920s, 30s, 40s, or 50s.

Meanings

adjectiveretro-modern (comparative more retro-modern, superlative most retro-modern)

comparative more retro-modern · superlative most retro-modern

  1. Having design elements from the modernist movements of the 1920s, 30s, 40s, or 50s.

    The retro-modern entertainment center is not a project for beginners.

    2011, Black & Decker The Complete Guide to Built-Ins, page 15
    3 more examples

    Likewise, CYAN's marriage of type and image provides greater dimensionality to Eliasson's concepts but also suggests a retro-modern sensibility.

    2009, Steven Heller, Mirko Ilic, Anatomy of Design

    All have an attached alfresco kitchen, as do the crog lofts, four effortlessly hip, retro-modern mezzanine apartments carved from a former barn.

    2012, Rough Guides, Make the Most of Your Time in Britain

    Marketing can also abet mid-century designs from being trapped in a retro-modern paradigm: Per Lütken's glass bowl for Holmegaard from 1955 was originally called the Arne Bowl (after Holmegaard's then-director Arne Boas) but today is sold as the Provence Bowl, a name not only separating it from its time of origin but from even being Danish.

    2016, Mark Mussari, Danish Modern: Between Art and Design
Cite this entry
APA

retro-modern. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/retro-modern

MLA

“retro-modern.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/retro-modern. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “retro-modern,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/retro-modern.

Source: retro-modern on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.