Cultural Histories of Design – serie

Soviet Critical Design is the first book to explore the socialist design practice of ‘artistic projecteering’, which was developed by the USSR’s Senezh Experimental Studio in the 1960s.Tom Cubbin examines the studio as a site for the development of the design discipline in the optimistic environment of the 1960s Soviet Thaw. He also explores how designers adapted to the fast-changing Soviet Union of the 1970s and 1980s, considering their approach to critical projects highlighting the Soviet state’s treatment of citizens, urban heritage and public spaces. Drawing on previously unpublished visual material from private archives and also extensive interviews, this book presents a new history of the late socialist period in the USSR, which gives insight into the creative strategies of designers who engaged their practice as a contribution to broader discussions on alternative models for socialist existence. Cubbin shows how artistic projecteering must be read as a utopian activity which privileged the political and ideological over the functional.

Originally inspired by a progressive vision of a working environment without walls or hierarchies, the open plan office has since come to be associated with some of the most dehumanizing and alienating aspects of the modern office. Author Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler traces the history and evolution of the American open plan from the brightly-colored office landscapes of the 1960s and 1970s to the monochromatic cubicles of the 1980s and 1990s, analyzing it both as a design concept promoted by architects, designers, and furniture manufacturers, and as a real work space inhabited by organizations and used by workers.The thematically structured chapters each focus on an attribute of the open plan to highlight the ideals embedded in the original design concept and the numerous technical, material, spatial, and social problems that emerged as it became a mainstream office design widely used in public and private organizations across the United States. Kaufmann-Buhler’s fascinating new book weaves together a variety of voices, perspectives, and examples to capture the tensions embedded in the open plan concept and to unravel the assumptions, expectations, and inequities at its core.

Originally inspired by a progressive vision of a working environment without walls or hierarchies, the open plan office has since come to be associated with some of the most dehumanizing and alienating aspects of the modern office. Author Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler traces the history and evolution of the American open plan from the brightly-colored office landscapes of the 1960s and 1970s to the monochromatic cubicles of the 1980s and 1990s, analyzing it both as a design concept promoted by architects, designers, and furniture manufacturers, and as a real work space inhabited by organizations and used by workers.The thematically structured chapters each focus on an attribute of the open plan to highlight the ideals embedded in the original design concept and the numerous technical, material, spatial, and social problems that emerged as it became a mainstream office design widely used in public and private organizations across the United States. Kaufmann-Buhler’s fascinating new book weaves together a variety of voices, perspectives, and examples to capture the tensions embedded in the open plan concept and to unravel the assumptions, expectations, and inequities at its core.

Jugendstil, that is Germany’s distinct engagement with the international Art Nouveau movement, is now firmly engrained in histories of modern art, architecture and design. Recent exhibitions and publications across the world explored Jugendstil’s key protagonists and artistic centres to firmly anchor their activities within the trajectories of German modernism. Women, however, continue to be largely absent from these revisionist accounts.Jugendstil Women and the Making of Modern Design argues that women in fact actively participated in the cultural and socio-economic exchanges that generated German design responses to European modernity. By drawing on previously unpublished archival material and a series of original case studies including Elsa Bruckmann's Munich salon, the Photo Studio Elvira and the Debschitz School, the book explores women’s important contributions to modern German culture as collectors, consumers, critics, designers, educators, and patrons.This book offers a new interpretation of this vibrant period by considering diverse manifestations of historical female agency that pushed against historically entrenched conventions and gender roles. The book’s rigorous approach reshapes Jugendstil historiography by positing women’s lived experiences against dominant ideologies that emerged at this precise moment. In short, the book advocates women as an integral part of the emergence, dissemination and reception of Jugendstil and questions the deeply gendered histories of this key period in modern art, architecture and design.

Drawing on the fields of design history and the history of science, this book examines the important role that botanical science played in the emergence of Victorian design theory. In early 19th-century Britain, a rapid influx of plants from other countries began to confuse the orders of classification. As these new specimens arrived in nurseries and conservatories, botanists revised and promoted a new taxonomy: the Natural System. In parallel, in 1835, British manufacturers faced a government inquiry in order to improve the output of the British design industry. They needed a nationally identifiable design aesthetic and the inquiry led to the creation of the Government Schools of Design and the Design Reform movement. This book explores how, whilst botanists used drawings to clarify new systems of plant classification, designers learnt ‘art botany’, the practice of basing decorative form and ornament on the hidden, natural laws that govern plant growth and structure. Design reformers used botany as a model for how to create and identify what is new and incorporate it into what was already familiar and meaningful, all within the purview of developing a professional field of practice. Sarah Alford provides a rich, interdisciplinary study of how the fields of design and botanical science came together. Through a framework of material culture, Alford sheds new light on the work of leading botanists, designers and illustrators such as Sarah Drake, John Lindley, Richard Redgrave, Owen Jones and Christopher Dresser. This book reveals how the designation of what design reformers deemed appropriate for the surface decoration of material structures as varied as carpets, jugs, wallpaper, and furniture, was an embrace of botanical science as a source of fantasy and imagination.

