Designing the Interwar and Postwar Periods

Historical Context: From Colonization to the Bauhaus

• Long-term Historical Frame: The course covers ground starting from the $15^{\text{th}}$ century to address colonization and the histories of empires that led to the Industrial Revolution.

• Industrial Revolution Effects: This period separated the arts of design and craft. Key markers include William Morris, the Deutsch Wortbund, and the emergence of scientific management (machine aesthetics).

• Early 20th Century Avant-Gardes: Focus on the Futurists and Constructivists as explorers of modernism.

• The Bauhaus: Discussed in Week $5$, the Bauhaus explored new methods in art, architecture, and technology to reimagine a new culture following the First World War. This project was interrupted in $1939$ when the Nazis closed the school.

Modernist Movements: The Distill and the Rietveld Stradha House

• The Distill (The Netherlands): A modernist movement emerging in the late $1910\text{s}$ and early $1920\text{s}$.

  • Theo van der Berg: A Dutch painter, writer, and architect who served as the driving force behind the movement. He believed architecture should combine all artistic disciplines.

  • Piet Mondrian: A famous exponent who used a system of logical abstraction consisting of lines, planes, primary colors, black, and white to achieve spiritual meaning.

• The Rietveld Stradha House ($1925$):

• The Client: Truth Schroeder, a widow with three children, commissioned a space for simplicity and freedom.

• Design features: Included sliding doors on the $1^{\text{st}}$ Floor to allow the space to function as an open communal area by day and separate rooms by night.

• Aesthetics: Applied principles from the Red and Blue Chair ($1918$), utilizing geometrical abstraction, basic planes, and primary colors.

• Philosophical Goal: Rietveld believed design should provide spiritual well-being and comfort to residents in the context of post-war trauma.

Scientific Management in the Home: The Frankfurt Kitchen

• The Franc foot kitchen (Frankfull Kitchen): Designed by Margaret Schutte Lihotzky in $1924$ for mass housing projects in Frankfurt, Germany.

• Efficiency and Optimization: The kitchen was designed to minimize movement. A swivel stool was included so the cook could reach the sink, cupboards, bench, and food storage without standing up.

• Context of Labor: This design applied Frederick Taylor's principles of scientific management to domestic labor. It was intended to make domestic duties less laborious for women entering the workforce, though it did not yet seek to change their societal roles.

Art Deco: Luxury, Ornament, and the 1925 Paris Exposition

• Origins: Emerged from the International Exposition of Decorative Arts in Modern Industries (Paris, $1925$). The event aimed to re-establish France as a leader in the luxury market.

  • Materials: Extensive use of Bakelite (the first synthetic plastic, invented in $1907$) and molded glass.

  • Aesthetics: Featured urban lifestyles (surfers, swimmers), flora and fauna motifs, and stylized ridged designs.

• Misappropriation: The style heavily borrowed and decontextualized forms and colors from the African continent, treating them as "exotic" decorative elements. A notable example is a radio cabinet featuring a stylized silhouette of a black woman, reminiscent of the dancer Josephine Baker.

• Key Designer: Rene Jules Lalique, known for highly ornamental and costly glasswork.

Geopolitics of Travel: Ocean Liners and Imperialism

• Ocean Liners: Massive steam-powered ships like the Cunard Lines symbolized international exploration and luxury.

• Imperial Context: At this time ($1920\text{s}$), the British Empire covered roughly $\frac{1}{4}$ of the global landmass.

  • Highways of Empire ($1927$): A poster for the British Empire Marketing Board celebrating colonial expansion.

  • Inequality: The era was marked by "colonial arrogance," where wealthy Europeans traveled to colonies to enjoy exotic resources while the inhabitants were exploited.

Streamlining and the Economics of the Great Depression

• Streamlining (Modern): A style arising in the $30\text{s}$, particularly in the U.S., characterized by aerodynamic shapes, rounded edges, and teardrop forms.

  • Application: While functional for locomotives (reducing wind resistance), it was applied superficially to stationary objects like pencil sharpeners and appliances to make them look sleek and marketable.

• The Great Depression ($1929$-$1939$):

  • Economic Collapse: Triggered by a stock market crash in autumn $1929$ following a summer of slowed consumer spending and piled-up goods.

  • Social Impact: Photographed by Dorothea Lange, the era saw unprecedented poverty and destitution in the United States.

  • Geopolitical Fallout: The crash destroyed the German economy, facilitating the Nazi party's rise to power in $1932$ and leading to the Second World War.

The Military-Industrial Complex and the 1939 World's Fair

• Military-Industrial Complex: A term for the formal/informal alliance between the military, government departments, and industry during WWII ($1939$-$1945$). It acted as an accelerator for industrial growth and technologies like plastics.

• Jean Karloux ($1942$): Designer of the "American ANSA production" poster, which used modern mechanical styles to promote factory output for the war effort.

• The New York World's Fair ($1939$):

  • Futurama: An exhibit designed by Norman Bel Geddes for General Motors.

  • Vision of 1960: Displayed a futuristic U.S. centered on the automobile. It featured multi-lane highways, modern houses powered by electric dams, and new shiny domestic appliances.

  • Global Influence: Similar modernist visions influenced the design of cities like Brasilia (inaugurated in $1960$), which was constructed entirely around the individual car.

Postwar Consumerism: Suburbanization and Gendered Consumption

• The Suburban Dream: Following the war, industrial production shifted toward a domestic infrastructure focused on the periphery of large cities.

• Tapware (Tupperware) Parties: These occurred in the $1950\text{s}$ as social gatherings for middle-class housewives. They were a mechanism to sell new plastic goods, sharing "the wonders of the new material life."

• Gender and Design: Domesticity and consumption became gendered. Designers like Raymond Louis (Loewy) focused on making products more attractive to women.

  • Raymond Louis: Featured on the cover of Time Magazine in $1949$ as the "almighty industrial designer." He was credited with streamlining "sales curves." Notably redesigned Lucky Strike cigarette packaging from green and red to green and white to attract female consumers.

Design and Global Politics: The Cold War and Planned Obsolescence

• Consumerism vs. Consumption: Consumption satisfies basic needs; consumerism refers to excess buying not tied to necessity, often fueled by "planned obsolescence," where products are designed to break or look outdated to encourage more buying.

• Cold War Geopolitics: A competition for supremacy between the USA and the Soviet Union ($USSR$) that lasted until the $90\text{s}$.

  • Roman Szilovic ($1968$): Produced a poster for Opus International depicting the two superpowers as mirror images of each other.

  • The Kitchen Debate ($1959$): A historic encounter between U.S. Vice President Richard Nick (Nixon) and Nikita Khrushchev at the American exhibition in Moscow. They debated national supremacy not through weapons, but through the quality of domestic kitchen appliances and consumer goods.

• Economic Shifts: The postwar "boom" period eventually transitions into the oil crisis starting in $1973$.