kenya.hara.designing.design

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WHAT IS DESIGN?

Hearing the Outcry

What is "design"? This i s t he fundamental que stion for my profession, and Ispend my days a s a des igne r t ry ing to f ind the answer somehow. We've enteredthe 21st cen tury , the ent ire world isengulf ed in a vortex of great t ransforma-tion, accelerated by technological progress, and our sense of values concerningboth t he making of things a nd communi cation is in flux. When te chnologychanges the st ructure ofour wor ld , the aes thet ic va lue s tha t have accumulatedin our e nvironment are ofte n victimized. The world, armed with ec onomyand tec hnology, pushes ahea d, but the long-nurtured a esthe tic of our dailyl if e, overpowered by the intens ity of the t ransformat ion, let s out a con tinua lscream. In a situation like this, might it be more important to listen to thec ries and face the del ic ate value s tha t a re about to be d issipa ted in the whirl ingcha nge, t han to look for the next big thing on the horiz on? Lately I can't he lpfeel ing this way, and the thought grows s tronger dai ly .

Cons tant ly pushing the e ra forwa rd isn' t a lways progress. We standbetween the future and the past. I wonder if we could discover a key to ourcreativity not in that fa r-off targe t a t which all of soc iety stares so inte ntly,but rather in the e xtension of a vision that looks right through society fromthe past. The future lies ahead of us, but behind us there is also a great accu-mulat ion ofh istory-a re source for imagina tion and c reat iv ity. I think we cal l"cr ea tive " tha t dynamism of intel le ctua l concept ion tha t flows back and forthbetwee n the future and the past.

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Now design is not based solely on Western thought. Because theIndus trial Revolu tion occurr ed in England, peop le of non-Western soc ie tieshave long thought they had to l ea rn the s tandards of mode rn c iv il iz at ion fromthe West . But both the e ffe te c ivi liza tions of the day and s truggles among c ivi -l iz at ions were caused by the g loba l spread of the va lues ofWeste rn mode rn ity.Both human wisdom and design a re found in the bosom of individual cul tu re sa round the world. We have to become aware of the wisdom and insight thati s b eing threate ne d with extinction, soon to be swallowed up by the torrent ofgloba lism. We have learned myriad things from modern thought in the West.We give this truth its due re spec t and ea ch unique c ulture digests the fruit ofWestern modern t hought, but still, the world has begun to move towards newdesign wisdom.

De sign is the e ne rgetic ac knowledgement of our own living worldthrough the making of things and through communicat ion. Outs tanding per -c epti ons a nd discove ries should make us happy and proud as living humanbeings. New things are not born of nothingne ss, and they are not taken fromwithout, but from our a ttempts t o boldly awaken our e veryday existences,whic h seem ordinary a nd mundane . Design i s the provocation of the se nsesa nd a way of making us disce rn the world afresh. Some of the design proje ctsI 've int roduced in this book a re my a ttempts to access this sor t of speculationIII my own way.

If I talk about my own experiences, it's not going to turn into anybeaut iful s tory of des ign theory . Sti ll , verbal iz ing des ign isone thing a design-er does.

So fa r, I' ve told you severa l des ign s to ries , but I 'd l ike to t ake a br ie fmoment to review the per iod from the or ig in of the concep t of des ign throughtoday, in terms of va rious epochs. This is because I want to confirm one moreperspec tive within the t ide of history, one t hat looks out on both design andmy own life. Of course, I don't int end to trac e history precise ly, but to sum-mon my courage to c reate a rough port ra it , l ike a c roqu is .

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Two OriginsDesign began at the very moment man started to use tools. When was thatmoment?

In the fi lm, "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), the re 's a famous sceneof that very spec tacle. Two groups of anthropoids a re fighting one another.One of the anthropoids finds a cylindrical object like an animal bone andpicks it up. Using it as a weapon would give his group the advantage. Thegroup with the power of the blow ousts the other. But the club is thrown upinto the a ir and , ro ta ting s lowly, turns fluidly into a huge spaceship.

It's thought tha t tools origina ted when anthropoids started walk-ing erec t, picked up stick-like obje cts, a nd hit things with them or use d thema s weapons. From the instant they took the sticks in the ir ha nds, they st artedchanging the world around them through intelligenc e; the working of the irintellect began with the construction of their own environment, and that ledto the space ship. One part icular scene in the fi lm symbolica lly i llus tra te s thisevolution with dazzling imagination.

Ifdesign is the t ransforming of the wor ld based on unders tanding ,which forms our environment, the beginning of human wisdom may havebeen the beginning of design.

By the way, was the club the only resource for tools? To me it seemsthe re was one more. When our ancestors began to wa lk e rect , fo r the fi rs t t imeboth of their hands were fre e. Putting the se free hands toge ther would makea vesse l. I wonde r i f our ances to rs drank wa te r f rom the vesse l o f the ir l igh tlyfolded palms. I bet they did. Just as we ladle water with our hands from amountain st re am, so d id they. When the palms a re l igh tly folded togethe r, thespac e within is so sma ll tha t a butte rfly can barely flap its wings. Here , in thisempty vessel , r eady to ho ld some th ing , i s the or igin of one more tool , a ve ssel .

A sti ck and a vessel-just as life itself has both fema le and male, sodo tools. Didn't our ancestors first obta in these two kinds of tools at aboutthe same time? Imagine the beginning of design right there . What meaning is

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the re in this vanish ing poin t of the se two images, where they nea rly conve rgeinour d istant pa st? I can' t c le ar ly expre ss i t in words . Howeve r, i fwe place thewe llsp ring of des ign the re , on this vanish ing point , our imagina tion concern-ing des ign wi ll become drama tica lly more flexible. In part icular , I be lieve tha tby conc entrating on the original form of a vesse l, which functions prec ise lybeca use it holds "emptiness" or nothingne ss within, we may be able to comeup with a new cri tica l discernment towards c iv il iz at ions tha t have st re ssed thec lub and processed the envi ronment to excess.