Drawing on the fields of design history and the history of science, this book examines the important role that botanical science played in the emergence of Victorian design theory. In early 19th-century Britain, a rapid influx of plants from other countries began to confuse the orders of classification. As these new specimens arrived in nurseries and conservatories, botanists revised and promoted a new taxonomy: the Natural System. In parallel, in 1835, British manufacturers faced a government inquiry in order to improve the output of the British design industry. They needed a nationally identifiable design aesthetic and the inquiry led to the creation of the Government Schools of Design and the Design Reform movement. This book explores how, whilst botanists used drawings to clarify new systems of plant classification, designers learnt ‘art botany’, the practice of basing decorative form and ornament on the hidden, natural laws that govern plant growth and structure. Design reformers used botany as a model for how to create and identify what is new and incorporate it into what was already familiar and meaningful, all within the purview of developing a professional field of practice. Sarah Alford provides a rich, interdisciplinary study of how the fields of design and botanical science came together. Through a framework of material culture, Alford sheds new light on the work of leading botanists, designers and illustrators such as Sarah Drake, John Lindley, Richard Redgrave, Owen Jones and Christopher Dresser. This book reveals how the designation of what design reformers deemed appropriate for the surface decoration of material structures as varied as carpets, jugs, wallpaper, and furniture, was an embrace of botanical science as a source of fantasy and imagination.

Soviet Critical Design is the first book to explore the socialist design practice of ‘artistic projecteering’, which was developed by the USSR’s Senezh Experimental Studio in the 1960s.Tom Cubbin examines the studio as a site for the development of the design discipline in the optimistic environment of the 1960s Soviet Thaw. He also explores how designers adapted to the fast-changing Soviet Union of the 1970s and 1980s, considering their approach to critical projects highlighting the Soviet state’s treatment of citizens, urban heritage and public spaces. Drawing on previously unpublished visual material from private archives and also extensive interviews, this book presents a new history of the late socialist period in the USSR, which gives insight into the creative strategies of designers who engaged their practice as a contribution to broader discussions on alternative models for socialist existence. Cubbin shows how artistic projecteering must be read as a utopian activity which privileged the political and ideological over the functional.

This book provides the first comprehensive history of window display as a practice and profession in Britain during the dynamic period of 1919 to 1939. In recent decades, the disciplines of retail history, business history, design and cultural history have contributed to the study of department stores and other types of shops. However, these studies have only made passing references to window display and its role in retail, society and culture. Kerry Meakin investigates the conditions that enabled window display to become a professional practice during the interwar period, exploring the shift in display styles, developments within education and training, and the international influence on methods and techniques. Piecing together the evidence, visual and written, about people, events, organisations, exhibitions and debates, Meakin provides a critical examination of this vital period of design history, highlighting major display designers and artists. The book reveals the modernist aesthetic developments that influenced high street displays and how they introduced passers-by to modern art movements.

This book provides the first comprehensive history of window display as a practice and profession in Britain during the dynamic period of 1919 to 1939. In recent decades, the disciplines of retail history, business history, design and cultural history have contributed to the study of department stores and other types of shops. However, these studies have only made passing references to window display and its role in retail, society and culture. Kerry Meakin investigates the conditions that enabled window display to become a professional practice during the interwar period, exploring the shift in display styles, developments within education and training, and the international influence on methods and techniques. Piecing together the evidence, visual and written, about people, events, organisations, exhibitions and debates, Meakin provides a critical examination of this vital period of design history, highlighting major display designers and artists. The book reveals the modernist aesthetic developments that influenced high street displays and how they introduced passers-by to modern art movements.

Jugendstil, that is Germany’s distinct engagement with the international Art Nouveau movement, is now firmly engrained in histories of modern art, architecture and design. Exhibitions and publications across the world explore Jugendstil’s key protagonists and artistic centres to firmly anchor their activities within the trajectories of German modernism. Women, however, continue to be largely absent from these revisionist accounts.Jugendstil Women and the Making of Modern Design shows that women in fact actively participated in the cultural and socio-economic exchanges that generated German design responses to European modernity. By drawing on previously unpublished archival material and a series of original case studies including Elsa Bruckmann's Munich salon, the Photo Studio Elvira and the Debschitz School, the book explores women’s important contributions to modern German culture as collectors, consumers, critics, designers, educators and patrons.This book offers a new interpretation of this vibrant period by considering diverse manifestations of historical female agency that pushed against historically entrenched conventions and gender roles. The book’s rigorous approach reshapes Jugendstil historiography by positing women’s lived experiences against dominant ideologies that emerged at this precise moment. In short, the book advocates women as an integral part of the emergence, dissemination and reception of Jugendstil and questions the deeply gendered histories of this key period in modern art, architecture and design.

This is the first in-depth work on Scandinavia's 'New Typography'. It provides a detailed account of the movement’s lifespan in the region from the 1920s up until the 1940s, when it was largely incorporated into mainstream practice.The book begins by tracing how the New Typography, from its origins in the central and eastern European avant-garde, arrived in Scandinavia. It considers the movement’s transformative impact on printing, detailing the cultural and technological reasons why its ability to act as a modernizing force varied between different professional groups. The last two chapters look at how New Typography related to Scandinavian society more widely by looking at its ties to functionalism and social democracy, paving the way for a discussion of the reciprocal relationship between the culture of practitioners and the cultural work performed through their practice.Based on archival research undertaken at a number of Scandinavian institutions, the book brings a wealth of previously unpublished visual material to light and provides a fresh perspective on a movement of central and enduring importance to graphic design history and practice.

