DESIGN HISTORY Design HISTORY a students’ handbook Edited by HAZEL CONWAY London and New York First published in 1987 by Harper Collins Academic This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.” Second impression 1991 © 1987 Hazel Conway The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0-203-13319-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-17794-0 (Adobe e-Reader Format) ISBN 0-415-08473-3 (Print Edition) Contents List of Plates vii Acknowledgements x List of Contributors xi Introduction 1 1 Design History Basics H azel Conway 3 2 The Study of Dress and Textiles J osephine Miller 12 3 Ceramic History J onathan Woodham 29 4 Furniture History P at Kirkham 45 5 Interior Design R owan Roenisch and Hazel Conway 67 6 Industrial Design J ohn Heskett 85 7 Graphic Design J eremy Aynsley 102 8 Environmental Design H azel Conway 124 Further Reading 138 Useful Names and Addresses 147 Glossary 158 Index 166 List of Plates Cover Richard Hamilton, Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? 1956 (Waddington Galleries Ltd. Richard Hamilton) 1.1 Cast-iron seat, Richmond Park, c. 1870 (Hazel Conway) 6 2.1 Thomas Gainsborough, Blue Boy, 1770 (The Huntington Art Gallery) 16 2.2 Joseph Wright of Derby, Susanna Hope, c. 1760 (Sotheby’s) 17 2.3 Peter Paul Rubens, Hélène Fourment, c. 1630 (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation) 18 2.4 Thomas Gainsborough, Mary, Countess Howe, c. 1765 (The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood. English Heritage) 19 3.1 A griculture and Horticulture, tile panels from St Mungo Vintners, Glasgow (building now destroyed), designed by J.H.McLennan (Royal Doulton Ltd) 30 3.2 Delan Cookson, Jelly Press, 1981 (Delan Cookson) 31 3.3 Wedgwood advertisement, Observer colour supplement, 4 November, 1984 (Josiah Wedgwood & Sons Ltd) 33 3.4 Paintresses at Gray’s Pottery, Mayer Street, Hanley, Stoke-on- Trent, 1929 (City Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent) 35 3.5 The Dolphin Water Closet (Lucinda Lambton/Arcaid) 39 4.1 Black, red and gold japanned bed and two of a set of armchairs 47 from bedroom suite made for the 4th Duke of Beaufort, 1752–4, designed by John Linnell, and made by the Linnell firm, London (Country Life) 4.2 Two armchairs from Ham House (Victoria and Albert Museum) 51 4.3 The ‘Poly’ chair (Hille) 54 4.4 Chamber of Isabel of Bavaria, Queen of France, from an early fifteenth century miniature in the British Museum (The British Library) 55 4.5 Cane and tubular steel furniture made by Dryad, Leicester, c. 1933 56 4.6 Chair from Tomb of Tutankhamun, Egypt, c. 1350 BC (Egyptian Museum of Cairo) 57 5.1 Manchester Exchange Theatre, Levitt Bernstein Associates, 1976. Section (Levitt Bernstein Associates) 70 5.2 Syon House, near London, begun 1762. Plan (Penguin Books Ltd from Architecture in Britain 1530–1830 by John Summerson, Pelican History of Art, 1953, fifth edition 1969, p. 263). 72 5.3 Syon House, near London, Robert Adam begun 1762. Entrance hall (A.F.Kersting) 73 5.4 Interior of original central London railway car, 1900 (London Regional Transport) 77 5.5 Dining room, 78 Southpark Avenue, Glasgow. C.R. Mackintosh and M.Macdonald (Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, Mackintosh Collection) 82 7.1 E.McKnight Kauffer’s poster for London Transport, Spring in the Village, 1936 (Victoria and Albert Museum) 106 7.2 Cover to the British edition of Vogue, March 1951 (The Condé Nast Publications Ltd. Norman Parkinson) 107 7.3 El Lissitzky’s (1890–1941) cover for the prospectus for the stationery and office equipment company, Pelikan, designed in 111 1924. 7.4 Cover for the Penguin Books edition of Vladimir Nabokov, L aughter in the Dark, 1963 (Morton Dimonstein, 1963) 113 7.5 An advertisement for Lancôme from Vogue magazine, November, 1986 (Lancôme) 119 8.1 The Radiant City showing ribbon blocks of apartments with parks, sports grounds and schools between them (Faber and Faber Ltd from The Radiant City by Le Corbusier, 1967, p. 109) 132 Acknowledgements This book has grown out of many discussions which have taken place over a lengthy period and my debt to the patience of all the contributors and the support of my colleagues is considerable. In addition I would particularly like to thank the following for their encouragement, help and criticism: Mary Stewart, Anthea McCullough, Chris Mees, Victor Margolin, John Pugsley, Zara Conway. List of Contributors Jeremy Aynsley studied History of Art at Sussex University and became interested in the interaction between painting, graphic design and photography, especially of the Weimar period. He now teaches Art and Design History at Brighton Polytechnic and is researching German Graphic Design of the interwar period. Hazel Conway came to design history from a background in science and technology and was a founder member of the Design History Research Group, the group which led to the setting up of the Design History Society. Her research and teaching experience of design history ranges from industrial, furniture and interior design to landscape and environmental design. Among her publications is a monograph on the furniture designer Ernest Race who was active in the 1940s and 1950s, and she was awarded her PhD for her study of the design and development of the municipal park in the nineteenth century. She is at present Principal Lecturer in History of Architecture and Design at Leicester Polytechnic. John Heskett has specialized in design history since 1967, after working in town planning, publishing and secondary-school teaching. At present