Desma 10Design Culture - an Introduction

Meeting 3 (Oct. 17, 2014) Design, Society, Technology

Professor Erkki HuhtamoUCLA, Dept. of Design | Media Arts

On the Etymology of the Word “Design”

From disegno (Italian) = drawing. During the Italian Renaissance disegno was used as a way of planning paintings. It served as a set of instructions for the master painter’s helpers.

1540s: designare, “mark out, devise, choose, designate, appoint.” 1580s: desseign (thoughts must be “marked out” on paper...)

Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452-1519) technical drawings are designs

Most of the inventions Leonardo sketched in his notebooks were not realized in his lifetime. They are still part of design culture.

Pattern books disseminated designs in the form of drawings and fabric samples

Pattern books were models for production. The designs could be used directly or modified.

Pattern books served design education, storing the knowledge and helping to pass it from master to student.

Pattern books were the visual ”memory” of emerging design culture.

an 18th century British pattern book

Pattern book, 1782-1805. Dress and furnishing designs for the royal silk factories of Lyon, France.

Contemporary pattern book for domestic handicrafts

Design and Production are related but not the same thing!

“Design is what all forms of production for use have in common. It provides the intelligence, the thought or idea that organizes all levels of production, whether in graphic design, engineering and industrial design, architecture, or the largest integrated systems found in urban planning.”

Richard Buchanan

Adam Smith (1723-1790) was a Scottish social philosopher and pioneering economist. His book The Wealth of Nations (1776) became a cornerstone for the capitalist mode of production and the industrial revolution as its means.

The Beginnings of Industrial Design

The birth of Western industrial design culture can be dated to the late 18th century. A transition from artisanal to industrial production took place during that period, beginning in Europe, particularly in England and France.

In artisanal production there is no clear separation between design and manufacture. Designs are often inherited, passed from master to his disciples, or copied from pattern books.

The birth of the designer profession is related with this transition. The designer’s role is separate from the manufacturing and marketing of designed products.

The designer is a specialist with a professional identity.

Design under Mercantilism

In the 17th and 18th century state-financed manufactories were created in Europe. Prestige products for the wealty: gobelins, porcelain figurines. Designs were created by court artists or copied from pattern books.

This was influenced by the economic policy of mercantilism. Resources, skills and products served the purposes and profits of the state. The system was symbolically embodied by the figure in the Monarch, the king.

Meissen porcelain figurine, traveling magic lantern showman, designed by Kandler and Reinicke, c. 1753-55.

French Porcelain Factory, circa 1771Although some division of labor has occurred, but the production process is close to artisanal workshop methods of the past.

For centuries, expensive curiosities were produced for the Rich and the Powerful.

They were special artisanal products that the aristocracy collected and could display to as signs of its power and wealth.

Many of such objects had nominally a function, but were rarely used. Curiosities were one-of-a-kind objects beyond the reach of the “common people.”

“Dragon Horn,” 1560-70 (Augsburg, Germany)

Curiosities for the Rich

The Continuing Tradition: a Spanish craftsman creating religious figures in a family-owned workshop. Often there is no distinction between design and production here, although traditional pre-existing designs are often used.

Automata were unique showpieces made by clockmakers and mechanical engineers as ways of getting fame and demonstrating their skills for potential clients.

The Androids Charles, Marianne and Henri were created by the Jaquet-Droz family of clockmakers (1770s) survive at Musée d’art et d’histoire, Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

Drawings made by the android Henri Droz

Jaquet-Droz wrist watches, 2004 (the company is now part of the SWATCH group)

Automata are also known from other parts of the world.

In Japan “tea-carrying dolls” were built already in the late 18th century. They were made of wood, and fishbones were used as needles.

Hisashige Tanaka, a karakuri master, founded a company that became Toshiba.

From Karakurizui, “Book of automata”

Japanese automata, karakuri ningyo

The famous Mechanical Theater at Hellbrunn Garden near Salzburg, Austria, built 1752.

