In year 2000, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York organized and presented Design Culture Now, the first edition of the triennial event which aims at providing «present critical overviews of key developments in American design» (National Design Triennial). In the first edition, more than eighty projects were selected «to highlight the current blurring of traditional boundaries through the exchange of techniques and ideas among once concrete disciplines». In the very same year, Frederic D. Schwarz, editor of “American Heritage” took the hint from this and another exhibition at the American Craft Museum in New York, actually not really to follow the blurring identified by the curators at Cooper-Hewitt, but to trace some clear-cut distinctions between disciplines like art, craft, design and engineering.
Evaluating the projects exhibited at the National Design Triennial as well as considering the categories identified by the curators – which were organized around notions such as “physical”, “minimal”, “reclaimed”, “fluid” etc. –, in his article Arts and Crafts and Engineering, Mr. Schwarz asserted without hesitation that while the criterion for distinguishing what craft is, is “authenticity” and some reference to tradition, the criterion to tell what design is, is “appearance”:
«For design, the inescapable criterion is appearance: A well-designed object must look good. The method of its creation is irrelevant, which is why a talented industrial designer can go from cars to buildings to drink dispensers to book jackets, while craft workers tend to specialize in one thing. And while function should ideally be taken into account, it is often decidedly secondary, as anyone who has sat in a modernist armchair can attest. Indeed, some of the most familiar triumphs of industrial design, such as Raymond Loewy’s locomotive bodies, are nothing more than decorations for the technology underneath».
In comparison and, one might say, as opposed to design, Schwarz portrays engineering as follows:
«As for engineering, the sine qua non is simple: It has to work. While a well engineered bridge or automobile will usually be aesthetically pleasing, poorly engineered examples can look just as good. If they collapse or fail to start, however, no amount of art theory will remedy the situation. This is what sets engineering apart from the allied disciplines mentioned above – and why good engineering is best experienced not in a museum but in the ordinary course of our daily lives».
Putting aside the narrow consideration Schwarz seems to have of museums – identifying them just with the art museum and as a place that is separate from where daily life actually occurs –, let’s focus on the misunderstanding and misinterpretation that support his view on design. A kind of misunderstanding that is not rare, not even in the new millennium.
First of all, from his words emerges the prejudice that, without exception, identifies design with appearence, with a cosmetic practice that is detached from any consideration of the production methods as well as of use and consumption; design is portrayed by Mr. Schwarz as a practice whose outcome is assessed just like that of an artistic practice; finally, a practice and discipline that seems not to have developed and changed from the early twentieth century to today. Secondly, engineering (and technology) is interpreted as a just technical affair – pardon the pun – whose value is measured solely on the basis of techno-functionality. Finally, from Schwarz’s words the idea emerges of design and engineering as opposed one to another, as between what appears and what is; between a practice that can totally ignore what is needed in human life and what society requires, and what works and is useful, and thus essential to life; between what is optional and ornamental and what is needed.
Now, this way of looking at design and engineering/technology, still in the name of a dualistic thinking, could be understood and “justified” if it dated back to sixty years ago; but it is certainly unsustainable in the new millennium. Not because it is false that design is concerned with the configuration of artefacts, and therefore also with the aesthetic appearance of objects, nor because it is false that its products can be selected and displayed as art in museums; not because it can be denied that in the history of design, some developments and outcome have been and are still primarily ornamental. Again, not because it is false that, if a bridge does not stand up or a car does not start, these are technically ill-engineered, and not because it is my wish to say the designer and the engineer have the same competencies and skills. Rather, because, as the developments in the practice of design and as the historical and theoretical-critical advancements and debates in the recent decades have shown, matters are more complex. And this is a point that one can understand only if one brings back design and engineering/technology where they belong: that is, society.
First, design is technique, is techne, as long as it belongs to that dimension that distinguishes the human being, namely the need and ability to transform, shape the world we inhabit; in this sense, design, art, craft, engineering etc. come together, as manifestation of man and society, as expressions of “culture”. From this point of view, indeed, Schwarz himself does not seem to object.
Secondly, however, industrial design emerged at a certain historic point in the development of technology and civilization, in short, following the industrial revolution, when the introduction of the mechanized manufacturing actually did split the concept and the execution of objects, thus requiring a mediation to link these stages. In this sense, as a practice and as a historical phenomenon, design has not remained the same, it developed in relation to the changing of technology and economy and in relation to the wider development of society and culture in different contexts. The development of design, moreover, refers to both the practice and the discourse, the profession and the theoretical efforts to draw a conceptual framework for design and designers. From this point of view, it is certain that the theoretical premises and practical basis for the activity of design were at first developed as an extension and application of skills, knowledge and modes of the arts and of craft – through an approach which was fundamentally dualistic, where art was called upon to lay down the form of the technique, of the products of industry. And it is true that, subsequently, design has been associated with the development of modern architecture, bringing to important results – which eventually tied design and the idea of design and designers to that of a narrow sector of industrial production, in particular the world of furniture. Now, if all that is true, it is also true that since then industrial design has shown the will and capacity to proceed in other directions, slowly distinguishing itself from art and architecture, contributing and participating to varying degrees to the configuration of different fields of contemporary material culture and life, from the most simple objects to complex products; that is, design did confront areas where concepts, methods and tools related to those early concepts inevitably proved to be overcome and were to overcome. And these developments, of course, took place specifically in relation to the changing of the socio-technical horizon in which designers operated. This also explains why so many definitions of industrial design that have occurred over the course of the twentieth century, and that were developed in response to new challenges and design possibilities, and following the desire to clarify the responsibilities of design compared to other disciplines, have proved limited as long as they linked the specificity of design only in relation to one or the other aspect and factor – form and aesthetics, method of production, quantity, etc.