The c lub ampli fies physica l s treng th and has evo lved into a too l tha tcan process and change the world. A sha rpened s tone axe developed into too lsor weapons for hunting animals: the sword, the spear, the bow and arrow.At the same time, it evolved into the plow and the hoe to cultivate the land;an oar topropel boats; a prope ller to padd le the a ir and process ing too ls suchas the saw, the hammer a nd the knife. In the da zzling, brilliant history of hu-man beings, the axe has evolved slowly and steadily. After the invention ofmotive ene rgy, i t deve loped into an enormous power. Power shove ls, c ranes,tanks and missiles that actualized an e ven more mammoth increase in powe rhave swol len to such a scale a s to me tamorphose the nurturing envi ronment ofour very existence. And i t i snot on ly large -scale things, but a lso infini te sima lthings and mic roengineer ing a imed a t nano technology tha t a re extensions ofthe c lub as a means of extend ing our phys ical funct ions .

Of cour se the vessel deve loped into various k inds of con ta iners , buti t a lso evolved into a ll k inds of too ls, l ike c lo th ing and shel te r, tha t ho ld emp-t iness wi thin and a lso ho ld or preserve things. Likewise , languages , which acta s a tool for emot ions and speculat ion; let te rs and cha racter s, which preservelanguages; o r books , which house let te rs and cha racters . Al l the se a re vesse lstoo. Extending from the vessel are also re ceptacles of inte llect, suc h as thehard drive , which a rchive s a ll da ta , inc lud ing sound and image .

Mankind has constructed civilization by considering the operationsof acce ptance and preservation as antithetical to those of manufa cture andchange . Within the ir evo lut ion, c lub-de scended tools and vesse l-de scended

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tools have sometimes united, giving bir th to innovative tools like the spaceshipand computer, which are neither stic ks nor ve sse ls, but c omprise both; theya re both s tick-l ike vesse ls and vesse l-l ike s ticks. With the se innova tive too ls ,what kind of wisdom wi ll mankind cultivate now? The pre sent is the first stepin this new situation.

Decoration and PowerIs des ign decorat ion? The concept of mode rnism is to specu la te on the shapesand colors of objec ts with a ra tional mind, eliminating a ll patte rned decora -tion, or "frills." But in t erms of human history, mankind's grasp of the con-cep t of s impl ic ity is comparat ively recent . In fac t, wi th no fear of misunde r-s tand ing, I can say tha t throughout most ofmankind 's long his tory, des ign hasbe en a metaphor for afflue nc e and the decora tion that cele brates the tra ces ofthe man-made.

For instance, what was the purpose of des igning the volute pa tternst hat are de nsel y overla id on the bronz ewa re c rea ted in China's Bronze Age?Why aren't the patterns plain and simple? When you think about it, the sen-s ib il ity tha t can see value in simplici ty depends on a special aes the tic. Humanbeings a re na tural ly awed by things tha t a re int rica te and complex. Our a tten-t ion ismore a roused by bronzeware whose ent ire surf ace iscovered wi th int ri -ca te patterns than by a pl ain one with no decoration. This is bec ause withinthe int rica te ly pat te rned object i s concent ra ted the mastery of di fficul t ski ll sand the accumulation of artifice spanning a vast period of time. So we feel aspecia l aura is expre sse d in the comple xity of patt erns. Bronzeware was thehigh tec hnology of the t ime and was closely related to the a uthority that thenru led. That i s, e laborate decora tions were employed, a s we re breadth of sca leand symbolism, to exe rt c ent ripe ta l fo rce to maintain uni ty among count riesor clans.

The more t he number of human beings on the pla ne t incre ased, themore dynamica lly a ctive were the various c ountries and c lans, and the more

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mutual conta ct and interfe rence ensued. Refined pat terns func tioned in thesurroundings of all gre at powe rs with especiall y stalwa rt armed forces andintimida ting a uras. The volute pattern led to the creation of the dragon pa t-tern. In the neighboring I slamic wor ld , the authori ty of the re ligion and of thenations was expressed with intricate geometric pa tterns a s we ll. The same istrue of Europe. The a uthoritati ve power of the kings a nd the ir c ountrie s wasclosely connected with delicate, e laborate patterns. The congeries of magnifi-ce nt, complicated skills found in the churches has the same meaning in termsof the demonst ra tion of authori ty and power.

The same root applies to the rea sons for the creation of numerousa stounding decora tions: the wal ls of the Ta j Mahal in India, wi th the ir amaz-ing a rabesque des igns us ing a va riety of color fu l s tones from a ll corner s of theg lobe ; the dragon pa tterns carved eve rywhere in the Forbidden City in Bei jing ;the a rabesque designs cover ing ent ir e wa ll s o f mosques ; the int rica te , Goth ic -style cathedrals and e laborate stained g la ss of the ir magnif ic en t interiors ; thecomplex, embellished rococo decora tion of the Mirror Room in Ve rsaille s.These k inds of mind-boggl ing accompl ishments, which can be achieved onlywi th immense amounts of t ime devoted byhighly t ra ined human hands , b reedpower. Until the arrival of the mode rn age, the world needed gre at powers.But the mode rn age is a world in which individual s, emancipate d from suc hove rwhelming power, c an f reely real iz e the ir own ways of l if e. The beginn ingof mode rn soc ie ty and the col lapse ofcent ra l governments marked by popularrevolutions and the ri se of democra cy were movements to free de sign fromdecora tion that was used to produce a c oercive force, and t he impe tus for dis-covering the value of rationality and simplic ity.

Indeed, in the days of the ince ption of mode rn design, de sign stillrested in the hands of craftspeople; a nd t hese ha nds, which underwent train-ing for the likes of the aristocrats, which knew well both the severity andthe pleasure of making things, maintained the quality of the furnishings oftraditional life. By and by, thanks to the craftspeople, the genera l public wa sa lmost at the point of be ing abl e to enjoy a va riet y of device s and goods tha t

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had been cul tiva ted over the course ofh istory . But a new paradigm for makingthings, called "ma chine production," trampled the potential for such an en-v ironment. Us ing this a s an opportun ity, human beings recognized a mannerof fo rming the ir env ironment tha t was ra tional and independen t-minded ; theybecame conscious of design.