Mechanical representation of a manufacturing city with over 140 handcrafted moving figures

Jacques de Vaucanson (1709-1782)

Famous master automata maker. In 1738 presented “The Flute Player,” and in 1739 “The Tambourine Player” and “The Duck,” his most famous creation (it could flap its wings, eat and digest grains).In 1741 became inspector of silk manufacture. Re-organized production and delivery.

Vaucanson improved looms and invented punch-cards to facilitate production. Hostile reaction from weavers. Technique was perfected by Joseph-Marie Jacquard in 1801, ‘the father of the modern loom’. Punch cards anticipated programmable computers.

Like the android Charles Droz, the Jacquard loom (1801) was a programmable device, but unlike it, it served a practical purpose.

Punched cards were used to control hooks and needles. Jacquard introduced the idea of a machine following an algorithm.

From Craftsman to Factory Worker

With industrialization craftsmen who had worked at home as independent contractors became factory workers.

This caused dramatic changes in their status. They could no longer control their own time, and were separated from their families.

They had to produce identical standard products using production machines, fearing that machines would displace them and leave them unemployed.

Ludditism

The shift from artisanal to industrial production led to social unrest.

Ludditism was a social movement against machines (such as power looms) and mass production. Luddites were ‘machine breakers’ worried about their jobs and lifestyle. They were named after their mythical leader ‘Ned Ludd’.

In our time the word “neo-luddite” has been used about thinkers who oppose the excessive use of new media technology.

Read more from: Kirkpatrick Sale: Rebels Against the Future (1995).

Luddite leader, ca. 1812

Ford Madox Brown: John Kay, inventor of the fly shuttle (1753) being attacked by luddites. Mural painting at the Manchester City Hall, UK.

Luddites in Action!

Rationalization of Production in England

• Efforts were made to systematize, rationalize and standardize production. It was centered in factories that were powered by steam. Cheaper materials were invented (Sheffield plate, etc.).

• Pioneering industrialists: Thomas Chippendale, Josiah Wedgwood, Matthew Boulton. Products: furniture, dishes, “toys” (buttons and other small everyday objects), textiles.

• Wedgwood made a notorious statement, saying he wanted "to make such machines of the men that cannot Err".

Josiah Wedgwood (1730-95)

Josiah Wedgwood (1730-95):

“to make such machines of the men that cannot err...”

- notorious words worth thinking about...

Josiah Wedgwood’s “Etruria” factory in Stoke-on-Trent

John Flaxman, the First Industrial Designer

• John Flaxman (1755-1826), a neoclassical sculptor, is known as “the first industrial designer”. He designed neo-classical tableware for Wedgwood.

• Worked in London, far from Wedgwood’s Etruria factory.• A contractor working for several clients at the same time. Like him, many

early designers were professional artists.

• Flaxman’s designs emphasized standardization and aimed at the elimination of chance and variation: all products had to be identical!

Wedgwood’s neoclassical tableware, influenced by ancient Roman motives found in archaeological excavations.

Left, Wedgwood’s shape book (1770), and below, a page from his pattern book (1780).

Their use points to the standardization of production and its separation from design.

Wedgwood’s Queensware catalogue, 1774. Notice the numbers for ordering - only samples were available for viewing in Wedgwood’s showroom.

The American System

American industry became model for large-scale mass production.

Began developing soon after 1800 in gun manufacture (Eli Whitney, Samuel Colt), then clocks, agricultural machines, sewing machines, typewriters.

Definition: large scale manufacture of standardized products, using powered machine-tools in a sequence of simplified mechanical operations.

In the USA, many new products were invented; in England, new ways of producing old products (fabrics, tableware).

Samuel Colt, 1814-62

The Full Mechanization of Factory Production

(1) hierarchy of standardized segmented and subsegmented interchangeable parts; a corresponding hierarchy of machine tools(2) continuous, sequential assembly line(3) ‘Taylorized’ workforce, performing standardized repeated actions

Full mechanization was perfected in the car industry, pioneered at Henry Ford’s (1863-1947) Highland Park Factory, Detroit, opened in 1913.

