In our reading this
week, “The first machine age in Europe” by David Raizman, we learned that
Hannes Meyer, the Swiss-born architect appointed director of the Bauhaus in
1928, argued that design is a product of “function x economy”, aligning design
with a scientific model driven by new technologies and manufacturing potential.
Considering this week’s lecture and readings respond to the following question
(approximately 150-300 words, as needed):
Do you agree or disagree with the position that
design is a result of “function x economy”? Do you think design today an ‘art’
or a ‘science’? Should it be one or the other, or can it be both?
I do not agree that
design in a result of “function x economy”. Granted, a company must sell products,
and these need to be functional to sell, so they can be financially sustainable
and have the capacity to keep designing new products, but by the same
reasoning, a company must give its designers freedom to create, just as Gropius
“supported artistic freedom and individuality rather than the imposition of
typical, standardized forms,” (Raizman, 2004, p. 181) because without
innovation, a product will not sell anyway.
Designers are the
visionaries who push the boundaries and pave the way to new possibilities of
design. Without this vision, design would grind to a halt and there would never
be new innovations because the focus will be on sheer practicality. Designer
Reitveld, whose “Schroder House fulfilled many of the esthetic principles
embraced in [the journal] De Stijl,
in particular the attempt to create a “living” work of non-objective art, to
extend the experience of non-objectivity to a built environment,” (Raizman,
2004, p. 171) believed that design went beyond pure bare minimum functionality,
and with this I agree. I think that design is an ‘art’ and should be treated as
so. I also think that there is a distinction between designers and
manufacturers - the mechanical process of building these ideas into mass
produced products is the ‘science’ component.
We have come a long
way from the designs of a century ago with designs that function better not
because they are simply practical, but because they create joy within the user.
The first Apple Macintosh computer (fig. 1) looks to us today an ugly piece of
technology – it satisfies its function well enough - you can type and use the
mouse - but by today’s standards, it wouldn’t be enjoyable to use at all. In
contrast, the Apple iMac currently on the market (fig. 2) also performs its
function, but, more than this, it makes the user want to use it because it is sleek and attractive and has a finely
tuned user interface that makes it a pleasure to use. Consumers, when given the
choice, will buy products that they will enjoy using – hence, a company must
accommodate for this by designing products that are not just ‘science-based’
and functional at that moment in time. Instead, they must allow for designers
to think creatively, using design as an ‘art’ to respond to the requirements
set by the interactivity involved between the user and the design.
Raizman, D. (2004). The
First Machine Age in Europe, in History of Modern Design (pp.
166-191) New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc.
Fig 1.
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| http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/first-apple-mac-plus-goes-up-for-auction-18-09-2009/ Fig 2.
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