The Origin of DesignAccording to the book "Pioneers of Modern Design" by the art historia n SirNikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983), the concept of design arose from the think-ing of two f igure s: John Ruskin (1819-1900), an advocate of soc ia l thought ,and William Morris (1834-1896), a theorist and the founder of the Arts a ndCrafts Movement. This was only about 150 yea rs ago, so it's not an old story.Thanks to the machine produc tion sys tem, which sprang f rom the Indust rialRevolut ion, England flour ished in the mid-19 th century . Howeve r, the ear lymachine-made products we ren't muc h to look at; the y were mere imitationsproduced by the awkward hand of machine ry, a iming to reproduce furnitureand othe r kinds of objec ts tha t ma in ta ined a ves tige of a ri stoc ra tic decorat ion.Glanc ing through refe rence materia l from the London's Great Exhibition of1851, we ca n imagine what they looked like. The cultivated forms that we rere fined over t ime by manual ski ll s were superf ic ia lly interpreted , distortedand mass-produced a t ext raord ina ry speed.

Under circumstances like the se , it seems that anyone with any af-fe ction for his own lifestyle and culture must ha ve fe lt the se nse of crisis overthe loss of some thing, and must have been conce rned about the de te riora tionof aes thet ic s. Those c rude machine -made goods would neve r be embraced bythe sophistica ted traditional culture of Europe without a fight. In fa ct, theappearance of the se substandard objects resulted in the unearthing of boththe culture tha t had been nurtured by manual work and the sensibilities hid-den benea th tha t cul tu re . Ruskin and Mor ris r epresen ted the col le ct ive snortof the people: "We absolutely cannot bear it!" This wa s their protest against

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machine production, which threatened to roll r ight over the intricate , delicatesensibi li ties awakened in us by objec ts . Thei r act iv it ie s we re a warn ing and agrea t booing aga inst the aggre ss ive , impa tient re form of the e ra . Clear ly, theconc ept of design, or the beginning of its way of thinking, was the ba ckla sh ofaes thet ic sensibi li ty aga ins t the dul lness and immaturi ty lurk ing in the indus-trial mechanism that was so violently changing man's living environment.

However, there was no turning back for machine production aslong as it continued to fue l the t rends of mass produc tion and mass consump-tion. Even though the c ommon intellect a nd aesthetic sensibiliti es leveledsome criticism against it, nothing was going to slow the momentum of theproduct ion and consumption explos ion igni ted by the Indust rial Revolut ion.Beca use Ruskin's writings and le ctures and Morris's Art and Crafts Move-ment we re sos t rongly ant i-modern , with both men championing the reviva l o fthe manual ski ll s o f c ra ft speople and har sh ly c ri ticizing the negat ive e ffects ofmachine produc tion , the ir a rguments we re no t accep ted into the mainst reamof the time and failed to gather enough force to stop or slow soc iety's trans-forma tion . Sti ll , the ir ins igh ts and pe rcep tions about the source of p leasurein the re lationshi p betwee n making things and daily life we re upheld by thedesign movement a ctivists of the ne xt generation as the very wellspring ofthe concept of de sign, so we can say tha t in the end they had a s ign ificant e ffecton society.

It goes without saying that we ca nnot dire ctly e xperie nce the eraof Ruskin and Morris, but we can ca tch a glimpse from preserve d materia ls.There is an abundanc e of these, vividly conveying the message s they intro-duc ed, including Morris's works of the Arts and Cra fts Movement, such ash is book designs for the Ke lmsco tt Pre ss and his wa llpape r des igns . Wheneve rI look at their work, I am in awe, as if I were ac tually mee ting the se stalwartmen of the 19 th cen tury. The ir spi ri ted drive in demonst ra ting- --not throughtheory but through real objec ts -an ant ithe sis to the doltish objects manufac-tured by the c lumsy machine is still intense and a rdent enough to unsettle thesensibilities of today's designers; we still succumb to its beauty. Somehow their

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work makes me fee l l ike I 'm be ing sco lded. Clearly the ir pa ss iona te enthusi -a sm inspi red the concept of des ign.

On the other hand, although the idea of design emerged from anega tive soc ia l s itua tion a ri sing f rom deter ior at ing produc t qua li ty , we can 'tde finitively state that it was solely the brainchild of Ruskin and Morris. Nodoubt during the middle of the 19th century, as civil socie ty mature d, therethr ived in a sub te rr anean channel a sensibi li ty di ffe rent from art , some senseof ga ie ty in c reat ing appropr ia te objec ts or env ironments, and a joy in br ing-ing these to daily life. With the appearance of crude, machine-made dailyc ommodities as an impetus, this se nsibilit y flooded a ll society. The move-ments led by Ruskin and Mor ris symbolized this deluge .

In a ny event, the raging torrent of mac hine production pa ined thedelicate aesthetic sense of daily life. This then triggered the emergence of designas a way of thinking and perceiving in soc iety. Today, as our living environ-ment is be ing newly t ransformed by the development and spread of informa-t ion technology , we need to once aga in focus on the c ircumstances and move-ments surrounding the origin of design. I think it's time we took a new look atthe roots of design thought and sensibility and at the pain that's a risen in thisnew e ra, just as if we were backtrac king to the era of Ruskin and Morris.

Integration of Design

There's one more development that occupies a significant position in theminds of us designers as a special epoc h e nshrined right next to the conce pt ofdesign. That's the Bauhaus movement. Bauha us refers to both a school of de-sign a nd a movement begun in We imar, Germany, in 1919. In 1933, the Naz isforced the Bauhaus to c lose, so the act iv it ie s of the Bauhaus prope r on ly las tedfourteen years. Even in its heyday, the Bauhaus was sma ll, with a little moretha n a doz en tea che rs and less than two hundred students. But this is wherethe concept of "des ign" got i ts di rect ion. He re , the machine produc tion sys temwas acce pted as a positive aspec t. At the same time , a varie ty of conc epts for

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the plastic arts, excavated via the art movements of the beginning of the 20thcentury, were reorganized here.

During the period spanning the epoch of Ruskin and Morristhrough that of the Bauhaus, a storm of new and dazzling art movementsswept across the ent ir e wor ld: Cubism, Art Nouveau, the Vienna Secession ,Futuri sm, Dada ism, De Sti jl , Const ruc tivism, Absolut ism, Mode rn ism and soon. The names a nd repre se ntational style varied de pending on the country,region, and ideology, but if one thing can be said, it's that in every area ofEurope and in e very field of art, in order to bre ak from the forms of the past,practitioners used a passionate, radical trial-and-error approach to completelydismantle those forms.

Targets were all the vocabularies of the plastic arts that had ac-cumulated during the history of the dec orative .arts: ornamental idioms, ar-t isana l sk il ls , and snobbish , monomaniacal a ri stoc ra tic pursui ts . It may verywell be that as a result, various discipline s of the fine a rts and the plastic artsmomentar ily turned into a k ind of nut rien t-packed mountain of debr is .

