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"The situation now is the exact opposite of the
past when design was only sold in a few deluxe shops. Clents
do not exist any more. Instead there are consumers, and we
have to think in terms of mass production."
Joe Columbo
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1958 Cadillac |
The
United States didn’t suffer the economic devastation of the
war as did the European countries, and by the 50's it had established
itself as the world leader in economic and political power.
America provided financial aid to rebuild the countries devastated
by war, and this rebuilding led to rapid economic growth. It
had become the world's most advanced consumer culture, with
consumers enjoying an enormous growth in spending power. One
of the most enduring images of design for consumer luxury was
in the appearance of 50's American cars which combined the huge
sweeping forms of streamlined luxury with chrome detail and
space age tail fins. Harley Earl, designer for General motors,
aimed to channel that consumer spending towards a new car, every
year.
The economic boom lasted up to 1964 in the United States, allowing
it to lead the world in all areas of consumer culture, industrial
design, and manufacturing. This was due to high demand for American-made
products, and particularly to the rapid development of technology.
In the US the rules of European modernist design
such as ‘form follows function’ were turned into ‘design follows
sales’. Designers became consultants, engaged in what they called
‘total design’; in other words, they designed anything and everything,
from a paperclip to a locomotive.
The
Second World War had halted the development of product design
, but manufacturing during the war years saw the rapid development
of technology. New materials such as fibreglass, plastics like
nylon (invented by DuPont in 1939), polythene and polyester
(1942), processed woods -especially plywood used in warplanes,
and metal alloys. After the war, designers turned to bright
colours to remove the drabness of wartime colours and shortages.
Bright pinks, oranges, blues and yellows appeared on walls,
carpets and furniture.
The
new American design companies delivered in the works they commissioned
a style comparable to that of Europe. In terms of design innovations,
two companies stood out.
Knoll Associates and the Herman Miller Company were
the leaders; pioneers in the development of innovative contemporary
design as a radical rethinking of function and materials. Their
products embodied technical innovation. Miller produced the
plywood stackable chairs of Charles Eames, and Knoll produced
the bent wire grid chair designs of Harry Bertoia, and the designs
of Eero Saarinen - his Womb chairs and moulded plastic tulip
chair.
Harry Bertoia, a sculptor, created his bent-wire
‘Diamond’ lounge chair in 1952 in association with Knoll technicians
as an exploration of ‘space, form and the characteristics
of metal.’
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| Eero
Saarinen chairs 1948 |
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The
50s saw the benefits of wartime technical innovation, and plywood
became more versatile with the introduction of new synthetic
glues. It could be bent and shaped into dramatic sculptural
forms. Charles Eames had used it for medical equipment, creating
leg splints for the US Navy, and also for aircraft sections.
He experimented with it together with Eero Saarinen to develop
his famous series of plywood stacking chairs in 1945.
Eero Saarinen trained as a sculptor in Paris before turning
to design, working on furniture design with Norman Bel Geddes.
In the late 1930s he worked with Charles Eames and Harry Bertoia,
later producing designs for Knoll Associates.
Plywood, fibreglass and steel lent themselves to
sculptural, free-form treatment, and Eames’ chairs established
a new style in new materials that other designers could follow.
In 1948, Eero Saarinen designed the Womb chair, a chair that
a person could curl up on, in comfort. Consisting of a fibreglass
shell set in a steel-rod cradle frame, it was the first mass-produced
fibreglass chair. Saarinen explained his design, which aimed
to provide support for bad posture:
‘people sit differently today than they did in the Victorian
era. They sit lower and they like to slouch...The Womb chair...also
attempts to achieve a psychological comfort by providing a
great big cup-like shell into which you can curl up and pull
up your legs.’
In 1957, Saarinen created his last furniture design, the Tulip
chair, a moulded plastic seat mounted on a single aluminium
pedestal. He wanted to make it completely from plastic, to achieve
a continuous single-piece construction, but the strength of
the pedestal was in doubt, so he painted the aluminium to make
it look like plastic.
During the inter-war years the main influence on product design
had come from the United States, where the leading practitioners
had carved out a niche for themselves as consultants to industry.
