1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910450446603321

Autore

Betts Paul

Titolo

The authority of everyday objects [[electronic resource] ] : a cultural history of West German industrial design / / Paul Betts

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2004

ISBN

1-282-36040-X

9781417544996

9786612360404

0-520-94135-7

1-59734-477-X

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (366 pages)

Collana

Weimar and now ; ; 34

Classificazione

LK 92900

Disciplina

745.2/0943

Soggetti

Industrial design - Germany - History

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-338) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- INTRODUCTION. Design, the Cold War, and West German Culture -- CHAPTER ONE. Re-Enchanting the Commodity -- CHAPTER TWO. The Conscience of the Nation -- CHAPTER THREE. The Nierentisch Nemesis -- CHAPTER FOUR. Design and Its Discontents -- CHAPTER FIVE. Design, Liberalism, and the State -- CHAPTER SIX. Coming in from the Cold -- CONCLUSION. Memory and Materialism -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

From the Werkbund to the Bauhaus to Braun, from furniture to automobiles to consumer appliances, twentieth-century industrial design is closely associated with Germany. In this pathbreaking study, Paul Betts brings to light the crucial role that design played in building a progressive West German industrial culture atop the charred remains of the past. The Authority of Everyday Objects details how the postwar period gave rise to a new design culture comprising a sprawling network of diverse interest groups-including the state and industry, architects and designers, consumer groups and museums, as well as publicists and women's organizations-who all identified industrial



design as a vital means of economic recovery, social reform, and even moral regeneration. These cultural battles took on heightened importance precisely because the stakes were nothing less than the very shape and significance of West German domestic modernity. Betts tells the rich and far-reaching story of how and why commodity aesthetics became a focal point for fashioning a certain West German cultural identity. This book is situated at the very crossroads of German industry and aesthetics, Cold War politics and international modernism, institutional life and visual culture.