It was the Bauhaus that with, pene trating ideas and e nergy, bothve ri fied and dissolved this mountain, then c rushed i t into powde r in the mor-tar o f powerful thought, and fina lly, in screening this det ri tus, a rranged andorde red the e lements. At this s tage , a ll k inds of e lements l inked to the p la st ica rt s were examined from the point of v iew of specu la tion aswe ll a s the sense sand then were reduce d to the ze ro point. The elements that could not be sim-pl if ied any furthe r we re ident ified a s color , form, texture , ma te rial , rhythm,space, movement , do ts , l ine s, p lane s and so forth. Itwas the Bauha us tha t, byneat ly laying out the se e lements a s if on an operating table , proudly declared,"All right the n, let's begin a new era of plastic arts." And it did.

Of c ourse I am fully aware that this is a rough summary made witha s imple metaphor. The Bauhaus was a whole bundle of act ivi ties undertak-en by a great number of people and can't be bound into any single thought.Walter Gropius (1883-1969) put his heart and soul into integrating a widerange of a rt s and out lined the Bauhaus p lan. Johannes I tten (1888-1967) em-

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brac ed mysticism. With his prec ise theory of the plastic arts, Ha nnes Meyer(1889-1954) brought an accurate indicat or to the activities of the Bauhaus.Lasz lo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) explored a new approach to the plasticarts for the new era based on elements derived from the dismantlement ofpast forms. Both Paul Klee (1879-1940) and Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)pursued the original forms of the dynamics through whic h living beings c re-ate order (form) by equating the process of molding with the issue of life.Focus ing on the Bauhaus theater workshop , Oska r Schlemmer (1888-1943)deve loped a modernism tha t t ranscends convent iona l world-percept ions.The more carefully we look, t he more individuality we find. The Bauhaus iss imply the re su lt o f the conve rgence of act iv it ie s carr ied out by ind ividua lsof many talents.

We could draw unlimi ted speculat ion f rom a detai led, mic roscopicexamina tion of this group and i ts act iv it ie s. But i fwe obse rve the ir combinedactivities from some distance, through the telescope of the 21st century, thecollection of glitter ing stars would certa inly appear as swi ding galactic clouds,Unless we look a t i tw ith our eyes ha lf c losed, we of ten lose s igh t of the e ssenceof history , bu t here , viewing the Bauhaus just a s we would a ga laxy f rom afa r,I' d l ike to roughly summarize i ts ent ity and continue my story . Briefly pu t, thec oncept of de sign realiz ed an extremely pure form in the framework of mod-e rn ism, thanks to the opportuni ty prov ided by the Bauhaus.

Design in the Afternoon of the 20th CenturyJohn Ruskin and William Morris nurtured the seeds; the art movementsof the early 20th century cultivate d the soil ; conse quently it was on the soilof Germany that design put forth small buds in the form of the Bauhaus.The way of thinking that design has presented embraces a world endowedwith real sponta neit y and liberty, and has developed into abundant foliagein many different cultural a spects insofar as human beings acknowledge thequality of their lives in terms of products and communication.

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Now, in the se cond ha lf of the 20th century, whe n design was sup-posed to flower, the power of the economy, ins tead , began to drive the world.Design ended up being pulled along by the new engine of the economy. Alldesign thought, whether of Ruskin and Morris or of the Bauhaus, has hada socialistic tint. Both Ruskin and Morris abhorred be ing controlled by aneconomy in which making things was synonymous wi th machine produc tion ,and beca use the birth of the Bauhaus was enabled by the soci al-democraticgovernment in Weimar, i tc an be said tha t the soc ia l-democra tic t rend fos te redthe Bauhaus way of think ing . Bas ical ly , the concept of des ign was conce iveda nd developed in no small measure on the premi se of idealistic soc ial ethic s.Now, within the int ense magnetic field of e conomic principle, the pure r thec oncept, the less able it is to live up to its ide al.The birth of economic principle is cle ar-cut. Modern socie ty wasreal iz ed and pe rsonal freedom was born. This heightened the urge to posse ssobjec ts, consume goods and service s, and accumulate weal th . Thus were gen-e ra ted an unl imi ted number ofau thori ties c reated to sat is fy the se des ire s moreadvantage ously, and a s these congregated and sepa rated, a new great powertha t would move the wor ld came into existence. This was the economy.

The ec onomy, in an aim to encourage consumer spending in mod-ern society, works to ensure the success ive product ion of new objects. And inorder to c irculate these new produc ts as the objec ts of consumer desires, themedia have deve loped into a var ie ty of fo rmats, and communica tion methodshave seen pers is tent evolut ion. As tounding ly, des ign has become pa rt o f thecurrent of economic development.

The world expe rienced two great wars in the 20th century. Ifwelook at this from a broad perspective, we see demonstrated the processby which the world shifts to a new motive principle. People around theworld, billions of them in myriad nations, cultures and religions, all livebv thei r own sense of value. The more intense the dynamism of inrerr ela-~ ,tion, which is allowed by the progress of movement and correspondencein the form of tra de a nd philosophical exc hange, the more freque ntly egos

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In industr ia l design, the individuality of designers is suppressed, while the willand st ra tegy of the corporat ions tha t p lan, produce and sel l goods or se rvice sis reflected accurately. If this system works well, we get rational design thatski ll fu lly gathe rs material s and technology in response to the demands of thecontemporary lifestyle. If i t does no t, we ge t shame le ss de sign tha t has ingra -tiated itself to the market. The industrial products of Japan, represented bySONY, have shown the world high-standard design ba sed on employment ofin-house designers, c lose ties between engineering and design, and scrupulousmanagement of standardization and mass production.

Style Change and IdentityWhat if we look at the United States? European pioneers of modern designwho emigra ted to e scape the war brought wi th them a por tion of tha t concept.Wa lter Grop ius went to Harva rd Univers ity, Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969)went to the Il linois Inst itute of Technology, Lasz lo Moholy-Nagy led the NewBauhaus in Chicago. Each communicated h is idiosyncra tic thinking about de-s ign in h is new home. These influxes of European or Bauhaus-s tyle thinkingcan be de tected behind the Uni ted Sta te s' b reak through in the fields of a rchi -tecture and product design.