What could one do if the machine stopped?

Interchangeable parts for a reaper machine, 1867.

Interchangeable parts were the solution.

Crystal Palace, London by Joseph Paxton- A pioneering iron grid building, made entirely of interchangeable parts. Designed to house the Crystal Palace Exhibition in Hyde Park, London, 1851.

Industrial fairs and world expositions become a showcase for new designs. Stimulates international trade and exchange of design ideas and trends. The first one took place in London at the Crystal Palace in 1851.

The Origins of the Assembly Line

Division of the work process began in the 18th century. Conveyor-belt like ‘disassembly lines’ were first introduced in the slaughter houses of Cincinnati and Chicago (1860s).

Read more about mechanization from Siegfried Giedion’s classic book Mechanization Taken Command (1948).

Assembly line for Edison’s talking dolls, c.1890. Production ended soon because the phonograph mechanism was too fragile. his in a way continued the automata tradition.

From Automata to Mass Production

Tamagotchi and Furby belong to the long tradition of automata, but they also differ from their predecessors. In which ways?

At Henry Ford’s Highland Park factory in Detroit unskilled or only partly skilled workers (often immigrants who did not speak English) worked long hours, performing repetitive simple tasks. They were often felt to become parts of the machine.

T-Model Fords emerging from the assembly line. Each one is technically identical, only the external features (the chassis, etc.) may differ.

Taylorism

A scientific theory of work developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915). Taylor’s book The Principles of Scientific Management (1911) influenced Henry Ford. Other scientists developed similar ideas (Etienne-Jules Marey in France; Frank and Lillian Gilbreth created the ‘Science of Work’, etc.)

The Main Principles of Taylorism

- To develop a "scientific analysis" of every job, including its rules of motion, standardized work implements, and most effective working conditions.

- To select workers with the right abilities for the job.

- To train these workers scientifically, based on physical analysis of body functions and motions, and give them proper incentives to cooperate with the ‘job science’.

Etienne-Jules Marey and Charles Fremont: Hitting hot iron, 1894. Chronophotographic analysis of a worker’s movements.

Jules Amar: subject using dynamometric bicycle and spirometer, 1912

Typist undergoing physiological analysis, 1927

Workers as the “Guinea pigs” of Taylorist research

Choice-reaction tester, circa 1930

“Cephalometer” - a devise for measuring the telephone exchange worker’s head to create optimally fitting headphones.

The Mechanization of Office Work

With increasing competition, speed of life and demands for effectivity, also office workers were “taylorized”.

Beside office buildings, furniture and machines also office workers became ‘objects’ that had to be designed.

The “perfect office workers” were developed and tested scientifically to discover the right movements and work routines.

This was often claimed to profit the office worker (to avoid exhaustion and physical problems caused by monotonous work), but its real motive was to increase effectiveness and to eliminate or at least minimize worker ”down time”.

Time Recorder, 1911

“International Time Recording Systems are the fairest to the employe because they make him his own time-keeper.”

Whose interests do these machines really serve?

Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs for the Larkin office building, Buffalo, NY 1906

Office design and ideology: different designs for executives (left) and clerks (above)

Frank Lloyd Wright: Larkin building designs, Buffalo, NY

Changes in the ideology of office work were reflected in the design of office furniture.

Roll-top desk, 1895 - the standard desk design for the office clerk in the 19th century.

What does this design reveal us about the clerk’s work?

A high-backed roll-top desk in use in an American office, c.1900. Notice that the clerks in this picture are both male.

Modern efficiency desk for clerical work, circa 1915

American executive’s desk, circa 1915

American manager’s desk, 1920s

The Nomos office desk by Norman Foster (1987) - What explains the changes in design?

Mechanized office workers under surveillance, 1925

The hierarchy of surveillance in the workplace: The telephone exchange of Budapest, Hungary, in 1904.

The modern office was turned into a ‘Panopticon’, a surveillance machine.

