1 00:00:08,927 --> 00:00:13,205 The designed world is a world of people and things. 2 00:00:16,087 --> 00:00:18,282 Design stands in between - 3 00:00:18,327 --> 00:00:21,444 the place where them and us meet. 4 00:00:24,727 --> 00:00:28,766 ln the story of design, the 1 920s and 1 930s 5 00:00:28,807 --> 00:00:32,800 was the period when the relationship between ''us'' and our ''things'' 6 00:00:32,847 --> 00:00:35,964 was subject to radical re-examination. 7 00:00:37,647 --> 00:00:42,198 A new social landscape emerged from the destruction of the First World War 8 00:00:42,247 --> 00:00:45,683 and brought with it a new mental landscape - 9 00:00:45,727 --> 00:00:48,639 one in which the machine loomed large. 10 00:00:50,247 --> 00:00:52,477 This prompted a number of questions. 11 00:00:53,767 --> 00:00:59,080 Should an Englishman's home be a castle, or a machine for living? 12 00:00:59,887 --> 00:01:05,519 Le Corbusier buiIt this corridor with the same measures of a train's corridor. 13 00:01:05,567 --> 00:01:10,595 So it stands for engineering and it stands for future. 14 00:01:12,407 --> 00:01:17,322 ls the kitchen the heart of the home or a factory for food production? 15 00:01:18,327 --> 00:01:22,161 Margarete herseIf was around with a stopwatch and kind of studying 16 00:01:22,207 --> 00:01:25,199 how women worked in a kitchen and how it couId be improved, 17 00:01:25,247 --> 00:01:30,241 trying to reduce the number of steps that peopIe took from the stove to the sink and so on. 18 00:01:32,447 --> 00:01:35,359 How many legs does a chair actually need? 19 00:01:36,367 --> 00:01:39,404 Imagine if you couId take air and fry it so it became stiff... 20 00:01:39,447 --> 00:01:42,245 and then you sit on it, that wouIdn't be bad. 21 00:01:44,207 --> 00:01:49,201 The answer to questions like these reshaped the world, then and now. 22 00:01:49,927 --> 00:01:55,604 A world of people and things, and the design that joins them together. 23 00:02:29,647 --> 00:02:35,438 ln 1 91 9, less than a year after the guns on the Western Front fell silent, 24 00:02:35,487 --> 00:02:38,081 a new art school opened in Germany. 25 00:02:39,727 --> 00:02:42,241 ln 1 926 it came here, 26 00:02:42,287 --> 00:02:46,997 to a purpose-built building branded with its own distinctive logo. 27 00:02:51,287 --> 00:02:53,164 To the residents of Dessau, 28 00:02:53,207 --> 00:02:57,325 it was clear that something altogether new had sprung up on the edge of their town. 29 00:02:58,207 --> 00:03:00,323 But what exactly? 30 00:03:01,327 --> 00:03:03,716 Now they're coming from Dessau, 31 00:03:03,767 --> 00:03:08,318 from the centre, here, from the south direction, to the Bauhaus, and the first thing they see 32 00:03:08,367 --> 00:03:12,485 is the Bauhaus Ietter and the buiIding. 33 00:03:12,527 --> 00:03:15,519 It was Iike a Iight fire in the Iandscape here. 34 00:03:15,567 --> 00:03:18,923 It Iooks Iike industriaI factory but it's a schooI inside, 35 00:03:18,967 --> 00:03:23,757 so the message is they want to educate the young peopIe 36 00:03:23,807 --> 00:03:27,243 to make products and design in the industriaI fashion. 37 00:03:29,487 --> 00:03:33,799 The Bauhaus was the centre of new thinking 38 00:03:33,847 --> 00:03:37,522 and the pieces that they produced 39 00:03:37,567 --> 00:03:40,877 were the furniture of the new thinking. 40 00:04:02,207 --> 00:04:04,596 I actuaIIy think the Bauhaus was quite punk rock. 41 00:04:04,647 --> 00:04:08,640 It was quite a sort of punk anarchic sort of sense of Iooking at something 42 00:04:08,687 --> 00:04:10,598 and turning it on its head. 43 00:04:11,487 --> 00:04:13,318 The Bauhaus was about bringing together 44 00:04:13,367 --> 00:04:16,006 sort of, you know, groups of discipIines 45 00:04:16,047 --> 00:04:18,800 and sort of smashing them together and seeing what came out. 46 00:04:25,127 --> 00:04:29,086 The Bauhaus was an art student's dream come true - 47 00:04:29,127 --> 00:04:35,043 an intoxicating mix of free love, avant-garde posing and legendary parties. 