Howeve r, un like the social -democra tic- tinged thought of the Bau-haus, design in the United States has continued to emit vivid colors as part ofthe market ing tha t supports i ts economic deve lopment . In the U.S. , de sign hasevolved in an extremely pragmatic manner, c losely linked to marketing analysisand management s tra tegy. The preva lence of s tre amlining in the 1930s in theU.s. was where the practice of using design to change the form of a product orig-ina ted. Ever s ince, the re 's been no slowdown in the deve lopment of a coupl ingtha t a ffects the ent ire world: the di ffe rent ia tion of surface design pai red wi ththe evolut ion of indus trial technology. In an environment in which the Uni tedStates leads the world economy, this kind ofpragmatic view of design influencesEurope and Japan as we ll. In short, the U.S. views design as a management

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r esource. Ent repreneurs , who discove red tha t innovat ion is wha t whe ts peo-ple 's appetite for consumption, promoted design to the role of "style changer ."

The appearance ofa new style forced the aging of the exist ing prod-uct and turned it into an antique. Series of plans were drawn up based onthe strategy of "making things that are fresh today seem old tomorrow," justto motiva te consumer spending, and des ign re sponded to tha t ro le with con-tinual changes to product appea rance. Then, in eve ry corner of the world, a llkinds of produc ts , from cars to AVequipment, lighting appliances, furniture,sundries and packaging , came into existence through s tyle change and st ir redup consumer appetites.

On another front, when Europeans recognized the operating con-cept of brand ( the pre se rva tion ofvalue in the marke tp lace ) they a lso a ssignedto design a portion of the work of handling this device, namely, branding.In the past , "management re sources" meant human re sources ,equ ipment andfinancial resources. Recently these have been joined by information, which in-c ludes bo th corporate image and brand, two concep ts tha t have fi ltered downto the gene ra l publ ic . I t i s a lso the Uni ted Sta te s tha t has ski ll fu lly deve lopedmethods l ike corpora te identi fica tion and brand management , s tra tegica llyinterpreting the role of design to aid corporate management.

Thought and BrandWhat about European des ign? In Europe , two othe r de feated countries , Ge r-many and I ta ly, pu lled des ign a long as they developed. Af te r the c losing of theBauhaus school, most of the profe ssors left for the Unite d States, but thosewho had shared school experience s he lped the Bauhaus idea progre ss in the irnew homes.

In Germany the Ulm School of Design played a part. Its first direc -tor, Max Bil l (1908-1994), advoca ted a concept he cal led Umu/eltgestaltung(Envi ronmental Design) , wi th which the pe rspec tive of de sign began to in-c lude the idea of contending wi th i ts envi ronment. The princ ip le of the school

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is c lear ly readable in its curriculum, which includes the fie lds of architecture ,environment, product form, visual c ommunication and information, but itse ems the y're liste d here not as spec ialized fields, but to position design asa discipline that i ntegra tes all the fields. Inc luded in this c urriculum are notsimply knowle dge and tra ining in color and form, but a lso philosophy, in-forma tion aes thet ic s, e rgonomics, ma thema tics, cybernet ic s and the funda -mentals of the sc ienc es. The conte nts of this curriculum were no longer to berega rded a s an educa tional st ructure for a genre of handicrafts or art, but hadto be unders tood as a sor t o f integrated anthropology or integrated format ivesciences, premised on a crossover to science. This curri culum is evidence ofdeep cons idera tion of what k ind of ideas and knowledge system are needed tosupport de signe rs , whose work bears upon the ent ire env ironment. It speaksof the deepening profundity of the concept of design from the Bauhaus toUlm, a profundi ty tha t lay behind German precision produc ts (a s symbolizedat one time by those of the Braun brand) a nd was the result of a very high le velof research into human behavior.

What about the othe r de feated nat ion, I ta ly? Ital ian des ign , whoseLa tin radiance he lped deve lop modern des ign, i squi te a cont ra st to medi ta tiveGerman design. As illustrate d by the words of the industrial designer EnzoMari, who "grew up feel ing close to Miche langelo a nd Leonard da Vinci,"the wor ld of Ital ian des ign fr ee ly reaches for an exube rant or igina li ty . I ts f re e-wheel ing dynamism gives des ign yet one more appea ling aspec t. And becanseof the high qua lity of its ide as and its plastic arts, not in mass production, butin r elat ively sma ll -sca le indus trial p roduc tion tha t integra te s the handwork ofcraftsman into the production process, I ta lian design has achieved originality,excellence and increasing fame.

Examining European design in minute de tail, we sense the inde -pendent spirit of its designers as well as a lingering craftsmanship. This isp robably because the l ineage ofc ra ft sman- like handiwork is inhe ri ted a s parto f the vocat iona l consc iousness of European des igne rs . In the Bauhaus , a pro-f essor and a master c ra ft sman pa rtne red to teach lessons, and the foundation

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of European manufactur ing inc ludes the handiwork of t ra ined c ra ft speople.When this sys tem works we ll , i t produces des ign of s tunn ing ind ividual ity,or igina li ty and f reedom. When i tdoes not , i t r ende rs de sign inwhich we sensea somewhat arrogant individuality.

In the ma rket, t hose fine products marked both by the talent of in-dividua l de signers and the quality of the c raft smanship gain a reputation forsuperiori ty, whic h is then preserved as a spec ial value . That is, the force wecal l "b rand" ob ta ins soc ia l re cogni tion. This brand, gua rantee ing the qua li tyand origin of a product, imperce ptibly gathere d stre ngth in the world mar-ke t and cont inued to develop when refined as a methodology . The indus trialproduc ts of Ol ivet ti and Alessi exempl ify the not ion of brand . With branding ,we glimpse aga in the underlying strength of design. As I said, in the UnitedStates, this concept of brand wa s thereafter re se arched with great pa ssion asan e lement of marke ting and demonstrated its powe r as produc t design, c or-porate image management and ad s tra tegy des ign .

I c an't fully cove r Europe an design here. There are endless storiesabout the superb des ign of Scandinavia, France, England , the Ne therlandsand so on, but le t's le ave that for another time and continue on with the topicat hand. Japan, the United Sta tes, Europe: the shape and form de sign takesdi ffe rs in each society depending on the c ircumstances of i ts bi rth, i ts l ineage ,and what influe nce d it during the coming-of-age of the na tional economy.Sti ll , in the lat te r ha lf of the 20th century , when economic power s tr engthenedi ts con tro l, e conomy was the ma in source of power beh ind the development ofdes ign . Expec ted to do more and more , a s a service providing qua li ty , innova -t ion and ident ity, de sign began work ing to re spond to the se requi rements.

