Design Review (London, 1992)

Editorial Putting history in its place There is an eerie quality to the prospect of the world’s museums eagerly gearing up to consign the twentieth century to history, long before its last decade finally comes to a close. None are more exercised at the prospect than those institutions that collect design. In London the V&A’s 20th century gallery is already nearing completion. When it does open, the 20th century will not even be “contemporary” any more. The implications of all this are being carefully scrutinised by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris which is also creating a 20th century gallery. It is no longer enough to fill mute museum cases with black cube Brionvega TV sets, Braun hi-fis, and Tizio lights, as the Beaubourg’s massive Manifeste exhibition demonstrates with unintended clarity. This is the mother of all designer object exhibitions. There is a Mirage jet, a Colani motorcycle, a Starck street lamp. There are also rows and rows of Braun, IBM and Brionvega knick­­knacks, many of them manufactured for no more than a couple of years, which are spectacularly redundant technologically, which were often consumer flops, and which have burned their way into the history books only through constant repetition. The Beaubourg has done it all better than anybody else. They show the white case which that black cube TV set came in, not just the cube. They show a battered prototype of Starck’s Café Costes chair, rather than a production model. But they also show that this kind of approach can be as enlightening as train spotting, unless it is in the hands of a museum that knows what it is doing, and why. To this end, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is planning to go back to an idea that the V&A had 100 years ago: commissioned pieces, room sets and interiors that provide a view point and a context. The position of design in Britain would be much healthier if the V&A did the same. In this issue Dieter Rams (page 6) To Rams, self-expression is synomymous with self-indulgence and throughout three decades as head of design for Braun, he has been at pains to avoid pursuing fashion. But his preference for utility should not be equated with facelessness. Rams's work for Braun and Vitsoe has been acclaimed for purist simplicity and coherence as well as for practicality. Frank Gehry (page 36) has transformed himself in the past decade from an avant garde designer of homes for California's wealthy artistic fringe with an endearing obsession with fish, into one of America's most successful architects. His buildings still retain theirimplausibly sculptural character and he's stillas willing as everto take risks to pull off a risky-sounding project. His laminated bentwood furniture for Knoll marks Gehry's second attempt to design "the Volkswagen of chairs". Ten years ago his cardboard prototypes for Vitra aroused much admiration but sadly they never went into production. Paul Rand's (page 42) graphic design owes as much to his personal investigation ofart history as it does to twentieth century Modernism. He made his name in the 1940s with bold magazine designs for Apparel Arts, Esquire and Direction before moving on to co-found the advertising agency William Weintraub. Over the past forty years, Rand has created the trademarks for some of America's best known companies -Westinghouse, United Parcels Service and ABC television in the 1960s as well as the unmistakable symbols for IBM and NeXT computers in the 1980s. He recently retired after 25 years as Professor of Graphic Design at Yale University. Bill Moggridge (page 48) first worked in America as a young product designerin the late 1960s and he has spent much of his career since with one foot either side of the Atlantic. He founded Moggridge Associates in 1969 and established himself with clients such as Hoover and ITT. Ten years later he headed west once again, this timeto found an American subsidiary in San Francisco. In 1991 Moggridge joined forces with Matrix Design and engineers, David Kelly Design to form IDEO which now employs 140 product designers and engineers in Britain and the USA. Emilio Ambasz (page 52) first came to international prominence when, stillin his early 20s, he organised the provocative exhibition "Italy­­the new domestic landscape" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He moved on to set up his own design studio, working initially as an industrial designer, specialising in furniture and electrical machinery. More recently, he has worked increasingly as an architect. Despite his metaphysical enthusiasm for design philosophy, he retains a robustly entrepreneurial approach to business. Justin Meath-Baker (page 64) originallytrainedasa landscape architect but his design interests range much further than that. He first worked as a "pleasure consultant" fortheme parks and now earns his living as an interior and furniture designer. He recently won the Blueprint New Voices competition for aspiring design writers. 2 DESIGN REVIEW SUMMER 1992

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