The Panopticon idea was first described by the social theorist Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) in the late 18th century. It is still fully valid and can be applied to video surveillance in supermarket but also in secret dsata collecting on the internet.

The Panopticon

Gymnastics program designed for office workers, Germany, 1929

What is the real meaning of this? What kinds of purposes does it serve?

Programmed gymnastics for post office workers, Germany, c.1930

An adjustable desk for typists, circa 1918

“To work standing for short periods of time is found to relieve fatigue. With the chair and desk raised, the change from a sitting posture can be made almost instantly.”

Women and the Typewriter

It was said that one reason why men were replaced by women in jobs involving technology was the dexterity of their hands.

The skills of the hands were learned while doing handicrafts, playing the piano, or using the sewing machine.

The daughter of C.L. Sholes, the inventor of the typewriter, typing in 1872.

The “QWERTY” keyboard - why was it designed in this way?

So that the most commonly used letters would not get entangled; so that an unskilled salesman could type the work “typewriter” (hidden in the “qwerty” line). This added a moment of surprise and “magic.”

The winners of a typewriting contest. What does this image really tell us behind the happy faces?

Margaret B. Owen, the World’s Champion Typist, 1913, whose record has never been equalled.

What does the expression on her face really signify? Pride, Achievement or Subordination?

Taylorism was admired, but also ridiculed and feared. It was accused of turning the worker into an automaton, or a machine part. It was diagnosed to lead to “neurastenia”, a psychological disorder ( a state of chronic fatigue without an outlet). A biting satire of the effects of Taylorism was Charlie Chaplin’s film The Modern Times, 1936.

The Automatic Feeding Chair for workers (Chaplin, Modern Times, 1936)

I Love Lucy- at the Chocolate Factory, from “Job Switching,” season 2 (1952).

Assemble-line parody, funny! Watch from Youtube!

“Assembly Madness is a game about an assembly worker in a factory (named John) who has to make as many products as possible for his chief. You have to assemble all kind of products, like hamburgers, beachballs, bottles, ice, and cars. Time and speed of the assembly line are your enemies, but you have to show your chief that you can handle it! Assemble as many products as you can! Good luck.” (Publisher's description of Assembly Madness, FlegelGames)

Assembly line work turned into video games

And how about all the sweatshops around the world?

Apple’s products are made in sweatshop-like conditions in Foxconn’s factories in China. How ethical is it to use them?

The Great Debate on Machines and Design

• The Aesthetes rejected new industrial products as tasteless.

• Utilitarians claimed that engineers “should not encourage any play of imagination.” They are producers of “useful ugliness” (Zarah Colburn, 1871)

• “Industrial Ornament” was proposed as a compromise. It meant coating technology with classicist references, in an effort to make it more “beautiful” and “civilized”.

• Critic Henry Cole (1808-82) tried to mediate: “Design has a twofold relation, having in the first place, a strict reference to utility in the thing designed; and, secondarily, to the beautifying or ornamenting that utility.”

“Industrial Ornament”: a steam engine in a Neo-Classical frame

The first model of the Singer sewing machine (1851)

The Industrial Ornament

The evolution of the sewing machine as an example.

A woman using the first Singer sewing machine for home use (1851).

Notice the crude storage box used as a stand.

The machine creates a mismatch with the aesthetic environment of the Victorian home.

Pictures used in marketing sewing machines for domestic users, 1850s-1860s.

Notice the new role of ornamentation!

Novelty sewing machines, The Squirrel and The Cherub, circa 1858.

Ornamentation Out of Control!

Graphic design was used to promote Singer sewing machines, and and to develop the company’s brand identity.

This advertising poster emphasizes connotations of globalism and lightness (the elimination of gravity and of work).

Work for Graphic Designers

The need for catalogues, advertisements, posters, stamps and trade cards inspired graphic design. Department stores, mail-order businesses and large billboards further emphasizes its role.

The invention of chromolithography (more widely used from the 1840s) was crucial - printing became faster, cheaper, and the results more spectacular and colorful.

