DESIGN-English 2.Indd

16. Wilhelm Wagenfeld (1900–1990) and Jakob Jucker (1902–1997) Table lamp, 1923–24 Made in the metal workshops of the Weimar Bauhaus Chrome-plated metal and glass Museum of Modern Art, New York IntroductIon Dominique Forest The first use of the word “design” to mean a plan or pat- tern for a manufactured object appears in nineteenth- century England, in the writings of Henry Cole, the organizer of the Great Exhibition in London in 1851— the original World’s Fair. Two years earlier, Cole had launched the Journal of Design and Manufactures in col- laboration with Richard Redgrave. The definition of “design” has evolved over time and now embraces a broad range of associations. It was in the United States, in the years before World War II, that it came to describe a creative discipline whose respective qualities and production conditions of arti- purpose was to shape products so as to enhance their sanal crafts and industrial goods. This controversy was appearance, and possibly their performance. A profes- taken up again in Germany in the early twentieth cen- sional in this field was now referred to as a “designer.” tury, and figured into the new ideas and experiments Not until the 1950s, though, did the word “design” that, in the 1920s, were synthesized in that laboratory take its place beside the term “industrial aesthetics” of forms for the modern age, the Bauhaus (plate 16). in continental Europe. Soon the expressions became From then on, a powerful tide of modernism would interchangeable, and “design” ultimately triumphed, progressively eradicate the forms and styles of the becoming commonplace in the parlance of architec- past, ultimately severing ties with tradition. Because tural and home furnishing circles. However, many modernism established itself on the rejection of orna- people still did not understand exactly what the word ment, one strand of the history of design concerns the encompassed, and additional clarification was needed. movements back and forth with respect to one endur- The Centre de Création Industrielle (CCI), established ing question: whether form and function should have in 1969 by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, was primacy, or decoration. thus inaugurated with an exhibition titled Qu’est-ce The first study of the conditions of modernity that que le design? (What is design?). Charles Eames, Joe Co- led to the emergence of design was Pioneers of the Mod- lombo, and Roger Tallon, all legendary figures, were ern Movement (1936), by the art historian Nikolaus Pevs- invited to give their own definitions and provide illus- ner. The objectives of a pragmatic approach to design, trative examples. serving the needs of industry and end users, were The history of design is inseparable from the vast explored in the writings of American designers, in- changes that swept through the Western world be- cluding Horizons (1932) by Norman Bel Geddes and tween 1850 and 1950, particularly the extraordinary Designing for People (1955) by Henry Dreyfuss. Theo- acceleration of the production of manufactured goods. rists, critics, and architects soon made their own con- Remarkable efficiencies arose from mechanization and tributions to the debate, including the Italian Gillo the mastery of new materials. In the 1860s, the English Dorfles, in Il disegno industriale in Italia (1957), and the Arts and Crafts movement started a debate about the Briton Reyner Banham, in Theory and Design in the First opposite below 17. Vico Magistretti 18. Jonathan Ive (b. 1967) (1920–2006) iMac computer, 1997 Atollo table lamp, 1977 Made by Apple Inc. (U.S.) Made by Oluce (Italy) Musée National d’Art Moderne, Aluminum and polyurethane Centre Georges Pompidou, Museum of Modern Art, Paris New York Machine Age (1960). In the 1970s, the history of design Triennale Design Museum to open in Milan in 2007. began to arouse particular interest in many countries. In Tokyo, the Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake The French scholar Jocelyn de Noblet produced one of inaugurated the center known as 21_21 Design Sight in the first syntheses of the subject in Design, introduction 2008, to host temporary exhibitions on design. à l’histoire de l’évolution des formes industrielles de 1820 à While museums have certainly played an impor- aujourd’hui (1974). tant role in raising awareness of design among the pub- Along with countless publications on design, a lic at large, designers themselves have come together number of exhibitions have, since the early 1980s, re- to advocate for recognition of their work by manufac- sponded to the growing public interest in the decor and turers and governments. Professional organizations products of a changing world. In 1983–84, the Philadel- have likewise contributed to the recognition and un- phia Museum of Art presented a show entitled Design derstanding of design. Over the course of the twentieth Since 1945. Its very instructive catalog was written