Journal of Design History - recent issues

Designing Time: The Design and Use of Nineteenth-Century Transport Timetables

Esbester, M. — 2009-05-22

This article examines how nineteenth-century transport timetables were designed, understood and used. It examines changes in timetable design during the nineteenth century, as railway timetables in particular had to convey more and more complex information. I argue that timetables reflected societal notions of time and helped to construct new understandings of space; yet, the times and spaces they propagated were only some of those circulating in the nineteenth century. I demonstrate that the timetable is an item through which it is possible to show how design—in this instance, of information—pervaded day-to-day life. I show that the design of timetables was fundamental to passengers’ ability (or inability) to find the information they required. The article therefore analyses a range of passenger responses to timetables, from comments about incomprehensibility to attempts to make timetables more relevant to their individual needs. This focus highlights the significance of design in its social context.

Pioneers and Barbarians: The Design and Marketing of Electrical Household Goods as Dutch Americana, 1930-45

de Rijk, T. — 2009-05-22

In the Netherlands, interest in the USA as a historical cultural phenomenon and as a source of examples of product design in particular has been very slight. Dutch publications on the importance of American design and the ideas and professional practice of designers in the world's largest industrial nation of the twentieth century are a fraction of those on European modernist design culture.2 As a result, most overviews of the history of design in the Netherlands contain no mention whatsoever of the substantial American influence on Dutch industrial design during the period of this study.3

This article examines the importance of commercial American design for the Dutch design world during this period. It does so largely by reference to the design of technologically innovative domestic products, in particular electrical household products. The USA was able to build up and export a part of its own cultural identity with these new kinds of goods at the beginning of the twentieth century. This article takes as its case study the design of the products made during the interwar years by Erres, which was from 1930 until 1945 the Netherlands’ largest manufacturer of electrical household goods. Finally, this article analyses the reasons why Dutch design histories have been only superficially interested in Dutch Americana.

'One Must Offer "Something for Everyone" ': Designing Crockery for Consumer Consent in 1950s' Norway

Fallan, K. — 2009-05-22

‘One must offer "something for everyone".’ These words belong to Ragnar Grimsrud, ceramic designer and general manager of the Norwegian earthenware factory Figgjo, when he in 1955 was called upon to offer the manufacturer's view on design management and design strategy in Norway's leading design magazine Bonytt.

That an art school-trained designer fostered on the avant-garde modernism of the interwar period could make such concessions to the perceived public taste must be understood in a broader economic context. In 1950s Norway, after the frantic demand of the first postwar years had cooled off and before international free trade completely changed the playing field, tariff barriers and structural disparities made it difficult to establish viable exports for the manufactured goods industry, resulting in dependence on a small and heterogeneous domestic market.

For an industrial enterprise relying on volume production, this situation posed serious challenges. If Figgjo were to survive, it had to design products that would appeal to the world outside the design community everyday things for common people whose affinity towards and allegiance to modern design was far from given.

This article investigates this flip side to the elitist, refined, craft-based products normally associated with the mythological phenomenon branded ‘Scandinavian Design’ that reached its zenith in the mid-1950s epitomized by the exhibition Design in Scandinavia that toured art museums in the USA and Canada from 1954 to 1957 to great critical acclaim. Although Figgjo was represented at the exhibition, its daily dealings in design strategy and practice had an entirely different focus: Doing business in an increasingly difficult domestic market.

Aluminium and Contemporary Australian Design: Materials History, Cultural and National Identity

Worden, S. — 2009-05-22

This article examines the significance of aluminium for Australian design. It provides an overview of aluminium within the Australian resource economy and then documents the uses of aluminium across a range of design sectors, including engineering design, furniture, product design and crafts production. This engagement with a broad view of design is presented as a validation of the potential of ‘materials’ histories to contribute to an understanding of design across production and consumption.

The period 1990–2007 is examined in detail to show how aluminium was included in discussions of regional and national identity. Also noted is how the cultural values attributed to aluminium are relevant for an understanding of the international promotion of Australian design and crafts and the positioning of Australian designers within the creative industries. Finally, evidence of the appreciation of aluminium for recycling, within the context of sustainability and innovation, provides a broader view of design within consumption and as an outcome of design research. Aluminium has been used to produce objects from the precious to the ubiquitous; ranging in scale from small-scale jewellery to the world's largest yachts.

Architectural and Spatial Design Studies: Inscribing Architecture in Design Studies

Traganou, J. — 2009-05-22

The present article argues for the inscription of architectureas well as studies of design in various spatial scaleswithin the field of design studies. It claims the need for bridging these two areas of inquiry, architecture and design studies, and for creating a new field that intersects architecture scholarship with design studies, but also with a variety of other fields, such as cultural and urban geography, vernacular studies, interior design, spatial anthropology, material culture, and media studies. This field could be tentatively named as architectural and spatial design studies, showing its affiliation with a broader range of spatial disciplines and practices that includebut are not limited toarchitecture, as well as with the field of design studies.