48 00:04:39,087 --> 00:04:41,237 But there was a serious side too. 49 00:04:41,287 --> 00:04:45,519 The curriculum, devised by Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, 50 00:04:45,567 --> 00:04:47,922 set out to break down the boundaries 51 00:04:47,967 --> 00:04:52,324 that since the lndustrial Revolution had grown up between design and architecture, 52 00:04:52,367 --> 00:04:54,801 craftsmanship and mass production, 53 00:04:54,847 --> 00:04:56,963 designing and making. 54 00:04:58,087 --> 00:05:01,841 This was designed to be an education without frontiers. 55 00:05:02,607 --> 00:05:06,919 You had fantastic painters, fantastic theatre designers, 56 00:05:06,967 --> 00:05:10,357 potters, siIversmiths, furniture designers, graphic designers. 57 00:05:10,407 --> 00:05:15,925 They aII worked together. There was no separation. There was no division. 58 00:05:18,087 --> 00:05:23,286 The architect, the construction worker, the brick worker, the carbon maker, 59 00:05:23,327 --> 00:05:28,117 the painter, the furniture maker - everybody - they want to open. 60 00:05:28,167 --> 00:05:31,842 They want to Iet the construction workers Iearn from the artist 61 00:05:31,887 --> 00:05:34,879 and the artists Iearn from the construction workers. 62 00:05:36,047 --> 00:05:40,165 You are exposed to the compIete range of art and materiaIs, right, 63 00:05:40,207 --> 00:05:43,563 and everybody goes through that first degree. 64 00:05:43,607 --> 00:05:45,643 It's Iike basic training in the miIitary. 65 00:05:50,927 --> 00:05:57,366 For the Roundheads in Gropius' New Model Army, the enemy was this. 66 00:05:59,327 --> 00:06:03,525 Sensual, organic and highly decorated, 67 00:06:03,567 --> 00:06:08,595 Art Nouveau had become the dominant design style of the turn-of-the-century world. 68 00:06:09,287 --> 00:06:13,200 Art Nouveau offered a kind of branding of contemporary Iife. 69 00:06:13,247 --> 00:06:17,399 It was the beginning of a sort of designer IifestyIe. 70 00:06:17,447 --> 00:06:21,645 It was very emotive - semi-erotic in many cases, 71 00:06:21,687 --> 00:06:23,564 or very obviousIy erotic in others - 72 00:06:23,607 --> 00:06:26,963 the incorporation of naked women into furniture pieces. 73 00:06:40,247 --> 00:06:42,807 The Austrian architect Adolf Loos 74 00:06:42,847 --> 00:06:46,601 had been one of the first to try and hack back at its viny tendrils. 75 00:06:48,167 --> 00:06:54,925 ln 1 908, he railed against Art Nouveau in a diatribe entitled Ornament And Crime. 76 00:06:56,007 --> 00:06:58,760 For Loos, the stakes couldn't have been higher. 77 00:06:59,527 --> 00:07:02,246 ''The evolution of a culture, '' he proclaimed, 78 00:07:02,287 --> 00:07:06,917 ''is synonymous with the removal of ornament from utilitarian objects. '' 79 00:07:08,047 --> 00:07:12,438 They thought that this ornament and over-decoration is a masquerade 80 00:07:12,487 --> 00:07:17,083 and they want to give the objects a good quaIity without masquerade. 81 00:07:18,327 --> 00:07:21,364 Loos was proposing the idea that... 82 00:07:22,167 --> 00:07:26,479 ..the use of excessive decoration debased society somehow. 83 00:07:26,527 --> 00:07:28,643 That it was... 84 00:07:28,687 --> 00:07:30,917 an excessive use of resources. 85 00:07:31,807 --> 00:07:37,803 If you strip away aII surface decoration from a product, 86 00:07:38,927 --> 00:07:42,556 so that aII the energy, aII the effort, 87 00:07:42,607 --> 00:07:48,079 is going into the integrity of the fundamentaI object, 88 00:07:48,127 --> 00:07:52,439 the idea, then, is that using that approach 89 00:07:52,487 --> 00:08:00,280 you can produce high-vaIue objects in high numbers for reasonabIe cost, 90 00:08:01,087 --> 00:08:06,878 and that is the most democratic way to design and manufacture products. 91 00:08:07,767 --> 00:08:13,046 You're providing the most of the best to the greatest number of peopIe for the Ieast. 92 00:08:13,087 --> 00:08:17,558 That's a reaIIy important credo for the modern... birth of the modern movement, actuaIIy. 93 00:08:17,607 --> 00:08:21,680 It was not a question of a styIe. They did not want a styIe. 94 00:08:21,727 --> 00:08:25,083 It was counterproductive for them to think about a styIe. 