pri- century, then, design has defined and encompassed a marily by the leading figures of the time, designers and vast undertaking: that of constantly renewing products manufacturers both European and American: Ettore and adapting them to their times. Moreover, design has Sottsass, George Nelson, Max Bill, Timo Sarpaneva, continued to expand its scope, which now extends from Olivier Mourgue, Bruno Danese, Hans Wegner, and vehicles to furnishings, and from high tech to the rou- Marco Zanuso. Ten years later, Design miroir du siècle tine objects of daily life. Because this process has mani- opened at the Grand Palais in Paris. It had the ambi- fested itself in different forms, and at different paces, tious goal of demonstrating and explaining the princi- in Europe, the U.S., and Asia, the contributors to this ples of design, by means of more than 1,600 “designed” volume were given the latitude to present the history objects, ranging from coffee cups to cars. of design in each region as they saw best. Each writer Design has won its place slowly in the permanent has picked out the salient features and personalities— collections of museums. The Museum of Modern Art indeed, the highlights—of design in these places over in New York was among the first to add the everyday the long period covered in this volume, which extends objects that are now associated with “design” to its col- from the end of the World War II to the present day. We lections, in the 1930s. Gradually, other museums of have called upon acknowledged experts in the field, modern and decorative art, in cities ranging from Lon- scholars with many important works already to their don and Paris to Rotterdam, Montreal, and Munich, credit, to contribute to this comprehensive study. began to follow suit. Specialized museums devoted exclusively to design appeared considerably later. The Vitra Design Museum, designed by Frank Gehry, was established by the furniture company Vitra in Weil am Rhein in 1989, the same year that London’s Design Mu- seum opened its doors. While Italy boasted a number of company-sponsored museums (those of Kartell and Alessi, for example), it had to wait a long time for the old contInent and new w orld: the emergence of desIgn Dominique Forest preceDing page below 19. Gerrit Rietveld (1888–1964) 20. William Morris Zig-Zag chair, 1934 (1834–1896) See plate 33. Green Dining Room, 1866 Victoria and Albert Museum, London It was in mid-nineteenth-century England that a debate first began about the aesthetic and moral qualities of manmade goods. From the end of the eighteenth century, fundamental economic transformations had pro- pelled the rapid development of the country’s industrial base, which depended upon coal as its source of energy and the steam engine as its source of power. The exper- tise and impressive creativity of the era’s engineers led to a new mastery of metalworking and machinery. Somewhat later, this surge in industrial development reached Germany and France, and then the United States. An improvement in the quality of life—particularly in the towns and cities, where populations grew rapidly—led to a sharp increase in the demand for basic manufactured products, including both traditional goods, like textiles, and an array of new objects produced for household or office use. Mechanized or semi- mechanized methods of production made these items accessible at competitive prices, assuring their com- mercial success. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, manufacturers armed with new processes and capabilities came to rival skilled artisans, making high- were taught and valued compared to the fine arts. quality decorative objects available to a wider clientele; Around 1860, the phenomenon known as the Arts and the development of large-scale ceramic production in Crafts movement emerged at the instigation of the art England is just one example. Many industrial products critic John Ruskin (1819–1900). This movement, whose now competed directly with handcrafted works, rais- influence peaked between 1880 and 1910, aimed not to ing deep concerns among the traditional artisanal separate the artist and the artisan, but to reconcile their class, and prompting British thinkers to embark upon a work in a new synthesis, echoing an idealized notion of serious consideration of how such objects were made. the Middle Ages. The construction of a cathedral—in which architects, masons, and artisans skilled in stone a BrItIsh utopIa carving, stained glass, and goldsmithing collaborated harmoniously—was cited as an example. The vigorous growth of British mills and factories The proponents of Arts and Crafts were dismayed alarmed many aesthetes and artists, leading them by the unequal and ultimately doomed struggle that to ponder the relationship between art and industry. was taking place between the artisan’s workshop and Their debates were in fact a continuation of ongoing the modern factory.

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