Vienna: City of Modernity, 1890-1914

Wieber, S. — 2009-05-22

The Practice of Modernism, Modern Architects and Urban Transformation, 1954-1972

Dehaene, M. — 2009-05-22

Designing Modern Childhoods. History, Space and the Material Culture of Children

Burke, C. — 2009-05-22

Piet Zwart (1885-1977), Vormingenieur

van Bergeijk, H. — 2009-05-22

Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life

Topp, L. — 2009-05-22

The Design Culture Reader

Sparke, P. — 2009-05-22

British and Irish Home Arts and Industries 1880-1914: Marketing Craft, Making Fashion

Ferry, E. — 2009-05-22

Books received

2009-05-22

Notes on Contributors

2009-05-22

Editorial

Putnam, T. — 2009-02-20

Toying with Design Reform: Henry Cole and Instructive Play for Children

Shales, E. — 2009-02-20

Two British children's toys, the Tesselated Pastime (1843) and Architectural Pastime (1845), are opportunities to relocate the history of design reform away from the conventional perspective of governmental agenda and to situate the discourse amidst the domestic interior and middle-class family. Because the inventor of the toys was Henry Cole (1802–88), proponent of the Crystal Palace, South Kensington museum complex, and national design schools, the toys are worth considering in relation to the canon of design history and the question of representative artefacts. Investigating the relationship between printing technology and aesthetic taste, this article documents the ways that these toys express several important issues of the decade that came to a head in the Great Exhibition, such as aesthetic prescriptions, particularly the question of historical and representational ornament, the propriety and proper applications of new technologies and the edifying mass commodity.

The Social Rise of the Orkney Chair

Carruthers, A. — 2009-02-20

In the 1890s, a new market was created for the Orkney straw-backed chair, which hitherto had been a vernacular product used largely in the homes of its makers on the Orkney Islands in the north of Scotland. This article discusses the standardization of the Orkney chair and its rapid acceptance into the houses of the British aristocracy and middle classes through the agency of the Scottish Home Industries Association. Within eleven years of its first display at an international exhibition the Orkney chair had inspired close copies and brand-new related designs made in the Netherlands by the Dutch firm of John Uiterwijk and Chris Wegerif. Its social rise was thus followed by geographical diffusion. This article also analyses the roles of the maker and of the promoter of an unusual item of furniture which has provided work for craftspeople in Orkney for over 100 years.

Consumption of Modern Furniture as a Strategy of Distinction in Turkey

Gurel, M. O. — 2009-02-20

This study scrutinizes consumption of modern design as a strategy of distinction in Turkey. Conceptualizing taste as an acquired and dynamic medium through which inhabitants build and sustain social relationships, the article examines domestic furnishings as tools for constructing a Western socio-cultural difference from the late nineteenth century through to the 1950s and 1960s. Furthermore, it looks at the structures acting on furniture design and consumer choices. The study explicates the view that architects and decorators promoted a taste reform towards different versions of European Modernism throughout the 1930s and in the mid-twentieth century. The modern emerged as a distinctive element, not just between different classes but also within upper-class consumers themselves. The luxurious hotel projects, particularly the pivotal Istanbul Hilton Hotel, were instrumental in spreading the codes of furniture and for shaping contemporary practices, when the influx of US culture had an all-pervading impact, in the post Second World War context. A shift in the dominant taste towards modern designs, the use of synthetic materials, such as Formica, and the advent of new design elements, such as the American bar, revealed a concern for taking part in a new modern identity that reflected cultural competence in the way the West was (re)interpreted.

Turning Architecture Inside Out: Revolving Doors and Other Threshold Devices

Stalder, L. — 2009-02-20

Architecture, in a historical deterministic perspective, can be viewed as a technological system that is expressed in ‘objective’ parameters such as construction, material or functional operations. Correspondingly, the history of architecture can be understood as a history of its technological development, which is focusing on innovations. Yet, architecture is not only technology but also belongs to the field of commodities. Accordingly, the technological developments not only lead to the change of the built environment but also to a change of their experience and their use. Biometric controls, motion detectors and different media of telecommunication such as the Intercom lead to an extension and change of the perception of the human environment. Nevertheless, the origin and the significance of these technological developments can only be understood within a wider cultural context, as an expression of new, real or imagined needs, or as their representation. This article uses the architecture of the threshold as an example to examine these questions. The threshold separates the public and private sphere, private and common property and self-determined and over-directed action. As an architectural element or spatial configuration, it highlights historically specific, culturally determined zones of transition, in which certain gestures and activities are performed.

