Main entry:

Betts, Paul.

Title & Author:

The authority of everyday objects : a cultural history of West German industrial design / Paul Betts.

Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, ©2004.

Description:

xiii, 348 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Series:

Weimar and now: German cultural criticism ; 34

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-338) and index.
Introduction : design, the Cold War, and West German culture -- 1. Re-enchanting the commodity : Nazi modernism reconsidered -- 2. The conscience of the nation : the new German Werkbund -- 3. The Nierentisch nemesis : the promise and peril of organic design -- 4. Design and its discontents : the Ulm Institute of Design -- 5. Design, liberalism, and the state : the German design council -- 6. Coming in from the cold : design and domesticity -- Conclusion : memory and materialism : the return of history as design.

Summary:

"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 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."--Jacket.

Resources:
Table of contents
Table of contents
Table of contents
Table of contents
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description
Book review (H-Net)

ISBN:

0520240049 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780520240049 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780520253841 (pbk.)
0520253841 (pbk.)

Subject:

Industrial design Germany History.
Design Allemagne Histoire.
21.82 industrial design.
Industrial design
Design
Industriedesign
Wohnungseinrichtung
Warenästhetik
Alltagskultur
Industriële vormgeving.
design objet domestique Allemagne fédérale 1945 1965.
culture matérielle guerre froide société de consommation Allemagne fédérale.
Germany
Deutschland

Form/genre:

History

Added entries:

Weimar and now ; 34.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 254308
Call No.: BIB 184243
Status: Available