Design since 1945

1983·11.1 MB·English

by  Hiesinger, Kathryn B., 1943-

Design
Since1945
PHILADELPHIA
MUSEUM
ART
i

Design
Since 1945
This book has received significant support from the
Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the
Fine Arts.
Major funding has also been provided by COLLAB:
The Contemporary Design Group for the
Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Pew Memorial
Trust; and the Design Arts Program of the National
Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency.
Design Since 1945
Organized by Jack Lenor Larsen
Kathryn B. Hiesinger Olivier Mourgue
George Nelson
Editors Carl Pott
Kathryn B. Hiesinger Jens Quistgaard
George H. Marcus Dieter Rams
Paul Reilly
Contributing Authors Philip Rosenthal
Max Timo Sarpaneva
Bill
Achille Castiglioni Ettore Sottsass, Jr.
Bruno Danese Hans Wegner
J.
Niels Diffrient Marco Zanuso
Herbert Gans
J.
Philadelphia Museum ofArt 1983
This book accompanies the exhibition "Design
Since 1945" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
October 16, 1983, through January 8, 1984.
The exhibition has been supported by generous
grants from Best Products Company, Inc., The Pew
Memorial Trust, and the National Endowment for
the Humanities, a Federal agency.
ERRATA
p 228 Dieter Ramsbiography, line 10:
delete "(1-37)."
p. 235 RemholdWeissbiography, secondsentence
should read
His award-winning table fan (1-50) and hand mixer Mi40(1-37) are
consideredmodelsoftheausteredesignandscientificmethodadvo-
cated by both Ulm and Braun, products that lent themselves to
systematic mathematical analysis, ordered assemblages of interre-
lated component parts,
p 246 Index,should read.
Rams, Dieter 1-34-36, 111-72
Weiss, Remhold 1-37, 50
c Copyright 1983bythe CompositionbyFolioTypographers, LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Philadelphia MuseumofArt All Pennsauken,N.J.
rightsreserved Nopartofthis Mainentryundertitle
publicationmaybereproduced, PrintedinGreatBritainbyBalding Designsince 1945
storedinaretrievalsystem,or - Mansell.Wisbech,Cambs.
transmittedinanyformorbyany CatalogoftheexhibitionheldatthePhiladelphia MuseumofArt,Oct
means,electronic,mechanical, 16. 1983—Jan.8. 1984.
photocopying,recording,or Bibliography: p.
otherwise,withoutprior Includesindex
pPehrimliasdseilopnh,iainMwursiteiunmg,ooffAtrhte. Mar1.cuDse,siGgen,orIgneduHstrIIiI.alP—hiElxahdieblipthiionasMuI sHeieusmmgoefrA,rtKathrynB , 1943— .II.
T180.P47P473 1983 745.2074014811 83-17414
Contents
vii Foreword 97 Ceramics and Glass
II
ix Introduction: Design Since 1945 Introduction by Timo Sarpaneva
Kathryn B. Hiesinger 117 III Furniture
Design and Theory Introduction by Hans Wegner
1 J.
Max Bill 139 IV Lighting
Ettore Sottsass, Jr. Introduction byAchille Castiglioni
5 The Design Process 151 V Metalwork
George Nelson Introduction by Carl Pott
11 Design and Technology 165 VI Plastics
Niels Diffrient Introduction by Bruno Danese
17 Design and Society 173 VII Textiles
Marco Zanuso Introduction byJack Lenor Larsen
23 Design, Invention, and Fantasy 197 VIII Wood
Olivier Mourgue Introduction byJens Quistgaard
27 Design for Market 203 Biographies of Designers
Philip Rosenthal Kathryn B. Hiesinger
31 Design and the Consumer George H. Marcus
Herbert Gans 238 Selected Bibliography
J.
37 Design and Government 243 Acknowledgments
Paul Reilly 245 Index of Designers and Manufactu
43 A Survey of Design Since 1945
81 Appliances
I
Introduction by Dieter Rams
Digitized by the Internet Archive
2014
in
https://archive.org/details/designsince194500hies
It seems particularly appropriate that the Philadelphia Museum of Art
attempt a survey of international design from the vantage point of 1983.
The Museum owes its origins not only to the success of the great Exposition
of 1876 in Philadelphia, when works of fine and decorative arts from the
United States were juxtaposed, without embarrassment, with the latest
achievements of England and Europe, but also to the desire of its founders
to establish a museum and school "with a special view to the development
of the Art Industries of the State. . . . The institution would be similar in its
general features to that of the South Kensington Museum of London."'
From its inception as the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial
Art, the Museum has collected both the decorative arts of its own time and
place as well as great examples from the past and from many other cul-
tures, so that furniture of the French Renaissance and the Ming Dynasty