95 00:08:25,127 --> 00:08:27,721 They want to have the vision for a new kind of Iife 96 00:08:27,767 --> 00:08:31,919 and aIso they want to aIso, yeah, educate the peopIe 97 00:08:31,967 --> 00:08:36,995 to become new human behaviour for the 20th Century, for a new future. 98 00:09:01,087 --> 00:09:07,083 Every design revolution, from the Stone Age to the Digital Age, has its signature technology. 99 00:09:07,847 --> 00:09:12,523 For the Modernists, it was this - tubular steel. 100 00:09:15,887 --> 00:09:19,596 Using techniques originally developed for making bicycle frames, 101 00:09:19,647 --> 00:09:25,279 tubular steel could be shaped into structures that were lighter than wood, but far stronger. 102 00:09:26,727 --> 00:09:29,525 This was a new product, a new technique, 103 00:09:29,567 --> 00:09:34,595 and opened up a compIeteIy new fieId of soIutions. 104 00:09:35,287 --> 00:09:41,362 SuddenIy you had here a very good, Iight materiaI, visuaIIy very exciting, 105 00:09:41,407 --> 00:09:44,205 which you can paint, which you can chromium pIate, 106 00:09:44,247 --> 00:09:49,002 you can just Ieave it steeI, you know, you can have aII sorts of possibiIities. 107 00:09:49,047 --> 00:09:51,242 And that was a very important period. 108 00:09:54,927 --> 00:09:59,682 For designers, the test-bed for all new technologies is the chair. 109 00:10:00,647 --> 00:10:04,606 The chair occupies a privileged position in the design world. 110 00:10:04,647 --> 00:10:10,404 Half structure, half product, it's the place where architecture meets design, 111 00:10:10,447 --> 00:10:13,405 and where the designer's skills are tested. 112 00:10:14,727 --> 00:10:17,480 Have you ever tried to design a chair? 113 00:10:17,527 --> 00:10:21,202 I can assure you it's not simpIe at aII. 114 00:10:21,247 --> 00:10:25,559 The chair is aIways a...aImost a Iitmus test. 115 00:10:25,607 --> 00:10:32,479 For a designer it's a most difficuIt item to design, most chaIIenging, 116 00:10:33,207 --> 00:10:36,756 and because we are aII, aII of us, a different shape, 117 00:10:36,807 --> 00:10:39,275 it has got the eIement of compromise. 118 00:10:47,687 --> 00:10:51,157 I think it's impossibIe to sit down and say, ''I'm now gonna design a cIassic.'' 119 00:10:51,207 --> 00:10:54,597 It'd be extremeIy presumptuous more than anything eIse. 120 00:10:54,647 --> 00:10:59,926 But there are some moments for designers where they have, you know, perfect moments 121 00:10:59,967 --> 00:11:02,242 where, for exampIe, a company says to them, 122 00:11:02,287 --> 00:11:05,245 ''I'm gonna give you a certain technoIogy to work with,'' 123 00:11:05,287 --> 00:11:12,682 and what usuaIIy happens is the icon of that typoIogy gets designed very earIy on, 124 00:11:12,727 --> 00:11:16,766 and it's quite hard to move away from them once they've been defined. 125 00:11:18,647 --> 00:11:23,402 For Marcel Breuer, a former Bauhaus student who returned to teach there, 126 00:11:23,447 --> 00:11:27,565 tubular steel was his shot at design immortality. 127 00:11:40,727 --> 00:11:44,686 The story is that there was a party in the Bauhaus 128 00:11:44,727 --> 00:11:49,164 and Breuer had designed the IittIe Iaccio tabIe 129 00:11:49,207 --> 00:11:53,519 and he was taIking about it and the phiIosophy of it, etc. 130 00:11:53,567 --> 00:11:59,324 A few drinks Iater and a few conversations Iater, he said, ''What I'm going to do next...'' 131 00:11:59,367 --> 00:12:01,164 and then everybody was Iistening. 132 00:12:01,207 --> 00:12:04,916 He said, ''I'm going to turn the tabIe on its side 133 00:12:04,967 --> 00:12:08,164 and I'm going to have this as the Ieg 134 00:12:08,207 --> 00:12:10,801 and I'm going to have this as a seat, 135 00:12:10,847 --> 00:12:13,680 and here I'm going to spIit the tube, 136 00:12:13,727 --> 00:12:16,446 turn it up and I'II put the back there.'' 137 00:12:18,767 --> 00:12:22,203 And there you are, seat seat, back back. 138 00:12:22,567 --> 00:12:23,602 VoiIa! 