Head of Historical and Theoretical Studies at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication at Chislehurst in South London, he has also lectured widely and acted as consultant for companies and governmental organizations at home and abroad. He is the author of Industrial Design (1980) in the World of Art Series and Design in Germany 1870– 1918 (1986) which is intended as the first of three volumes on the history of German design in the last century. Pat Kirkham read History at Leeds University where she specialized in social and economic history as well as the history of architecture and design. Her PhD (London University) was written on furniture making in London c 1700–1870. Author of William and John Linnell, 2 vols, 1980 (with Helena Hayward), Harry Peach: Dryad and the DIA (1980), and numerous articles in learned and more popular journals, she has lectured widely in America and this country. At present she is working on a book on women and design and collaborating with the Geffrye Museum and London History Workshop on a study of furniture making in the East End of London. She teaches architecture and design at Leicester Polytechnic Josephine Miller studied Embroidery and Textiles at Goldsmiths’ College School of Art and subsequently was awarded an MA in the History of European Art with a special emphasis on Dress History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London University. She is currently employed as Senior Lecturer in the History of Design at the City of Birmingham Polytechnic. She has wide-ranging experience in teaching and has worked on a series of ten programmes on Dress for Educational TV and carried out freelance picture research. Rowan Roenisch was born in Welwyn Garden City and brought up amongst the natural beauty of Mount Park Estate (1876) and South Hill Avenue ‘garden estate’ Harrow on the Hill. She originally trained in Fine Art. After historical studies at the Courtauld Institute she went on to teach architectural and design history and is now Senior Lecturer at Leicester Polytechnic. More recently she has successfully completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Architectural and Building Conservation and undertaken a joint report for the Victorian Society on Church Redundancy and Re-use in Leicester. Her research interests include housing in the Soviet Union, Britain and Zimbabwe, and vernacular architecture. Jonathan Woodham studied for the MA degree in Fine Art, mounted jointly by the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh College of Art, which involved both practical and historical work. After studying for an MA in the History of British Romantic Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, he was appointed to the staff of the North Staffordshire Polytechnic in the Potteries where he became increasingly aware of the significance of design. Since then he has researched extensively into the history of the subject, with a particular focus on British industrial design since the First World War and has written a book, The Industrial Designer and the Public, published by Pembridge, 1983. He is now Principal Lecturer in Design History at Brighton Polytechnic. Introduction This is a book about how to study design history—where to start, what sort of questions to ask and how to answer them. In recent years the possibilities of studying design history have grown enormously. It is now possible to study it at school, in colleges, polytechnics and universities and at levels which range from A level to undergraduate and postgraduate. Design history can be the main subject of a degree course, or it can be part of practical design or humanities courses, yet until now there has been no book which offers guidance to students on how to study it or how to approach the subject. The aim of this book is to provide an introduction to the study of design history which can be used by students in colleges, polytechnics and universities. No matter whether your main subject is a two- or three-dimensional design course, or whether you are studying design history as a main subject, this book will provide a clear introduction to it, and teachers of design history at A level will find that it provides a wealth of information on the topic. Studying is traditionally associated with educational establishments, but being a student is not only a matter of attending courses, it is much more concerned with attitude of mind and a spirit of inquiry. So this book also aims to help to make the study of design history more accessible to those with an interest in the subject, whether or not they are involved in formal education. Design history is a large subject and the chapter headings of the book indicate broad areas of it. However such sub-divisions are in many ways artificial as I suggest in the first chapter, ‘Design History Basics’. ‘Design History Basics’ introduces the basic tools necessary to any historical study and discusses some of the general problems and issues that may be encountered. Each of the following chapters on dress and textiles, ceramics, furniture, interiors, industrial design and graphics indicates the scope of the subject in terms of its breadth, chronology and the links between the various subject areas. Case studies illustrate some of the possible approaches to each area and the types of problem and pitfalls to look out for. In addition some indication is given on how historians have approached particular areas in the past. As the subject of environmental design and the literature on it is so large, a rather different