Tag Archives: Design History

Beauty, love, lust, sex, death, ‘The Age of Combustion’ is an ode and a farewell to the motor car

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James Dean in his Porsche 550, Vine Street, 1955 © Bettmann via Getty Images

In 1920 F Scott Fitzgerald took what turned out to be a rather rocky road trip from Connecticut to Alabama in a used Marmon so Zelda could rekindle with her childhood in the south. His upbeat account of the eight day adventure were later published in book form as The Cruise of the Rolling Junk. Zelda was less generous with the journey writing simply: ‘the joys of motoring are more-or-less fictional’. When building his 1924 Type 35, Ettore Bugatti modelled the engine first in wood to make sure the proportions were right for the car. In 1933 the racing driver Francis Turner was killed while testing Buckminster Fuller’s crazy-shaped three-wheeled Dymaxion since the architect and inventor didn’t bother too much with mastering aerodynamics and proper engineering so his prototype lifted at speed making it impossible to steer or brake as Turner was to tragically discover. The Fiat Lingotto Turin facility and its cinematic pista were the work of a naval architect by the name of Giacomo Matté-Trucco who was inspired by the theories of the Italian Futurists.

These are just some of the myriad of topics gathered from the car-besotted century by Stephen Bayley in his latest book The Age of Combustion – an edited selection of his Octane column, The Aesthete. This is a hugely engaging book and Bayley is a natural raconteur. His writing is erudite but also light and fun – forever weaving his immense pool of knowledge on architecture and design and cinema and literature and life into multiple narratives. Or to quote the industrial designer J Mays: ‘No one articulates the Theatre of Design like Stephen Bayley.’

Take a closer look here

Design Books: Ultimate Collector Cars by Taschen

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'Ultimate Collector Cars' by Taschen

‘Ultimate Collector Cars‘ is a lavish double-volume book by Charlotte and Peter Fiell documenting history’s one-hundred most collectable cars. It features the landmark 1903 Mercedes-Simplex 40-horsepower, the evocative 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC, iconic Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa of 1957, Bertone’s supremely glorious 1973 Lamborghini Countach and the present-day McLaren Speedtail and Aston Martin Valkyrie hypercars. Expertly researched and beautifully illustrated with archive and studio photography, Taschen’s latest book is a timely ode to the motor car as we enter the new age of the automobile. Read my interview with the authors who discuss their two-year research into this project here.

Images © ‘Ultimate Collector Cars’ by Taschen

How ideas from RCA students for a megacity taxi in 2040 can impact on our future

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Discussions on smart cities tend to miss the cultural side – the various social landscapes, which is why these designs by Royal College of Art Intelligent Mobility students – asked to imagine a taxi in a speculative megacity of 2040 – are worth looking into. A couple offer some sophisticated critical design thinking too with ideas that may have seemed impossible dreams before the pandemic made all things impossible possible. Take a closer look here

‘Women In Design’ – the alternative design history

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Women have made an immense contribution to design history. And it isn’t a huge surprise that historically it hasn’t always been an easy ride for female creatives battling in a male-dominated world. This is, of course, true of most professional fields, be it the arts or science. Many icons of design, typically attributed to leading male figures at the time, were, in fact, the work of women.

Margaret Calvert ‘children crossing’ signage 1936 © Crown

This is the premise behind ‘Women in Design’ – a fascinating new book published this month by Laurence King focusing on the female voice in the history of design. Published in alphabetic order are 100 creatives in various fields – from architecture to product and industrial design, graphics, fashion and textiles – even cars.

Nana Ditzel, Egg chair 1959 © Alessandro Paderni Courtesy of Doshi Levien
Nana Ditzel, Egg chair 1959 © Alessandro Paderni Courtesy of Doshi Levien

Featured are the famous names – Aino Aalto, Anni Albers, Charlotte Perriand, Ray Eames, Eileen Gray, Elsa Schiaparelli, Zaha Hadid, Patricia Urquiola. We also learn of less publicised female voices – the ‘Damsels of Design’ all-female team at General Motors in the 1950s, Margaret Calvert who sketched some of the world’s most enduring road signs including ‘children crossing’ in the 60s, and April Greiman, one of the first to realise the potential of the computer as a creative tool in the 80s. These are spirited creatives collectively introducing a lively dialogue to the history of design.

Learn more about the book and the role of female vehicle designers and graphic designers.

Japan House London presents ‘Subtle’ to salute paper art

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Paper is alive. Paper breathes. Paper is ever-evolving, changing conceptually and physically with time. Paper can be moulded, manipulated, sculpted. It can be decorative, functional, seductive, argumentative. It can even deceive. ‘Subtle: Delicate or Infinitesimal’ at Japan House London explores the possibilities of paper.

The show is curated and directed by Kenya Hara, the gallery’s global chief creative director and art director at Muji. The display is subtle, modest even, set within the building’s clean and clear deco beauty. It begs you to walk up, take an intimate look at these delicate objects and read the accompanying text which adds intrigue. For instance, the Origata Design Institute writes alongside its exhibit: ‘The act of folding paper – once you fold, you cannot return to the original state… but then you create structure and entrust your feelings onto paper.’

‘Subtle’ follows a successful run at Japan House’s other galleries in Los Angeles and São Paulo. The idea originates from the Takeo Paper Show, which began in Tokyo in 1965 as a way of engaging artists, challenging them to find new potentials for paper. Fifteen creatives living and working in Japan are on show here. They come from a diverse set of disciplines too – art, animation, architecture, fashion, graphic design and literature – each introducing their very own unique layer to this intriguing paper narrative. It reminds us of the value of the material, whilst highlighting the delicate craft of paper art in a modern light.

‘Subtle’ is at Japan House London until 24 December.
All images are © Jeremie Souteyrat, Japan House London.

Read about the previous exhibitions at Japan House.

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