shares visitors' attention with eighteenth-century Philadelphia silver, Penn-
sylvania German pottery, and the simplified forms of Shaker benches and
bentwood boxes. Given its broad mandate and varied collections, adher-
ence to a single, even mildly polemical stance was rare in the Museum's
program. Its first exhibition devoted to modern design was held within a
year of exhibitions surveying rural Pennsylvania crafts and high Victoriana.
In early 1932, four years after moving into its vast neoclassical building, this
Museum presented an exhibition called "Design for the Machine," whose
purpose was set forth succinctly by Joseph Downs in the Museum's Bulletin
:
"To point the way to the logical use of machinery for that large mass of
utilitarian and decorative objects embraced in the industrial arts—the
utensils and furnishings of our everyday life."2 Half a century later, the
present exhibition seeks to review the wealth of developments in that field
during the years following World War to discover what has become of
II,
that "logical use" of the machine, and to assess the extent to which the
machine (and, by extension, myriad new technologies) and the human
being (designer and, of course, consumer) have reached that state of har-
mony anticipated by the prewar generation.
The conception and organization of this exhibition are due to the
scholarship and energy of Kathryn B. Hiesinger, the Museum's Curator of
European Decorative Arts after 1700, and it was initiated with the encour-
agement and support of Jean Sutherland Boggs, previous Director of the
Museum. Working with a distinguished international group of designers,
who both served as consultants for the selection of objects and contributed
essays for this publication, Mrs. Hiesinger has assembled over four hundred
works to represent four decades of intensely prolific design activity. It
should be noted that one important premise of the exhibition is that every-
thing in it was, or continues to be, in production. The temptation to include
prototypes, however provocative, has been avoided in favor of objects
actually available to the public. Our gratitude to the designers and other
specialists listed as the authors of this book is heartfelt, and special thanks
are owed to Jack Lenor Larsen and Herbert Gans for their good advice,
and to George Nelson, who provided a thoughtful and exciting design
for the exhibition installation.
The realization of an exhibition and publication on such a scale, of
necessity, draws upon the skills, resources, and hard work of large numbers
of the Museum staff. George H. Marcus, Head of Publications, served as
co-editor of this volume and author of many biographies included, and is
responsible for seeing this complex book through production. The chal-
lenge of designing the book as well as coordinating exhibition graphics
was handsomely met by Laurence Channing. Donna Corbin, assistant in the
Department of European Decorative Arts after 1700, coordinated the
myriad arrangements for loans, photography, catalogue captions, and
many other details with speed and grace.
To the lenders to the exhibition, many of whom graciously parted with
an impressive number of objects, go our warmest thanks. Gifts from many
designers and firms have significantly strengthened the Museum's perma-
nent collections, and we are most grateful to those lenders who contrib-
uted shipping costs as well. The Sony Corporation kindly provided video
equipment for the exhibition installation. The exhibition would not have
been possible without generous grants from Best Products Company, Inc.,
The Pew Memorial Trust, and the National Endowment for the Humanities,
a Federal agency. Special and essential funding for this catalogue was pro-
vided by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts as
well as the Design Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts, a
Federal agency, The Pew Memorial Trust, and COLLAB, The Contemporary
Design Group for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, whose support for this
project has been both generous and enthusiastic, as it has been for every
effort in the field of modern design with which this Museum has been
involved since the founding of COLLAB in 1970.
Anne d'Harnoncourt
The George D. Widener Director
1 CharterofthePennsylvania
MuseumandSchoolofIndustrial
Art(Feb.25. 1876).
2.7"hePennsylvaniaMuseumBulle-
tin,vol.27(Mar. 1932),p. 115.
VIII