European Design Since 1985
From left, Hey Chair Be a Bookshelf! Bookcase, Maarten Baas (photocredit: Maarten van Houten); You Can’t Lay Down Your Memories Chest of Drawers, Tejo Remy (courtesy Droog Design) and This Mortal Coil Bookshelf, Ron Arad (courtesy Philips de Pury)
European Design Since 1985: Shaping the New Century
Ed. by R. Craig Miller, Penny Sparke and Catherine McDermott,
published by Merrell, £35 (hb).
Reviewed by Grant Gibson
Six years in the making, European Design Since 1985, says co-author R. Craig Miller, ‘represents one of the first extensive and critical surveys of contemporary Western European design.’ And in a sense he’s right. Deyan Sudjic’s latest book The Language of Things investigated the semiotics of objects, while, as its title suggests, The Furniture Machine by Gareth Williams concentrated on a particular area of the sector. And neither limited themselves geographically, of course.
The book opens with three chapters from the three authors. Sparke effectively sets the scene, trotting swiftly through the history of European culture and design from the end of World War Two until the rise and fall of the Memphis movement and the emergence of the likes of Philippe Starck, Ron Arad and Jasper Morrison. McDermott then picks up the literary baton, in an essay that charts some of the economic and social forces that shaped the sector throughout the 80s and 90s, including the fall of the Berlin Wall and the increasing influence of the EU, as well as new technologies, sustainability and globalisation. So far so good. Finally Miller attempts to codify and provide a taxonomy of the industry. And it’s here that things start getting needlessly complicated.
Apparently design during this period can be broken into three main strands: Post-modernism that was followed by a bout of Modernism which itself gave
way to a resurgence of Post-modernism. The first Post-modernist period can be split into two subsets: Decorative design and Expressive design. Modernism is divided into Geometric Minimal design, Biomorphic design, and Neo-pop design. While the last bout of Post-modernism consists of Conceptual design, Neo-dada/surreal design, and Neo-decorative design. Got that? No, me neither. It seems a desperately convoluted method of explaining something relatively straightforward. Essentially European designers since 1985 can be split into two groups, introverts and extroverts. The Cavaliers and the Roundheads. On one side are designers that want to make a lot of noise and put their personalities in the middle of the products they design – to turn themselves into a brand. Those on the other tend to be more reticent. The former group (think Starck, Arad and Wanders) want to re-invent or create new archetypes, the latter (Morrison, or Matthew Hilton, criminally ignored in this book) would rather subtly improve them.
In an age of pluralism the book is determined to fit everything into a neat category but the structure creaks under the weight of this ambition. Another problem is its definition of design. European Design Since 1985 isn’t about products the average consumer will buy on the high street. Instead, it focuses on the more rarified top-end of the furniture design market that you’ll see at places like the Milan Furniture Fair. Which is a bit odd as Miller criticises glossy design magazines in his essay, writing (not unreasonably): ‘Young designers can now find themselves under increasing pressure to find a “gimmick” that will attract instant media attention, instead of giving themselves sufficient time to learn their trade properly.’ But then he falls into the same trap himself. Less glamorous, no less worthy, industrial designers who don’t concentrate on furniture, such as SeymourPowell or IDEO, are notable by their absence. Likewise the book contains only a smattering of mobile phones and is almost completely devoid of things like cars or office furniture.
All this said, European Design Since 1985 remains spasmodically interesting and the authors should be applauded for adding some intellectual rigour to a book that in other hands might have turned into a coffee-table tome. Without making any political points – for whatever reason it neglects to discuss Design Art and soaring auction prices for limited-edition furniture – it also neatly sums up the dilemma that’s facing designers in an age of over-consumption. If the work of Hella Jongerius, Jurgen Bey and Studio Job is a signal, a return to craft values would appear to be the answer.