They learned that manufacturers could be shown that good design
sells more products, and the acceptance of this fact by industry
created the profession of industrial designer. In Europe, design
consultancies appeared, designing cars and everyday products
for the new consumer market rather than the exclusive luxury
market. In Britain, Ernest Race created his Antelope chair of
1951, with a ply seat inspired by the stacking chairs of Charles
Eames.
The emerging role of industrial designers covered issues not
only of fabrication and aesthetics, but human engineering, ergonomics
and market research. To prove their worth to industry, they
needed a systematic and rational methodology for testing, modifying
and justifying design solutions, an approach that was independant
of any specific branch of industry.
In the United States this approach to design, of
empirical testing (practical experiment, not theory)
and intensive analysis was effectively explored. Henry Dreyfuss
produced there in the mid 50s an extensively researched publication
which covered a wide range of design issues such as ‘utility
and safety, maintenance cost, sales appeal and appearance’,
but the fundamental issue for him was that design is for people,
and must suit their needs. For, as he said,
‘What we are working on is going to be ridden in, sat
upon, looked at, talked into, activated, operated, or in some
way used by people, individually or en masse’
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Dieter Rams radio |
Post-war,
the centres of the design world had shifted from Germany and
France to the United States, Italy and Scandinavia. But German
designers such as Dieter Rams created products for Braun that
revived the austere geometric aesthetic of pre war design, adapting
minimalism to encompass miniaturization particularly in his
record player of 1959.
The Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Denmark and Finland joined
together in a marketing exercise to establish an image of a
single Scandinavian approach to design.
This was a great success, and in the late 50s, Scandinavian
design had become the leading domestic style, characterised
by elegant and functional domestic products that most consumers
could afford. Their tradition of a light, open and ordered aesthetic,
using the natural colours of wood, created a version of modernism
that focussed on clean lines and comfort. This free-form style
adapted the functionalist tradition of the 30's and combined
its simpler, more minimalist principles of form, with the sculptural
possibilities of the new materials which allowed curving, organic
shapes.
These simple open designs aimed for transparency
and a minimising of the impact of furniture in the room when
not in use. Their designers wanted to furnish houses with furniture
that was comfortable, but didn’t intrude on the physical space
of the room. An important issue during the long northern winters
when people spent much time indoors.
Designers such as Arne Jacobsen showed that simple
and geometric could at the same time be warm and inviting. A
warmer, more friendly approach than the austere metal of International
style. They combined this with the new post-war elements of
bright painted surfaces and organic forms.
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Gio Ponti cabinet |
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Designers
saw their role as an important one in the growth of social improvement.
Modern design they believed, should be a classless style available
to all consumers. Postwar furniture needed to be flexible and
to take up less space, as society needs changed. New designs
took into account the growing population and the shrinking size
of living areas in homes; new products such as the bed settee,
and the mobile room divider.
Italy emerged as a design pioneer after the war. Like much of
the rest of Europe, the country was devastated by war, and with
reconstruction, a new era of design took off and the impetus
for new design forms in furniture and consumer goods came from
Italy. The overthrow of Fascist rule liberated designers,
who identified independent design as an expression of the new
democratic Italy, releasing them from the 'official' style associated
with the dictatorship.
‘Italy, freed... from a Fascist regime, a German occupation,
and an allied one, defeated, apparently ruined, and with all
the essential ingredients of a first-rate revolution, has
instead staged a design revolution that puts her ahead of
almost all others.’
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Gio
Ponti
Superleggera chair |
With
the rapid growth of modern industry in Italy, new designs rapidly
appeared on the market. The forum for new Italian design was
the magazine Domus, and the Triennale exhibition held
in Milan every three years where new Italian design was showcased.
It also was a place for vigorous debate and discussion among
the new Italian designers, which helped the development of the
design profession there.
Gio Ponti, one of the founders of Domus, created designs
that combined modern avant garde design ideas with traditional
forms, producing highly decorated Baroque inspired furniture
covered with paintings. His Superleggera chair, an elegant piece
of furniture made from ash and cane, was a reworking of a 19th
century one that recalled the tradition of the Italian artisan.
