Transcript REDEFINING DESIGN - Robert Gordon University

Design and Postmodernism
Postmodernism in Design...
• rejects what were viewed as the dictates of the design
establishment
• built on 60s rejection of the values inherent in the Modern
Movement
• has its foundations in 60s and 70s Pop and Italian Radical Design
• foregrounds the consumer and emphasises the idea of design as
communication
• stresses the importance of signs and symbols as a means of
reviving communication through design
• argues that the richness of historic and contemporary cultural
tradition must be acknowledged once more
• finds its signs and symbols in the international visual language of
history but equally in vernacular design and popular culture
• values irony and wit and often requires or assumes recognition of
its quotations to achieve this – communication through a universal
language
• is indebted to mid-century semiotic theory
• is indebted to 1970’s architectural theory
What is Postmodernism?
• it is an academic term applied within a wide
range of fields – philosophy, cultural studies,
linguistics, literature, art and design
history.........
• it identifies a new phase of social and cultural
development, citing as key factors; the
dominance of visual and mass media; the
development of digital technology and an
information society; the importance of
consumption and the consumer
To begin
In its simplest form
postmodernism is most clearly
understood in terms of its
rejection of the values, forms
and theories associated with
Modernism or Modernity
Modernism in design and
architecture
• rejected the forms and values of a previous age –
particularly the revival of historic styles, ornamentation
and decoration
• offered a democratic and utopian solution to the problems
of mass production – good design for all
• argued that aesthetic beauty would naturally arise out of
reason and “truth” – embodied in ideas such as form
follows function, truth to materials
• evolved a simple, pure and unifying aesthetic reflected in
Mies Van Der Rohe’s dictum, “less is more”
Marianne Brandt. The “Kandem Table Lamp. 1928
Form follows function. Objects as expressions of “use value”
or function
Marcel Breuer. Model B3. (The Wassily Chair) 1925
Rationalism in design would create a “well-ordered
world” expressed in clean forms attuned to modern life,
modern materials and modern technology.
K.J. Jucker & W.Wagenfeld. Electric Table Lamp.
1923-24. The aesthetic would be appropriate for the
machine-age, appearing engineered, precise, highly
finished and manufactured
The trajectory of European
Modernism
• 1930’s.
• The Bauhaus and the
advent of war
• Late 1940’s. Post 2nd
World War.
• Internationally, much
design emphasised the
crisp, geometrical, clean
and modern.
• 1950’s.
• “Good Design” promoted
by MOMA in New York,
the Design Council in the
UK, Hochschule fur
Gestaltung in Germany
“GOOD DESIGN”
Edgar Kauffman Jnr. Dept of Industrial
Design, MOMA
“In defining “good design” Kauffman did little
more, however, than reiterate the same Arts
and Crafts values that had been voiced by so
many Modern Movement spokesmen before
him, emphasizing once again the well known
tenets of truth to materials, the unification of
form and function, aesthetic simplicity, and
expression of the modern age……..
Marcello Nizzoli
The Lettera 22. Olivetti. 1950
The Mirella Sewing Machine. 1956
Dieter Rams.
The Transistor. Braun. 1956
Dieter Rams & Hans Gugelot
SK4. “Snow White’s Coffin”. Braun. 1956
Modernism as an imposed solution
“All believed that advances in science and
technology were evidence of social progress and
provided paradigms for design thinking. They
thought that communication could be objective
and that optimum solutions to design problems
could be found. Many felt that design, if rationally
conceived,. could help solve social problems and
did not itself create such problems. And most
assumed that goods should be mass produced by
industry.” Victor Margolin. Design Discourse. 1998
From design as solution
to
design as communication
60’s and 70’s
• Pop and Radical Design
• Semiotic theory
• Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture. Robert Venturi. 1966
• Learning from Las Vegas. Robert Venturi,
Denise Scott Brown..., 1972
• The Language of Postmodern Architecture,
1973, Charles Jencks
POP – fun, disposability, colour
pattern, vitality, kitsch.
Italian Radical Design
Archizoom Associati, Naufragio di Rose dream bed.
1967
Semiotics
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One key figure. Roland Barthes
Mythologies
1957 French
1972 English
"Every object in the world can pass from a closed,
silent existence to an oral state"
Barthes, R., Mythologies, New York, Hill and Wang, 1998, p.109
"We shall therefore take language, discourse,
speech etc., to mean any significant unit or
synthesis, whether verbal or visual: a photograph
will be a kind of speech for us in the same way as a
newspaper article; even objects will become
speech"
Ibid., p.109
Architectural theory
Robert Venturi
Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture. 1966
Learning from Las Vegas. 1972
“Architecture can no longer afford to be intimidated
by the puritanically moral language of orthodox
Modern architecture. I like elements which are
hybrid rather than pure, compromising rather than
clean, distorted rather than straightforward,
ambiguous rather than articulated, perverse as
well as impersonal, boring as well as interesting,
conventional rather than designed, accommodating
rather than excluding, redundant rather than simple,
vestigial as well as innovating, inconsistent and
equivocal rather than direct and clear. I am for
messy vitality over obvious unity”
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. 1966
“Blatant simplification means
bland architecture. Less is a
bore”
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. 1966
“there are didactic images more important
than the images of recreation for us to take
home to New Jersey or Iowa: one is the Avis
with the Venus: another Jack Benny under a
classical pediment with Shell Oil beside
him...These show the vitality that may be
achieved by an architecture of inclusion, or,
by contrast the deadness that results from
too great a preoccupation with tastefulness
and total design
Learning from Las Vegas. 1972
Robert Venturi. Architect and theorist
Charles Jencks. Architect and theorist
Colosseum Chair and Stool. 1984
Memphis. Established late 1980
Group portrait. 1982
Memphis
• makes extensive use of plastic laminates –
formerly a metaphor for “bad taste”
• references popular culture and vernacular design
extensively
• adopts an anti-modernist use of colour, decoration
and surface design
• makes repeated ironic reference to modernism and
functionalism
• blurs the boundaries between art and design
• chaotic, riotous mixing of materials and forms –
anti-unity, maximum creativity
“Memphis. The new Made in
Italy, which draws from global
culture, from real time, from
computers and television by
satellite. Thus, Sottsass and his
associates have shown us the way
out of the cul-de-sac of the
Bauhaus”
Ettore Sottsass. Memphis Milano
Carlton Bookshelf. 1981
Ettore Sottsass. Memphis
Casablanca Buffet. 1981
Nathalie Du Pasquier. Memphis
Arizona carpet. 1983
Javier Mariscal. Memphis
Hilton Trolley. 1981
Memphis furniture. 1983
Postmodernism in Design...
• has its foundations in 60s and 70s Pop, Anti-design and Radical
Design
• builds on 60s rejection of the values inherent in the Modern
Movement
• foregrounds the consumer and rejects what it views as the
dictates of the design establishment
• argues that the richness of historic and contemporary cultural
tradition must be acknowledged once more
• is indebted to mid-century semiotic theory
• is indebted to 1970’s architectural theory
• stresses the importance of signs and symbols as a means of
reviving communication through design
• finds these signs and symbols in the international visual
language of history, vernacular design and popular culture
• values irony and wit and often requires or assumes recognition of
its quotations to achieve this