The Emergence of the Urban Adscape

Advertisements spread to public spaces, competing for the eyes of the passers-by. Graphic design was crucial for brand-centered marketing.

Ornamentation versus Function

• Is ornamentation necessary? What purposes does it serve, especially in an industrially produced object?

• Can a machine be used to (mass)produce anything “beautiful,” on an equal level with human-made objects?

• How does machine production differ from manual production?• John Ruskin (1819-1900) believed that the machine is incapable of

"reproducing the irregularity and variety, the ’Organic Form’ of nature”. Ruskin was an influential writer, critic, and supporter of the “Gothic revival.”

John Ruskin (1819-1900)

Westminster Abbey, London, a medieval Gothic cathedral, became an inspiration for “neo-Gothic designers (Watercolor, 1812).

From Neo-Classicism to Neo-Gothic

• Transition from neo-classicism to neo-gothic as a dominant style happened in the early 19th century. This was related with the move from Enlightenment to Romanticism. The influence of these trends was felt in all forms of design and culture.

• Main spokesman of neo-gothic was Augustus Charles Pugin. His son A. W. N. Pugin designed The Houses of Parliament, London (with C. Barry, 1840-60)

Robert Adam: Neo-classical Design for a sideboard, 1768-69. Both neoclassicism and neogothic took their aesthetic ideals from the past.

Charles Barry and A. W. N. Pugin: The Houses of Parliament, London, 1840-70

Neo-Gothic inkwell

Neo-Gothic furniture

Defending the workshop model:William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement

• Founded by William Morris (1834-96), an idealist and socialist. Advocated a return to workshop-like small scale design production.

• Wanted to free natural, organic impulses from the psychic restraints created by mechanization and mechanistic thought.

• “The vast improvements in machinery spread the division of labor by enabling a small group of designers to furnish the pattern to be repeated endlessly by machines watched over by unskilled workers."

A tapestry and fabric patterns by William Morris

Defending the Machine Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1956)

• As a young man worked in the office of Louis Sullivan who popularized the most famous slogan in design history: “Form Follows Function” (1890s).

• ”The machine has potential to emancipate the modern mind. By simplifying, it can reveal the true nature of materials.” (Frank Lloyd Wright)

• "My god is machinery, and the art of the future will be the expression of the individual artist through the thousand powers of the machine." (Frank Lloyd Wright)

“Form Follows Function”The most famous slogan of design history

“It is the pervading law of all things organic, and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things super-human, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.”

Coined by the American architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), a pioneer of modernism, in the late 19th century.

“Ornament and Crime”

“The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornamentation from objects of everyday use.”

“The modern person who tattoos himself is either a criminal or a degenerate.”

- “The modern ornamentalist is either a cultural laggard or a pathological case. He himself is forced to disown his work after three years. His productions are unbearable to cultured persons now, and will become so to others in a little while.”

- Adolf Loos, “Ornament and Crime”, 1908

Adolf Loos (1870-1933)

Neo-Gothic designs, c. 1850: ornamentation gone crazy without any meaningful relation to function.

"As long as our cities, our houses, our rooms, our cupboards, our utensils, our jewellery, as long as our speech and sentiments fail to express in an elegant, beautiful and simple fashion the spirit of our own times, we will continue to be immeasurably far behind our forefathers, and no amount of lies can deceive us about all these weaknesses."

Josef Hoffmann

Modernist pathos: Josef Hoffmann

Table tray designed by Josef Hoffmann, early 20th century

E. W. Godwin (1833-86), Sideboard, c.1867 (”Anglo-Japanese furniture”)

Foreign influences in the service of new simplicity, reduction of ornamentation

Synthesis or Compromise?

The new simplicity and purity of form in the designs of Christopher Dresser (1834-1904)

Peter Behrens: Clock, circa 1903

Early Modernist Design

Edward Johnson’s design for London’s subway, 1910s - still in use!

London’s underground map, redesigned by Harry Beck, 1933