He defined his chair as:
‘a chair chair, modestly, without adjectives...It must
be light, slim and convenient...one has to shift from heavy
to light, from opaque to transparent, from costly to convenient’
Associated
with radical and experimental modern design, the Italian designers
were assisted by the tradition in Italy of small family-owned
craft businesses. Here artisans and skilled furniture craftsmen
could manufacture the new products without the high costs of
full scale manufacturing elsewhere. This ability to conduct
bold experiments, and to change models rapidly, gave designers
in Italy the edge.
In contrast to Ponti, Gio Mollino created expressive
organic shapes, demonstrating his belief that the fantastic,
surreal image should also be used in design. Influenced
by contemporary art and using the sculptural possibilities of
plywood, Mollino produced works that suggested both the twisting
forms of art nouveau and the organic forms of Henry Moore sculpture.
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Joe
Colombo
Additional seating system
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Another
designer who used curved plywood was Joe Colombo who strove
to create inexpensive furniture for the middle class market.
Originally a fine artist, Colombo ran his father's electrical
company and opened his design studio in the early 60s. Dealing
with social as well as stylistic concerns, he strove to create
inexpensive products for the middle class market using up to
date production methods.
He used the new plastics such as PVC and fibreglass,
creating designs that were flexible in their function. Concerned
with the economical use of space in domestic interiors, Columbo
designed ‘systems’ furniture that could be combined to create
different objects. A visionary designer, he created practical
domestic products that reflected the needs and convenience of
people. In 1968 he designed his Additional seating system
of upholstered polyurethane foam held within a metal frame,
the individual elements allowing the creation of a variety of
forms and sizes.
The adaptability of furniture to individual needs was explored
by another designer in Italy. Anna Castelli Ferrieri produced
stacking element furniture; plastic storage systems that could
also be customised to suit the needs of the individual. But
perhaps the most convenient piece of minimalist furniture and
certainly one of the icons of the 60s was Il Sacco, better
known as the bean bag. Consisting of a leather bag filled
with polystyrene pellets, which resembled a large cushion, Il
Sacco represented maximum user flexibility and was the ultimate
in low cost, casual seating. Small and light, it could be transported
anywhere, and became de rigeur for seating and recreation
in student rooms everywhere.
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Richard
Hamilton 'Pop' collage 1956 |
The
growing Youth culture in the 60s led to Pop, and Pop
rebelled against modernism. The Modern movement had decreed
that design must function well, use little or no decoration
for its own sake and be made to last.
Pop changed all that. It emerged in London during the late 50s,
and challenged the authority of this modern movement credo.
Pop artists and designers argued that design values need not
be universal and follow the ongoing evolution of a single Modernist
aesthetic theory, but instead design should be ephemeral, undisciplined,
individual, and go in all directions.
Richard Hamilton in his 1956 collage 'Just What is it that
Makes Today's Homes so Different, so Appealing?' introduced
the use of borrowed imagery in art, a move that inspired designers
as well as contemporary artists.
In this way, Pop began the movement of design towards
Post Modernism. Product design moved away from formal
functional values and concentrated on the needs and desires
of the consumer.
Pop ushered in a new awareness of popular culture, by breaking
down the traditional division between high and low culture,
which divided culture into good and bad areas.. Art, Theatre
and Opera, versus popular music, entertainment, and comics.
In the 50s, common ground between these groups was
virtually non existent and in the 60s, Pop design placed itself
outside the established concept of ‘good’ design and artists
and designers investigated the pervasive world of popular culture.
They explored the world of science fiction, advertising, toys
and comics for inspiration. 60's fashion used patterns derived
from comic books etc, and previous styles were revived; particularly
the exuberantly graphic designs of Art Nouveau and Art
Deco.
All these inspirations were taken up and used in a casual, disposable
way that reinforced the ethos of Pop culture; that design was
disposable - even clothes, some of which were even made of paper
and designed to be worn once and discarded. A symbol of those
times perhaps that encompassed more than the consumerism. The
pace of optimism and experimentation ground to a halt with the
oil crisis of 1973 which led to a world wide recession, and
which effectively cut consumer spending. However another leading
theme of the decade, the vision of the future remained.