In the se kinds of soc ie ties , ordina ry people so enjoyed assoc ia tingwith the novelty of informa tion and produc ts that they became afraid of fall-ing behind the t imes .

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The Prank of PostmodernismOn the brink of the explosive spread of personal computers, we were boundto head into the infancy of yet another new economic culture, but on the eveof tha t birth, for just a bit, design stra ye d into a bizarre labyrinth. In the '80s,the term "postmodern" was introduced in the world of design, de vel opingi nto a tre ndy phenomenon tha t spread across the fie lds of a rchitec ture, inte-rior design and product design. Originating in Ita ly, it spread like wildfire tothe rest of the deve loped world. As the term indi cates, postmoderni sm wasconceived as the ide ological conflic t betwee n modernism and the new era,but i fwe review i t wi th a l it tle b roader per spec tive today , in the 21s t cen tury ,we rec ognize tha t postmoderni sm cannot be se en as a turning point in designhistory. It was just a fleeting commotion that oc curred during the hand-off ofthe conc ept of modernism from one genera tion to the next. If we look care -fu lly, we can even see pos tmode rn ism as an event symbolizing the aging of thegeneration of designers that susta ined modernism.

From the trends in the plastic arts, it is c lear that postmodernismwas a small, manipulated system of icons and something of a fad. Photos ofpe ople in old-fashi oned clothes of any past era make us laugh beca use of thes trangeness of an ent ir e soc ie ty 's par ticipa tion in this empty agreement cal ledfashion. Viewed from the 21st ce ntury, postmode rnism make s us laugh forthe same reason. It se ems like a revival of the Streamline Style. However, it'sworth noting that those who initia ted the movement include d designers likeEttore Sottsass, whose brill iant accomplishments include products and corpo-rate identity for Olivetti create d within the tide of modernism. Wha t distin-guishes this movement f rom the s treaml ine boom is the fact tha t the des igner swe re not ove rwhelmed by the p la st ic , represen ta tional nature of postmodern-ism, but those who perceived the l imitat ions and poss ibi li ties of modernismthrough their own experie nc e played with design, creating an empty iconicsystem with full knowledge of what they were doing. At the same time wecan 't fo rget the germina tion , among ord inary people, the rec ip ients of de sign ,

428 I 429

of a kind of maturity a nd worldline ss that re cognized and acce pte d the fic ti-t ious nature of this k ind of des ign.However, I que stion rea ding postmodernism as t he a ging of a c er-

tain gene ra tion , because this i sa wor ld of pranks, di rected by des igner s wearyof spending time with modernism and ordinary people who have attainedsome sophistication regarding information. In the generation tired of pouringi ts pure passion into modernism, I sense a phase of mature ins igh t.

The forms a ttending the playfulne ss of pos tmode rn ism are l ike thesophist ic ated jokes c racked by the designer s of our grandpa rents' genera tion ,an epoch of design's dissolution that we should c he rish. The world shouldhave let pos tmode rn ism pass wi th a smi le , bu t the economy a lone was ser ious,trying to use it to revita lize the market, a nd spreading it into the world muchmore tha n was ne cessary. For a bit , young designers were tossed about i n t heme lee too . Even c ri tics acc la imed pos tmode rn ism as a due l be tween mode rn-ism and a new era. Here lie s the c ause of postmoderni sm's wande ring, its be -wilderment and its bitterness.

From these eve nts we should re cognize tha t modernism isn't overyet. Even if the powe r of the impact it had at its inception ha s been lost, mod-ernism is not the kind of thing that can turn into a trend or a fashion.

Modernism has temporari ly suff ered from the exper ience of beingironically shrugged off as a parody by designers of a cer ta in generation who weret ir ed of pursuing i t. If the intel le ct tha t under stands the qua li ty of l ife throughthe pract ic e of making things isan essent ia l ene rgy tha t can inspi re mode rn ismto evo lve and grow, des igne rs born a fre sh among the younger generat ion whoare exposed to t he idea of modernism wil l direct a new modernism that tran-scends the work of the senior gene ra tion tha t g rew so t ired of the mains tream.

Computer Technology and DesignWhere does des ign s tand today? The remarkab le progress of informat ion tech-no logy has thrown our soc ie ty into great turmoil . The computer promise s, we

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believe, to dramatically increase human ability, and the world has overreactedto potential environmental change in that comput er-filled future. In spi te ofthe fact that our rockets have only gone as far as the moon, the world busiesitself with worries and preparations for intergalactic travel.

The Cold War between East and West is over, and the world longago be gan revolvi ng on the unspoken standa rd of economic might. In a worldin which economic power accounts for the majority of our values, peoplebelieve that the best plan for preserving that power is to respond quickly toforecasted changes to the env ironment . Convinced of a pa radigm shi ft to r iva lthe Indus tr ia l Revolut ion,peopie a re so worr ied about missing the bus tha t theybeat their brains out tryi ng to get to a new place, but are only acting on pre-cepts of precomputer education.In a world in which the motive force is the de sire to get the j ump onthe next person, to re ap the weal th compute r technology isexpected to y ie ld ,peop le have no t ime to leisu re ly enjoy the actua l benefi ts and t reasure s a lr eadyavailable, a nd in leaning so far forward in anti cipa tion of the possibilities,they've lost the ir balance and a re in a h ighly unstable si tua tion , barely manag-ing to sta y upright as they fa ll forwa rd into their ne xt ste p.

Apparently, people think they shouldn't criticize te chnologica lp rogress. It may be tha t deeply sea ted in the consc iousness of our contempo-raries is a n obsession of a sort, to the effec t that those who contradicted theIndus tr ia l Revolut ion or the machine c iv il iz at ion were thought of a s lackingin fore sight and were looke d down upon. That's why people have such a hardtime spe aking out against flaws that a re like ly felt by e veryone. This is prob-ably because they'r e a fr aid than anyone who grumbles about technology wil lbe t hought an anachronism. Societ y has no me rcy for those who can't keep upwith the times.