Craft, Space and Interior Design 1855-2005

Partington, M. — 2009-02-20

Representations of British Motoring

King, L. — 2009-02-20

Thinking through Craft

Peach, A. — 2009-02-20

The Wedding Present: Domestic Life beyond Consumption

Wajda, S. T. — 2009-02-20

The Dress of the People, Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England

Payne, C. — 2009-02-20

Notes on Contributors

2009-02-20

Professionalism, Amateurism and the Boundaries of Design

Beegan, G., Atkinson, P. — 2008-11-22

Quiet Revolutionaries: The 'Mir Iskusstva' Movement and Russian Design

Winestein, A. — 2008-11-22

Amateurs in design as well as art, the Russian Mir Iskusstva group accomplished a quiet revolution. They helped transform Russian visual culture of the educated classes through the application of synthetic ideals and inter-disciplinary approaches to nearly every aspect of the aesthetic environment. Existing between 1897 and 1924, the Mir Iskusstva contributed to Russian design not just particular visual ideas or styles, but perhaps more importantly an entirely new understanding of the design environment as a World of Art (the literal meaning of ‘Mir Iskusstva’, and explored and mixed diverse historical sources. The influence of these erudite and independent artist-designers even spread throughout the world through the sensationally successful productions of the early Ballets Russes. In this paper I examine the nature and pathways of Mir Iskusstva amateurism, and how it underlay and enabled their design achievements. I hope to show that while they attained a high degree of sophistication in their design work, their diverse, cross-disciplinary activities allowed them to resist specialization and thus avoid the pitfalls of professionalism, remaining amateurs at heart.

Ghosts and Barbarians: The Vernacular in Italian Modern Architecture and Design

Sabatino, M. — 2008-11-22

In the twentieth century, Italian architects and designers produced remarkable buildings, paintings and objects inspired by a vernacular tradition that had evolved over centuries of agrarian life. Despite their significant influence on Italian modernism and design, these peasant builders and artisans remained largely behind the scenes as ‘ghosts of the profession’. Through their appropriation of the ‘anonymous’ vernacular, Italian artists and architects achieved a unique synthesis of collective expression and individual identity. As Italy was transformed from a primarily agrarian to an industrial economy, the emergence of new ways of life to accommodate urban and suburban dwelling fostered a dynamic dialogue between long established customs and modern practices, between the ethos of artisanal making and that of industrial production modes, between the anonymous craftsman and the signature designer. Through successive political regimes, a dialectic relation between past and present contributed to the emergence of an innovative regionalist modernism that embraced traditional practices without succumbing to banal historicism or nostalgia. The aim of this essay is to re-read the significant initiatives in Italian modernism that evince the impact of the vernacular in architecture and design during the pre-war, interwar, and post-war periods.

Designing Differently: the Self-Build Home

Brown, R. — 2008-11-22

The act of self-building involves the conceptualization, design and building of a home through undertaking all or some of the activities directly, or indirectly, through the management and sub-contracting of the work. Of the 23,000 or so self-build homes completed in Britain each year, the vast majority are created without architectural services. While some projects are completed by households that have experience of the building profession and trades, the majority of self-builders, including those explored in this article, can be described as amateur.

This article probes the experience of designing and making a home as an amateur, concluding that self-building is a complex and creative process leading to qualitative material outcomes (such as capital) and non-material ones (such as the development of self-identity and well-being). In shifting the concern of design history to everyday experiences and benefits of designing and making (the producing consumer), the article challenges the role and proximity of professionals and professionalism in these processes. The article finds that professionals are implicated in many aspects of the amateur's experience but there are few commercial models of professional-amateur engagement in the self-build industry that actively seek to nurture authentic and, in this case, individualized solutions to the built environment.

Parallel Practices and the Dialectics of Open Creative Production

Turner-Rahman, G. — 2008-11-22

For over a decade, design culture portals have hosted online resources such as tutorials, examples of compelling design and links to other design-related websites. Although now surpassed by other social media, portals can be viewed as significant communication centres and virtual gathering spaces. These design-culture community websites have also exposed the tensions between production and consumption, professional and amateur practices, work and play and expression/exploration and service. Evolving practices, enabled by networked technologies, have supported a reputation-based system of knowledge building and resource distribution that allow for modest, open creative cultural production to grow outside the commercial realm. While this parallel practice has promoted an expansion of our notion of creative production, it has also been fed in part by corporate mythologies that contribute to the precarious nature of contemporary creative work. The community's designed artefacts, including shared resources and tools such as the portal itself, have subsequently revealed struggles over cultural production in the early Web design era and, perhaps, a more nuanced view of the creative knowledge worker.

Retro: The Culture of Revival

Flatman, D. — 2008-11-22

Re-forming Britain: Narratives of Modernity before Reconstruction

Matless, D. — 2008-11-22

Material and Visual Cultures beyond Male Bonding, 1870-1914: Bodies, Boundaries and Intimacy

Hornsey, R. — 2008-11-22

Active Literature: Jan Tschichold and New Typography

Owens, S. — 2008-11-22

Charles Holden, Eitan Karol, Shaun Tyas, 2007. 510 pp., 335 b&w illus., 57 colour plates, cloth, {pound}49.50. ISBN: 978 1 90028 981 8

Weber, U. — 2008-11-22

Notes on Contributors

2008-11-22