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First
transistor, Bell labs 1947
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During
the 60s, designers believed that technology was king. The previous
decade was the age of space satellites, Sputnik (1957),
and atomic power. Human space travel was developing quickly
throughout the 60's, culminating in the moon landing of Apollo
11 in 1969. People expected sweeping technological change that
was 'just around the corner'.
But
the most significant development was the invention of the transistor
in 1947 at Bell Telephone’s laboratory, which enabled the miniaturization
of electrical products.
One of the first licensees of the new transistor
in 1952 was an engineering company in Tokyo which became the
Sony Corporation. In 1959, Sony produced their first transistorised
television.
The company name came about because one of the company
founders had learned that short names were effective in selling
products. The name Sony was derived from two words, sonus,
which is Latin for sound, and sonny which conveys a friendly,
amiable image. Japan became the leader of the new industrial
revolution, pioneering miniaturization of electrical goods with
transistor and solid state technology, and the use of assembly-line
robots and computerization.
The Sony Walkman, introduced in 1979 was a success
because it was focussed directly on the needs of the consumer.
Small, portable and unobtrusive, it became as familiar and simple
to use as the electric jug and the ballpoint pen.
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Riki
Watanabe
Bench 1960 |
Designers
in Japan retained the materials and techniques of tradition,
creating modern designs that are timeless in the work of Riki
Watanabe who retained the Japanese preference for using natural
materials in his elegant pine furniture.
Isamu Kenmochi, in the design of his rattan chair
created a modern, sculptural design, while retaining a look
of traditional craft. An experimenter in modern processed woods
he worked with plywood in the 40s. His chair gives an impression
of volume, with its organic curves, while remaining light and
easily carried.
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Arata
Isozaki
Marilyn Chair
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However,
avant garde western design trends were adopted by Arata Isozaki,
whose early postmodern 1972 Marilyn chair refers to both CR
Mackintosh in its front view, and the body shape of Marilyn
Monroe, in its curved side view. Pluralism of meanings in this
work deftly defined and foreshadowed the themes of postmodernism.
In
the '60s and '70s, environmental concerns started to find their
way into design.
Frank O Gehry worked with cardboard in thick, laminated
layers as if it were a single solid, instead of being built
up from many laminated pieces.
Taking his inspiration from the layered construction
of architects’ contour models, used the exposed edges rather
than flat planes of the cardboard as his surface, achieving
an unusual effect he liked because it.. ‘looked like corduroy,
it felt like corduroy, it was seductive’.
Die-cutting the thick corrugated cardboard allowed him to create
complex shapes like the arabesques of his rocker. He later continued
his experiments with laminated card, producing an Armchair in
1980 that had irregular edges caused by the offsetting of the
card pieces. Naturally, he called them the ‘rough edges’ series.
With increasing concern for ecologically responsible design
and manufacturing, design such as Gehry’s corrugated card furniture
was admired for its recycled look, which used ‘waste’ materials
that are usually found in disposable packaging.
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Shiro
Kuramata 1970
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The
1970s saw the emergence of post-modernism, a word that defined
the reaction against the principles of modernism, a movement
by now seen as too restrictive and puritannical.
Modernist principles rejected decoration, and especially
historicism or borrowing from the past. The wholehearted
adoption of these formerly taboo areas by the Post modernists
was a profound shift in design theory. Rummaging through the
store of design history, designers found the past was ripe for
re-interpretation, or resurrecting as an ironic gesture.
Amid all the noise, the Japanese designer Shiro Kuramata created
pieces of furniture that simply transcend their evident function.
How can furniture in its simple beauty transcend its function so much, evoke such emotion it could make you cry?
Beautifully curved, floating, sometimes shimmering
and transparent; deeply evocative of dreams, his simple and
surreal designs are poems.
Poems, with drawers:
‘I’ve loved drawers ever since I was a child. Mine used
to be full of toys and spinning tops and coloured cards: they
were my hidden treasures. I loved putting my hand into those
untidy drawers and rummaging about. Now as an adult I think
that maybe I’m still looking for something in the drawers
that isn’t there.’
QMR97
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