approach has been adopted in this chapter. The emphasis there is primarily concerned with the question of project work on various aspects of twentieth-century issues, and indications are given of a variety of potential topics. At the end of each chapter there are notes to the references and quotations that appear and a Further Reading list for each chapter is given at the end of the book. These are an important supplement to each chapter since they enable readers to build on the introductory material in the chapters, and so pursue particular interests in more detail. Although some readers may be interested primarily in one or two of these areas, many points of interest may well appear in other chapters. The index which lists all the main topics provides access to relevant material in other chapters. Also at the end of the book is a glossary which can be referred to whenever (q.v.) or (qq.v) follows a name or term in the text. This is followed by a list of useful addresses or organizations which relate in a variety of ways to the study of design history. Design history 2 1 Design History Basics HAZEL CONWAY There are examples of design and opportunities for studying design history all around us, yet when our surroundings are very familiar, as our houses and streets are, we tend to take them for granted. We cease to see them, or even to think that there is anything much of interest in them. Wherever we are design affects us all, both directly and indirectly, consciously and subconsciously. At home the lighting, carpets, curtains, wallpaper and furniture all contribute to the interior design of a room. Every period has its own ways of arranging furniture, and today is no exception. Not long ago the main focus of a living- room would have been the fireplace, but this is not necessarily so today. Outside, the design of the front gardens, the variety of colours of the front doors, the textures of the bricks, contribute to the environment, as do the shops, the traffic and the open spaces. Of course not all the features that go towards creating our environment were consciously designed, some occurred by accident, or neglect, or by juxtaposition. One of the most obvious examples of design in our society, intended to attract our attention wherever we find ourselves, is that of advertisements. In the street, in the shops, reading the papers or magazines, or watching television, advertisement designers hope to have a direct effect on us, and this we recognize. Their indirect effects are, however, much more subtle and not nearly so easy to recognize, yet our perception of ourselves, our surroundings and our society are affected by them. At home among familiar furniture you know from experience which chairs are comfortable, but how closely do you ever look at any particular one? If you are asked to describe one chair exactly from memory, could you do so, and where would you begin? When you note—almost without thinking about it because it is so obvious—that the form taken by a dining chair is different from that of an easy chair for relaxing in, you are beginning to identify how form is related to use, and this is one aspect of design analysis. If you visit a museum and see a collection of dining chairs from a period covering a century or more you will again note differences in the forms the chairs take, even though they all have a similar use. If you ask yourselves the reasons for these differences then you will again be involved in design analysis. All the examples of design that you see around have their histories, but the development of the study of design history is very recent and it is only in the last decade that a range of degree courses has been introduced in which it forms a major element. Those who are involved in the practice of design history, whether they are in museums, in teaching, research or elsewhere, have clear but differing ideas about what it is, but outside this group few people have any real understanding of the subject or how it can be studied. Common misconceptions include the idea that design history is primarily about aesthetics and collecting rare and beautiful objects, or about fashion, or historic periods and the styles of design associated with particular periods. What makes it even more complex is that there are elements of truth in all these views, and these will be explored. Another confusion lies in the interpretation of the word ‘design’. When we talk about the design of a lamp, for example, we may be concerned with the mental processes and the drawings and models that eventually result in that particular lamp; we may be concerned with the production process, the form and material of the lamp and how it is used; we could also be concerned with how the lamp was marketed, advertised, packaged and sold. Design history can be concerned with any or all of these aspects. Another area of confusion concerns the scope of design history as a subject and its relationship to other histories. It was largely as a result of these and other confusions that the idea for this book came about. Although many historical examples are included in this introduction to design history, it is not intended to be a concise history of the subject. The aim is to show how to study the subject by looking at a number of different areas, and illustrating a variety of approaches by means of case studies. The approaches and skills needed to study advertising design, say, differ from those needed to study shoe or aircraft design, and in practice design historians tend to specialize, as do designers. It is for this