However, a t the r isk of being misunde rs tood, I have to say tha t tech-nology ought to evolve more slowly and steadily. It would be best if it tookthe time to mature, through tri al and error. We are so excessive ly a nd fra nti-cally competitive that we have repeatedly planted unsteady system in unsteady

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Iground, which have evolved into a variety of trunk systems that are weakand liable to fail, but have been left to develop anyway. Having no way tos top, they ba rre l down the t rack , comple te ly exhaus ted. People have wrappedthemselves in this unhealthy technological environment and are accumulatingmore s tre ss eve ry day . Technology continues to advance and has mul tipl iedbeyond the amount knowable by a s ingle ind ividual ; i ts ent ir ety can be nei thergra sped nor se en, a nd it's so va st its edges fade from view. There is nothingaes the tica lly appeal ing about communica tion or the prac tice of making thingswhen the ir ideology and educat ion remain unable to cope wi th this s itua tion ,bu t jus t cont inue on the ir f amil ia r t rodden paths .

The computer is not a tool but a material. So says John Maeda aprofessor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The implication isthatwe shouldn 't use computers in the manne r of just .swa llowing whateve r soft -ware come s along, but need to think dee ply and carefully about what kind ofintel le ctua l wor ld can be cul tiva ted based on this new material tha t operateswith numbers. I think his suggestion de se rves our respect. For any materi alto become a supe rb ma te rial , we need to puri fy i ts d is tinguishing a tt ributesa s much as possible. As a ma te rial for mode ling and carv ing , c lay has endlessplastic ity, but that limitless plastic ity is not unrelated to the mater ia l's devel-opment. If it were filled with nails or other shards of metal, we wouldn't beable to knead it to a usable consistency . These days i t' s a s i fwe' re kneading thec lay unti l our hands b leed. I have t rouble be lieving tha t anyth ing generated inthis kind of impossible s itua tion isgoing to bring any sat is fact ion to our l ives .

Design today has bee n given the role of pre senting the latest inno-va tions of technology and here , too, i s s tr ained. Design, which is accus tomedto showing its stre ngth in "making what's fre sh today look old tomorrow" aswe ll a s bring ing nove l f ru it s to a table fu ll of curious dine rs , i s fur the r exace r-bat ing i ts con tort ions , in obed ience to the new technology.

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Radical DashWhen technology moves soc ie ty , we cal l the society " technology driven," butthere is one c ountry whose de sign conforms to this situation more than thatof any othe r count ry. It 's the Ne the rlands . The c radle of Europe' s mos t r ecen tdesign epoch isn't a lways I ta ly or Germany.

In 2000, the World Expos it ion was held in Hanover, Ge rmany. Ecol -ogy was the theme, with presentations of programs about issues like naturalresources and environmental preservation. Only the Netherlands' message dif-fere d from the rest. I remember it we nt something like this: "Our c ountry'sland, the fore sts, the va riet ie s of flowers , ene rgy, even beer: we 've made i t a ll ,on our own." The Dutc h pavilion, nicknamed "Big Mac" and designed by thearchitect group MVRDV, comprised six layers. The rooftop held a plateau-likea rea wi th a sma ll lake and severa l windmill s tha t gene ra ted the bui ld ing 's pow-er. The lower level was a forest of natural trees. Natural wood pillars supportedthe floors and c eilings. A tremendous numbe r of fluore sc ent lights we re in-sta lled at ra ndom all over the ceilings, and it looked as if they ha d helped thet rees to per fo rm photosynthe sis. On the sub- leve l was a f lower garden. I seemto remember hea ring the sound of honeybees from sma ll monitor s scat te red inthe carpe t of flowe rs. Fundamenta lly, visitors to the pavilion were richly re -wa rded with a d irect experience of the Dutch way ofcommuning wi th Nature.

Now that I think about it, I recall that the Netherla nds reclaimed itsland by dra inage and a qua rter of i ts land l ie s be low sea level . Th is i s the originof the saying "God created the world. Netherlanders created the Netherlands."Saying that t hey made the land means they made the fore sts, the fie lds and thecanals. The Dutch canals a re ve ry geome tric, a s i f they were drawn with a ruler,and the houses stand neatly along their banks. Once tremendously enthusiastica bout improving tulip varieties, the Netherla nds is now the hub of the flowerseedl ing indust ry . I ts technique for gene ra ting ene rgy through windmil ls i s su-perb; it's possible to c onclude that the nation has some pride i n ha ving inter-vened in nature and c reated i ts own envi ronment through man 's a rt ifice .

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Simply put, the tra dition of Dutch mode rn design is radic alism,probably partly refl ecting this cultural di sposition. The artists who took anactive pa rt in the De Stijl movement in the first half of the previous centuryincluded the graphic designer Pie t Zwart, who ta ught at the Bauhaus, t he ar-chi te ct Ge rri t T. Rie tveld, noted for des igning the Red and Blue Cha ir a s we llas the Schrode r House, and the painter Piet Mondria n. The distinguishi ngfeature of the De Stijl a rtists ca n be interprete d as frank and fundamental-i st . The De Sti jl gave origin to the t radi tion of Dutch modernism exempli fiedby fastidiousne ss as well as whole hea rtedne ss, and marked by the sort of a t-titude that, once one de cide s to do something, he 'd be tter commit to it untilthe end. Rem Koolhaas, who shines wit h particula r bri llianc e in the world ofa rchi te cture , i s the emblema tic figure of this Dutch radica li sm; a floor turnsdirectly into walls and the walls immediately into ceilings. Pillars do notnecessa ri ly s tand uprigh t. The color selec tion for the sea ts in an auditor iumis random. Ce iling lamps are space d ra ndomly as well. To pursue a rationalspace apportionment, he come s up with the solution of a building designedas if it were raised from a ground plan made of a pie graph. His design ap-proach, presenting modern brill iant touches against his dry, candid solutions,which at first glance look aggre ssive, seems to be a produc t of the te chnol-ogy-driven context.

The Dutch product design collective, Droog Design, a lso entailsa nihilistic criticism of modernism. Though their pranks differ a bit frompostrnodernism's, the radical sensibility a t their c ore ha s the same root asKoolhaa s's. The aesthetics c ultivated in this land of no mountains and muchhuman inge nuity, fighting a bit with the jarring rhythm of an immature tec h-nology, has had no small effect on today's design around the world. It blowsa breeze of originality into the blocked mind. Before complaining about therap id progress of te chnology, i t might be a good idea to lea rn something fromthe straightforward, positive dash the Dutch have been on. There must besomething for us to lea rn from it, even if the greate r pa rt of this book's mes-sage is an antithesis to this kind of context.

