In the UK, during and after the war, the government commissioned the Utility project to produce clothing and furniture for, well, everyone, but particularly those who'd been bombed out. Terrific designers like Gordon Russell worked for them, and in the 80s and 90s you could get this stuff for a song. It was all incredibly well made. For instance, insisting on riven wood for the legs of chairs.
Do a search on Utility Furniture and you'll recognise it straight away, but maybe only as your grandparents furniture, not as the astonishingly well constructed stuff it was - especially given its pricing.
It is the same with London County Council Architect's Department. There were no jobs right after the war, so all the best architects set to designing council housing in south London and so forth (where the bombing had done much of the slum clearance already). Once you get your eye in you can get really drunk just admiring that stuff and its variousness.
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