From this point of view, to go back to Mr. Schwarz, the idea that design today only concerns the appearance of products proves severely limited, because it ignores the historical development of industrial design, and because it does not take into account the actual and the potential position of designers in shaping the tangible and intangible culture and life of our society. Similarly, the idea that form and function, design and engineering/technology, design and human needs stay as independent and opposed elements, indicates a grave misunderstanding: it forgets that form and function are not separable in that sense, and that the competence and expertise of the designer should not / cannot be traced in the terms of his/her indifference to what the engineer does, or in the terms of his/her freedom from the system of production, from the choice of materials, etc., or in the terms of his/her indifference to the social needs. Because, on the contrary, design is intimately tied to all these factors and aspects.
To make this point clearer, it might be helpful to go back to the definition of design given more than forty years ago by Tomás Maldonado, then director of the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, and presented at the International council of societies of industrial design (ICSID) in 1961. According to that “definition”, to design means
«to coordinate, integrate and articulate all the factors that, in one way or another, are involved in the process of building the form of the product. More specifically, these factors are both those relating to the use, enjoyment and consumption of individual or social products (functional, symbolic or cultural factors) and those relating to their production (techno-economic, technical-constructive, technical and systematic, technical-productive, technical and distribution factors)»(1)
Moreover, as Maldonado himself underlined later, in the seventies, this definition is valid as long as one admits that the task of coordinating, integrating and articulating the various factors is always strongly influenced by the manner in which production and consumption of goods are developed in a given society: «In other words, it must be admitted that industrial design, contrary to what its precursors had imagined, is not a self-sufficient activity».
This “definition”, as has often been noted and as was the intent of Maldonado, still remains a useful guide because of its flexibility, since it does not impose a reading of what design is, it does not abstract a distinguishing factor over another, but it looks to design precisely while keeping it amidst the world, linked to concrete development of history and society; in short it looks to design as an activity and a phenomenon that is not isolated but is tied to multiple factors and other phenomena. These are factors and phenomena which, we understand, not all and not always or necessarily have the same weight in the design process and on choices made by designers, but they’re still all present, and surely they must all be considered if one aims at understanding the history of design, the value and the significance of design in the different historical, social, cultural contexts – if one wish to understand the many stories, the different values, the diverse meanings of design.
If this is true – as the decades that have passed since Maldonado wrote those words have amply demonstrated, both for the practice and for the theory of design – then the strange case of Frederic D. Schwarz still remains to be understood: that is, why in year 2000 the idea that design is primarily or only a matter of cosmetic appearance remains so strong?
To try an answer, it might be useful to refer once again to those before us, who have written thoughtful words on design. A few years ago, pondering on industrial design in order to stress the importance to advance a truly “critical work” on the subject, the Italian scholar Sergio Polano indicated the way to proceed in this direction as follows:
«… what is needed is a little bit more of curiosity on the side of people who deal with design, as well as a greater commitment from those who have a responsibility in spreading a knowledge and in informing about design, through the observation, the detection, and the acquisition of news and facts. Ergo, much remains to be done both as far as concerns the analysis, documentation and study of design, and as far as concerns the communication and reception of industrial design: education, to put it briefly».(2)
Education, in short, that is the missing piece to solve the case of Mr. Schwarz. But this piece also pushes us to turn our attention to the topic that is of main interest for this blog, that is the role museums play in building and spreading the culture of design.
If museums are among the main actors in building and spreading knowledge, or in stimulating the curiosity and interest in knowing, and if design museums (museums that call themselves as such) are responsible in elaborating and communicating the culture of design, then the question arises: are today design museums able or not to change the mind of Mr. Schwarz and of people who still think that design just means dealing with the aesthetics of products?
To tell the truth, looking at the overall panorama of so-called design museums, I think they are not.
Notes
(1) «… progettare la forma significa coordinare, integrare e articolare tutti quei fattori che, in un modo o nell’altro, partecipano al processo costitutivo della forma del prodotto. E, più precisamente, si allude tanto ai fattori relativi all’uso, alla fruizione e al consumo individuale o sociale del prodotto (fattori funzionali, simbolici o culturali) quanto a quelli relativi alla sua produzione (fattori tecnico-economici, tecnico-costruttivi, tecnico-sistematici, tecnico-produttivi e tecnico-distributivi). La definizione, malgrado la sua genericità, è tuttora valida. Eppure dobbiamo aggiungere: è valida solo a patto di ammettere che l’attività di coordinare, integrare e articolare i diversi fattori è sempre fortemente condizionata dal modo in cui produzione e consumo di beni si esplicano in una data società. In altre parole, è necessario ammettere che il disegno industriale, contrariamente a ciò che avevano immaginato i suoi precursori, non è un’attività autonoma», Tomás Maldonado, Disegno industriale: un riesame, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1991 (1976), p. 12.
(2) «… basterebbe soltanto un po’ più di curiosità da parte degli addetti ai lavori, nonché maggiore impegno in chi avrebbe il compito di far sapere e di informare, osservando, rilevando, acquisendo, sceverando notizie e fatti. Ergo, molto resta da fare, sul piano sia dell’analisi, documentazione e studio, sia sul versante della comunicazione e ricezione del disegno industriale; educazione, insomma», Sergio Polano, Per una critica degli artefatti umani, in “dezine 1”, 2001, May, p. 2.