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Beyond ModernismSo fa r, this tale of des ign has covered design absorbed in s tyle-chang ing tech-ni ques and design tha t clings closely to new te chnologie s, but design is norgoing to end up as a serva nt to the e conomy or te chnology. While le ani ng to-wards that tendency on the one hand, design has done a consistently good jobas a ra tional indica to r fo r g iv ing form to objects. With in i rs innermost part s,design carries an extra gene of idealistic thought: the pursuit of shape andfunction, and even while operating on economic e nergy, it maintains somesemblance of a cool, pious way-seeker.That is, within industr ia l socie ty, designhas steadi ly acted as the rat iona l and e fficien t ind icator, p lann ing for opt ima lobjects and environments. Every time te chnologic al progre ss reve als a newposs ibi li ty for c reat ing new produc ts or communica tion infr as tructure s, de-sign plays a role in persistently and consistently pursuing the best possible solu-tion. I am wri ting t his on a plane bound to Bue nos Aires from New York; notonly the improvement of aircraft safety, but a lso the c omfort of the sea ts a ndother inter ior furnishings can be recognized as the results of design's assiduouse ffo rt s. And f rom the s impl ified , e rgonomic form of my computer' s keyboa rd ,I a lso see clear ly design's role in manufacturing. In other words, one of theachievements of mode rnism is des ign's fi rmly rooted place in our dai ly l ive s.

Today's designers are beginning to realize that endless possibilitiesfo r des ign l ie dormant not just in the new situa tions brought on by technology ,but a lso in the common c ircumst anc es of our daily l ives. Creation of novelthings is not the only c reat iv ity. The sens ib il ity tha t a llows one to red iscove rthe unknown in the famil ia r i sequal ly c reat ive. We hold a great accumulat ionof culture in our own hands, yet we remain unaware of its value. The abil-ity to make use of these cultura l assets a s a virgin resourc e is no less creativethan the abi lity to produce something out of nothing. Beneath our fe et lies ag igan tic, untouched vein of ore. Just a s s imply donning sunglasses makes theworld look fresher to us, there is an unlimited number of ways of looking atthings , and most of them haven' t been d iscovered ye t. To awaken and act ivate

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those new ways ofpe rceiving things is to enrich our cognit ive facul ty, and thisrelates to the enrichment of the re lationship between objects a nd human be-ings. Design is not the act of amazing a n audience with the novelty of forms ormater ia ls ; i t i s the or igina li ty tha t repeatedly ext racts a stounding ideas f romthe c revice s of the very commonness of eve ryday l ife . Designe rs who have in-heri ted the legacy of mode rn ism and shoulder the new century have gradual lybegun to exp lore the ir consciousness of tha t f ac t.

The same is true of communic ation. To create an indicator tha t c anbe t rus ted in chaot ic c ircumstances isto amass sensible, practical observationson the re al state of affairs. Today we ha ve come to understa nd the rea l state ofa ffa irs a s fol lows . The convent ional i s not r ep laced by new technologies . Theold acce pts the new, resulting in more options. Wha t we ne ed for tha t to hap-pen is not to cling to the new, but to rational ly ana lyz e the options we've got.For example , in the e -comrnerce marke t, newly estab li shed companies havenot been as successful a s exist ing companies tha t enter ed the same f ie ld a fterpainstaking analysis. Internet news services haven't e liminated newspapers.The development of e -mai l serv ice and cel l phones hasn 't reduced the numberof postal objec ts . Clear ly , an inc rease in the number and complexi ty of medialeads to multipolarization of our communication channels.

Communica tion design is the sensibi li ty tha t e ff ic ient ly organ izesthe se media . The sensi tivi ty cul tiva ted by convent iona l media is not going tobe made redunda nt by t he emergence of new media. One medium may be theone that cult ivat es our communication sense , but othe rs will make use of it aswell. Design is the voc ation of taking both old a nd new media, favoring nei-the r, pu tt ing them into a c ross-d iscipl inary pe rspect ive, and making fu ll use ofa ll . Design is not subordina te to media ; de sign explore s the e ssence of media .In fa ct, within the labyrinthine c omplexity of toda y's media , we ca n e xpectpeop le to more c learly under stand the genuine va lue of des ign.

Digging a littl e de epe r into the re lationship between tec hnologyand communicat ion, some des igner s have begun to re think the possibi li tiesof the qua li ty of informat ion; put ting aside the rough informat ion tha t swirl s

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a round like dust on the internet and clings to our monitors, the y have recog-nized the profundity of the qua lity of i nformation pe rceptible only when thesense s become mobil iz ed . A symbolic example is the a tten tion in recent yea rstha t the field of cogni tive sc ience (which s tudies v irtua l real ity) ha s showeredon the "hapt ic " senses-those beside s s ight and hea ring . The very del ic ate hu-man sense s have begun to become very importan t in the fore front of technol -ogy. Human beings and the env ironment be ing equa lly tang ib le , the comfortas well a s the sa tisfaction we sense is ba se d on how we appreciate and cherishour communicat ion with the world via our diverse sensory organs. In termsof this perspective, the pa ired fields of design and technology and of designand science a re headed in the same direct ion. I special iz e in communicat ionbut have come to think that the ideal of this discipline is not trying to catchthe aud ience' s eye with an a rre st ing image , bu t having the image permeate thef ive senses . Th is i scommunicat ion tha t i s ve ry e lus ive yet sol id and the re foret remendously powerful , which succeeds be fore we even real iz e i t's the re .

Well, we took a roundabout path, but here we are . This spot whe rewe stand together now is where we think about de sign and practice design.Design isnot mere ly the a rt of making things . Our brief jaunt through his toryproved that. No, design is the occupation of straining our ears and eyes tod iscover new ques tions f rom the mids t o feveryday l ife . Peop le c reate the ir en-v ironments byl iving . Beyond the ra tional observa tion of this f ac t l ie the futureof technology and the fu tu re of de sign . Somewhere near the ir loose intersec -t ion, we 'l l find the fu ture of mode rnism.

436 i 437 WHAT IS DFSIG"i'

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