About the Book
Design, History and Time reflects on the nature of time in relation to design, in both past and contemporary contexts. In contrast to a traditional design historical approach which emphasizes schools and movements, this volume addresses time as a continuum and considers the importance of temporality for design practice and history.
Contributors address how designers, design historians and design thinkers might respond to the global challenges of time, the rhythms of work, and the increasing speed of life and communication between different communities. They consider how the past informs the present and the future in terms of design, the importance of time-based design practices such as rapid prototyping and slow design, time in relation to memory and forgetting, and artefacts such as the archive for which time is key, and they also ponder the design of time itself.
Showcasing the work of 15 design scholars from a range of international contexts, this book provides an essential text for thinking about changing attitudes to the temporal.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Foreword, Barry Curtis (Royal College of Art, UK)
Introduction, Zoë Hendon (Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, Middlesex University London, UK) and Anne Massey (University for the Creative Arts, UK)
Section One: Millennia, Centuries
1. Designing Stone: Temporal Representation of a Timeless Material, Seher Erdogan Ford (Temple University, USA)
2. ‘The Drama of the Soul’: Time, Eternity and Evolution in the Designs of Phoebe Anna Traquair, Sally Anne Huxtable (National Museums Scotland, UK)
3. Time Aboard the Ghan: Alice Springs to Adelaide, March 2016, Anne Burke (Middlesex University, UK)
Section Two: Centuries, Decades, Years
4. As Good as Apple Pie? Post-unification Germany and the Reception of Public Art from the Former German Democratic Republic, Jessica Jenkins (Falmouth University, UK)
5. The Story of a Portuguese Cock and Other Knick-knacks: Heritage, Propaganda and Design in a Far-right Dictatorship, Carlos Bártolo (Universidade Lusíada, Portugal)
6. An Experiment with Time: Modern and Classical Influences in the Planning of 'High and Over' ,Michael Findlay (Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand)
7. Making ‘Atomic’ History: Consuming Historical Narratives in the ‘Unofficial’ Digital Archive, Emily Candela (Royal College of Art, UK)
8. A Queer Feeling and its Future in/for Design History, John Potvin (Concordia University, Canada)
Section Three: Days, Hours, Seconds
9. Tube Time: How the Subterranean City Got Faster by Design, David Lawrence (Kingston University and London Transport Museum, UK)
10. Dreams of The Fun Palace and Plug-In City: Architectural Modularism and Cybernetics in the 1960s, Claire McAndrew (University College London, UK)
11. Sign of the Times: Slow Design in the Age of Social Acceleration, Niels Peter Skou (University of Southern Denmark)
12. Fast and Slow: Design and the Experience of Time, Stephen Hayward (Central Saint Martins, UK)
13. Delivered in Less than Sixty Seconds: Temporal References in the Design and Discourse of Digital Reading Devices, Toke Riis Ebbesen (University of Southern Denmark)
Select Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Anne Massey is Professorial Fellow in Design and Culture at the University for the Creative Arts, UK. She is the author and editor of a number of books, including Pop Art and Design (2017), Designing the Modern Interior (2009) and Hollywood Beyond the Screen (2000), all published by Bloomsbury. She is known for her work on the Independent Group and post-war British culture, including The Independent Group: Modernism and Mass Culture in Britain, 1945-59 (1995).
Zoë Hendon is Head of Collections and Associate Professor (Practice) at the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture (MoDA), Middlesex University, UK. She is the author of Wallpaper (Shire Publications, 2018) and has published articles in journals such as Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education, Journal of Decorative Arts, Architecture and Culture and Museum and Society and Journal of Design History for which she is a member of the editorial board.
Review :
Design, History & Time offers a challenge to design historians. It asks them to consider how assumptions about time as a measure of social value are ‘baked in’ to our thinking about design. It also offers ways to work through these assumptions and fixed representations, by putting a critical analysis of time at the forefront of design history.
Part history, part travelogue, part meditation on the meaning of time, Design, History and Time offers challenging thoughts on the nature of time and playful reflections on popular culture.
From the permanence of cathedrals whose very construction spanned centuries to the inherent obsolescence of digital communication devices, this fascinating collection forces reconsideration of society’s changing relationship with time over time.