This volume explores the intersections between the body, textiles, clothes, soft furnishings and architectural surfaces in the German-speaking world from 1830 to 1914. While the continuum from bodies to clothing to architecture was present in popular culture across Europe and North America, it assumed a particularly influential role within German disciplines such as philosophy, cultural history, art history, linguistics, and hygiene. By bringing these disciplinary discourses into a dialogue with popular conceptions and practices surrounding fashion, fabrics, textile embellishments, and dress, the book offers a narrative of textile materiality that conflated bodies, interiors, and architecture.From architect Gottfried Semper to cultural historian Jacob von Falke, hygienist Max von Pettenkofer, designer Margarethe von Brauchitsch, and many others discussed in this book, the modern surface was largely conceived in terms of textile materiality. Different facets of this materiality—including textile fibers, tactility, crafting techniques, ornamentation, tailoring, and function—became central to modern art and architectural discourses, shaping debates on topics ranging from style, fashion, gender, and ornament to tectonics, health, mechanization, and abstraction.Drawing on a wealth of both well-known and unusual primary sources in architectural theory, design criticism, costume histories, art history, hygiene, as well as decorative arts journals, women’s and humor magazines, domestic advice manuals, fabric sample books, letter correspondence, memoirs, travelogues, this longue durée weaves the materiality of textile and dress into the genealogies of modernism.

Exploring developments in design education and practice in Finland during the 1960s and 1970s, The Socially Responsible Designer gives a voice to a generation that embraced social, political and environmental values. In the face of a rapidly industrialising and urbanising society, designers began to pursue a multi-disciplinary and academic field to replace what they considered an old-fashioned focus on aesthetics and craft skills. They became aware of the two contradictory faces of design: one that was complicit in overproduction, overconsumption and social inequality, and the other capable of examining, addressing and solving these issues.Shedding light on formative decades of ethical thinking, this book reveals how environmental concerns, feelings of social responsibility and politically leftist motivations were the driving force among a community of students, designers and organisations. Based on extensive and original archival research, Kaisu Savola’s study provides a counterpoint to the commonly seen selection of highly aestheticized objects that have become synonymous with Finnish and Scandinavian design. Instead, she analyses a range of case studies including anonymous student work, rural craft traditions, temporary installations, seminar posters, industrial machinery, and workplace ergonomics. Savola considers the development of design culture within education, the student movement, socialist ideologies and the birth of modern design activism.Situating these works against the backdrop of changes in post-war society and the wave of social and environmental responsibility that swept over the field internationally, The Socially Responsible Designer offers an alternative narrative of Finnish design. Savola argues that, at present time, there is an equally urgent need to see design as a profession able to reconsider and realign its goals and values.

Drawing from deep archival research and extensive interviews, Atari Design is a rich, historical study of how Atari’s industrial and graphic designers contributed to the development of the video game machine.Innovative game design played a key role in the growth of Atari – from Pong to Asteroids and beyond – but fun, challenging and exciting game play was not unique to the famous Silicon Valley company. What set it apart from its competitors was innovation in the coin-op machine's cabinet. Atari did not just make games, it designed products for environments.With “tasteful packaging”, Atari exceeded traditional locations like bars, amusement parks and arcades, developing the look and feel of their game cabinets for new locations such as fast food restaurants, department stores, country clubs, university unions, and airports, making game-play a ubiquitous social and cultural experience. By actively shaping the interaction between user and machine, overcoming styling limitations and generating a distinct corporate identity, Atari designed products that impacted the everyday visual and material culture of the late 20th century. Design was never an afterthought at Atari.

Norman Bel Geddes has long been considered the ‘founder’ of American industrial design. During his long career he worked on everything from theatre design, world fairs and cars to houses and product and packaging design.Nicolas P. Maffei’s magisterial biography draws on original material from the archive at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, and places Bel Geddes’ work within the fast-changing cultural and intellectual contexts of his time. Maffei shows how Bel Geddes’ futuristic but pragmatic style – his notion of ‘practical vision’ – was central to his work, and highly influential on the professional practice of American industrial design in general.

Modern Asian Design provides a comprehensive introduction to the development of Asian design in the modern period, both tracing historical threads and offering a theoretical framework within which to chart the history of design in Asia.Rather than a singular “Asian history”, this book presents a series of studies centred on trade routes, colonial relationships, regional networks and cross-cultural exchanges. Modern Asian Design builds on existing resources beyond design history in an effort to map the field, focusing particularly on relations between Asia and the West and also across Asian design cultures.Opening with a brief overview of trade and exchange networks in the 17th and 18th centuries, the bulk of this study comprises analysis of the development of modern design in Asia during the later 19th and early 20th centuries, a period of rapid modernisation. The book’s final two chapters bring these central ideas into a contemporary and highly relevant context.