reason that this book divides design history into a number of areas which reflect those specializations. Dress and textiles, ceramics, furniture, interior design, industrial design, graphics, and environmental design are the titles of the chapters and in general the designers working in these areas have their particular professional institutions and publications. The exception to this is environmental design. Environmental design can include architecture, town planning, landscape design and civil engineering and each of these areas has their own professional institutions and publications. Although this division of design history into various areas reflects the professional structure of practising designers, it is in many ways arbitrary for there are many links between the areas both in terms of theory and practice. The practical link between furniture and interior design is an obvious example, and the presence of graphic design in the environment, whether in the form of advertising, or street or shop signs, is another. Stylistic influences such as that of Neo-Classicism (q.v.) affected architecture as well as dress design, ceramics, silver, furniture and interiors. In addition important theories affected a broad spectrum of design, as well as architecture. For example de Stijl (q.v.) philosophy, which developed in Holland from 1917 on, embraced painting, architecture, furniture and interior design, town planning/environmental design and graphics. The work of many designers ranges across a spectrum of design: William Kent’s (q.v.) work included architecture, landscape, furniture and interior design while William Morris (q.v.) worked in textiles, stained glass and book design, and his theories embraced the whole basis of society. The various chapter headings of this book should not therefore be taken to imply rigid boundaries, for these do not exist. This means that readers with a particular interest in, say, industrial design or furniture should not restrict themselves to reading only those chapters for there may well be useful material elsewhere. The reasons for studying design history are similar in many ways to those for any historical study. They relate to our need to understand the present, and are based on the belief that such an understanding is impossible without a knowledge of the past. Studies of the past enable us to understand where we have come from, and something of the complex choices and decisions that have led to where we are today. Without that perspective our understanding is limited. We become prisoners of the present, unable to Design history 4 forsee alternatives, or recognize our own possibilities of choice. When, for example, newspapers talk of ‘Victorian values’, they imply an era when thrift, self-reliance, and hard work were the norm. That view of the Victorian period conveniently ignores the appalling living conditions, high mortality rate, and excessive hours of work, often in dangerous conditions, in order to make a particular point about society today, in comparison with that of a hundred years or so ago. Newspapers are not in the business of historical accuracy, they are in the business of selling papers and ideas, but unless we as readers have some historical understanding, we are likely to accept uncritically the viewpoint being projected. An understanding of history is part of the process of exercising control over our own lives, whether as individuals, groups or societies. The objects that are the main focus of studies in design history, the forms that they take and the ways in which they were produced and used, are the material result of complex changes and choices. Studies of how our material culture evolved, its meaning and influence, can give us a larger perspective of our past. The core of the discipline of design history concerns the search to understand particular designs in the context of the period in which they were produced, and the enjoyment of the subject lies in the intellectual and emotional stimulus that this provides. There are however many factors which can inhibit that understanding. Subjective and Objective Responses Design history, like any other history, is not solely concerned with the accumulation of facts. It is concerned with understanding and finding explanations of the past by evaluating, selecting and ordering data, as E.H.Carr discusses so clearly in What is History ? (1961). Everyone has his or her own preferences and prejudices, and our own likes and dislikes can come between us and our historical studies. We all know from personal experience that we like some designs for particular reasons, and not others. This is a subjective reaction that everyone experiences, but you must be careful not to draw historical conclusions from your own likes and dislikes, or to argue that because you do not like a design it is therefore not important historically. Although the qualitative analysis of design and your imaginative response to it may be one of the reasons encouraging you to study the subject in the first place, there is a great difference between such design appreciation and the study of design history. In talking about your reactions to familiar and to unfamiliar surroundings I implied that looking carefully is one important aspect of an interest in design and in design history. Designing if it is to move beyond theory into practice means putting You can look at the design of this cast iron garden seat (Fig. 1.1) with its highly ornamental foliage design in terms of the material it is made of and the processes of production, but if you