Twentieth Century Design

The most famous designs of the twentieth century are not those in museums, but in the marketplace. The Coca-Cola bottle and the McDonald`s logo are known all over the world, and designs such as the modernist `Frankfurt Kitchen` of 1924, the 1954 streamlined and tail-finned Oldsmobile, or `Blow`, the inflatable chair ubiquitous in the late 1960s, tell us more about our culture than a narrowly-defined canon of classics. Drawing on the most up-to-date scholarship (not only in design history but also in social anthropology and women`s history), Jonathan M. Woodham takes a fresh look at the wider issues of design and industrial culture throughout Europe, Scandinavia, North America, and the Far East. He explores themes such as national identity, the `Americanization` of ideology and business methods, the rise of the multi-nationals, Pop and Postmodernism, and contemporary ideas of nostalgia and heritage. In the history which emerges design is clearly seen for what it is: the powerful and complex expression of aesthetic, social, economic, political, and technological forces. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.