Wendy Kaplan Volgorde van de boeken

In 1951, designer Greta Magnusson Grossman observed that California design was "not a superimposed style, but an answer to present conditions.... It has developed out of our own preferences for living in a modern way." California design influenced the material culture of the entire country, in everything from architecture to fashion. This generously illustrated book, which accompanies a major exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is the first comprehensive examination of California's mid-century modern design. It begins by tracing the origins of a distinctively California modernism in the 1930s by such European émigrés as Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, and Kem Weber; it finds other specific design influences and innovations in solid-color commercial ceramics, inspirations from Mexico and Asia, new schools for design training, new concepts about leisure, and the conversion of wartime technologies to peacetime use (exemplified by Charles and Ray Eames's plywood and fiberglass furniture). The heart of California Design is the modern California home, famously characterized by open plans conducive to outdoor living. The layouts of modernist homes by Pierre Koenig, Craig Ellwood, and Raphael Soriano, for example, were intended to blur the distinction between indoors and out. Homes were furnished with products from Heath Ceramics, Van Keppel-Green, and Architectural Pottery as well as other, previously unheralded companies and designers. Many objects were designed to be multifunctional: pool and patio furniture that was equally suitable indoors, lighting that was both task and ambient, bookshelves that served as room dividers, and bathing suits that would turn into ensembles appropriate for indoor entertainment. California Design includes 350 images, most in color, of furniture, ceramics, metalwork, architecture, graphic and industrial design, film, textiles, and fashion, and ten incisive essays that trace the rise of the California design aesthetic.

Written by leading social and art historians, Designing Modernity is published to accompany a major traveling exhibition organized by the Wolfsonian, a Miami institution dedicated to examining the social, political and aesthetic significance of objects produced between 1885 and 1945. Containing over 400 illustrations of the Wolfsonian's unique collection of objects, the book looks at the different ways that political, industrial and cultural leaders have employed design in their programs of reform and their efforts to shape public opinion. It shows how design has been a vital tool in acclimatizing people to life in the modern world and has helped to formulate a sense of national identity, especially in European countries, through local crafts and vernacular buildings.From the pages of Designing Modernity emerge some of the most significant trends of our age: the use of design in reconciling people to a loss of individuality resulting from mass production; the use of industrial and advertising design to support the idea that progress is good, that the future holds limitless promise, and that the machine offers comforts only dreamed of previously; the promotion of political goals by both democratic and authoritarian governments through design - in posters, books, board games, furniture, ceramics and countless other forms.

Examines the goals of the Arts and Crafts movement, and discusses style and influences