look at the ornamentation, how are you to talk about it in a way that has any historical validity? Attitudes towards such design have altered and continue to do so, and a subjective analysis in terms of today’s criteria, that is, whether you like it or not, would tell you more about today’s criteria than it would about this particular design. To attempt to understand this seat design and why those particular forms were used you would need to know what the Victorians at that time thought of ornament, and Design history basics 5 Figure 1.1 Cast-iron seat, Richmond Park, c. 1870 what they meant by the ‘correct use of ornament’. You would also need to understand the criteria affecting design and read the works of those who were influential in defining those criteria, like John Ruskin, A.W.N.Pugin, Henry Cole and William Morris (qq.v.). Design history implies trying to understand an object in the context of the period in which it was produced. Criticism of good and bad design in any period cannot be approached from the basis of your own individual likes and dislikes, but must come from an understanding of the theories and philosophies prevailing at the time. It is in this area that many of the older books on the subject can prove confusing, for they take the standpoint of, say, the Modern Movement (q.v.) of the 1920s and 1930s, and evaluate everything from that basis, with obvious distortions arising. This is one of the reasons why the following chapters try to provide guidance on the books available. The Problem of Survival Most of us have vivid memories of our home, which go back to early childhood, but how much remains of that furniture or furnishings some ten, twenty or more years later? Wear and tear, changing family requirements, moving house and successive schemes of decoration will all have left their mark and much will have changed or disappeared. It might be possible to build up a partial picture of the past from photographs, or bills from shops that supplied furniture, or from firms that undertook to redecorate, or from diaries Design history 6 or letters. For most of us such documentary evidence would have been destroyed long since and it would be a very rare family that had a written record or a photographic survey made of all the rooms in their home. Herein lie many of the historian’s problems. You may be thrilled to discover the grandfather clock which had been handed down through several generations of the family, but is it more significant historically than the everyday articles that each generation takes for granted, uses, and then throws away? A variety of objects survive from the past and you need to be cautious in your interpretation of them. You need to ask why some have survived and others have not. You need to consider strength and durability as well as real and assumed values, and sentimental attachment, when attempting to assess the historical value of such evidence. If we look at any period of history our picture of it derives from many sources, the literature, paintings, buildings and artefacts that have survived and that have been collected. For many people it is the museum’s picture of the past that is one of the most readily accessible sources, and until very recently the main emphasis of many museum collections was on the rare and exotic, and objects which were commonplace did not appear. This was partly a question of what had survived from the past, for the things that were in everyday use got worn out, broken and were thrown away, while the precious and expensive were looked after carefully and survived. Many museums were set up in the nineteenth century and were based on the collections of private individuals with their emphasis on curiosities from strange lands, and precious items. There was no incentive to collect the commonplace. Recently an enormous interest has developed in the commonplace, and the balance is being redressed, but if you are studying the artefacts of today or yesterday you need to be very aware of the type of image you are likely to receive unless you are very careful. Two books on this topic that I have found both stimulating and provocative are Donald Home, The Great Museum (1984), and Patrick Wright, On Living in an Old Country, The National Past in Contemporary Britain (1985). Both books explore, in their very different ways, the question of images of the past, the variety of distortions that can arise, and the reasons for them. The Heroic Approach Exhibitions, books, magazine articles and some museum collections tend to emphasize the heroic approach to design history. That is to say they concentrate on the rare and expensive and the major works of major designers in any period: Adam, Wedgwood, Aalto, Dior (qq.v.). The work of these people was very important and I am certainly not trying to deny this. Part of the historian’s task is that of evaluating and determining what is significant and what is not, and this in turn relates to what is history and the approaches that can be taken. In general historical studies we no longer concentrate solely on kings and queens and battles and conquests. Similarly in design history it is important to recognize that there is more to it than the study of key figures and key objects. The design of goods that most people live with is important. Indeed it was the feeling that design was part of everyday life and used, that it was an activity with a social and material context, rather than something isolated, to be put in a museum, that attracted many of us to its study in the first place. Design history basics 7