139 00:12:24,327 --> 00:12:29,242 For Breuer, the gravity-defying cantilever construction of his chair 140 00:12:29,287 --> 00:12:32,802 clearly suggested other even more radical possibilities - 141 00:12:33,527 --> 00:12:35,722 a chair with no legs at all. 142 00:12:35,767 --> 00:12:40,602 It was very acceptabIe for the Bauhaus phiIosophy to, yes, 143 00:12:40,647 --> 00:12:43,559 overstep the boundary of reaIity and say, 144 00:12:43,607 --> 00:12:46,280 ''EventuaIIy we wiII sit on compressed air.'' 145 00:12:46,327 --> 00:12:50,843 ''Fried air'', which is an ItaIian saying for things which are meaningIess. 146 00:12:50,887 --> 00:12:54,880 But imagine if you couId take air and fry it so then it became stiff and you sit on it. 147 00:12:54,927 --> 00:12:56,918 That wouIdn't be bad. 148 00:12:57,887 --> 00:12:59,684 For designers and architects, 149 00:12:59,727 --> 00:13:05,359 the modern world was full of urgent hints about new and better ways of doing things. 150 00:13:08,007 --> 00:13:09,645 ln a warehouse in Germany 151 00:13:09,687 --> 00:13:13,839 are the remnants of some of the lessons taught by the new ''Machine Age''. 152 00:13:15,367 --> 00:13:19,724 These are the first ever examples of a domestic fitted kitchen - 153 00:13:20,447 --> 00:13:24,486 designed by the Austrian architect Margarete Schutte-Lihotzky. 154 00:13:35,567 --> 00:13:40,083 Margarete was not very fond of cooking and she aIways said, 155 00:13:40,127 --> 00:13:43,881 ''I even can't make a coffee.'' 156 00:13:43,927 --> 00:13:51,117 So she didn't Iike cooking very much, but she designed the kitchen very carefuIIy. 157 00:13:54,007 --> 00:13:58,842 Margarete came in with this radicaI idea, which is now known as a Frankfurt kitchen, 158 00:13:58,887 --> 00:14:03,119 which was basicaIIy the first reaIIy mass-produced fitted kitchen. 159 00:14:03,167 --> 00:14:08,560 The idea that she had, was to rationaIise women's work. 160 00:14:08,607 --> 00:14:12,919 When peopIe used the Frankfurt kitchen, there were many things that were great about it. 161 00:14:12,967 --> 00:14:15,037 Yep, it was very efficient and wipe-cIean 162 00:14:15,087 --> 00:14:18,318 and very functionaI, but peopIe found them very coId. 163 00:14:19,127 --> 00:14:22,915 There were a Iot of responses to it that it was very sort of aIien. 164 00:14:22,967 --> 00:14:24,958 And, yeah, it was Iike a factory. 165 00:14:25,007 --> 00:14:28,716 It was Iike a kind of a... a kind of gaIIey kitchen from a ship. 166 00:14:35,887 --> 00:14:40,244 I Iook at kitchens today and you can see where those have come from. 167 00:14:41,207 --> 00:14:45,883 They've come from those oId ideas that we want to have everything kind of neatIy organised 168 00:14:45,927 --> 00:14:47,406 and we want it to function weII 169 00:14:47,447 --> 00:14:50,405 and we want to be abIe to serve our famiIy in a way that makes sense. 170 00:14:52,007 --> 00:14:55,158 But who's to teII me where I keep my bread? 171 00:14:55,207 --> 00:14:57,004 We keep our bread in the microwave 172 00:14:57,047 --> 00:15:00,119 because it's the onIy storage pIace that wiII keep it dry. 173 00:15:01,687 --> 00:15:05,760 That idea of imposing a vision on somebody and expecting them to Iive up to it 174 00:15:05,807 --> 00:15:09,038 is an absoIuteIy impossibIe dream for any designer. 175 00:15:09,087 --> 00:15:11,362 So, you know, I aIways say this to our cIients. 176 00:15:11,407 --> 00:15:13,557 You need to create something that's adaptive. 177 00:15:13,607 --> 00:15:17,919 You need to buiId in fIexibiIity and you need to aIIow ''the person'' 178 00:15:17,967 --> 00:15:21,676 their right to customise the experience that you're creating for them. 179 00:15:25,167 --> 00:15:28,876 But designs for living weren't just confined to the kitchen. 180 00:15:30,767 --> 00:15:33,600 ln Weissenhof, a suburb of Stuttgart, 181 00:15:33,647 --> 00:15:37,925 the City Council offered designers and architects a larger canvas - 182 00:15:37,967 --> 00:15:40,276 the whole estate of houses. 183 00:15:40,327 --> 00:15:42,636 Show homes of the future. 184 00:15:44,927 --> 00:15:48,636 This was a kind of very radicaI thing for the city of Stuttgart to do, 185 00:15:48,687 --> 00:15:52,521 and they rounded up the kind of the reaI young guns of architecture. 186 00:15:52,567 --> 00:15:55,161 You know, you had Bruno Taut, you had Mies van der Rohe, 187 00:15:55,207 --> 00:15:57,801 you had WaIter Gropius, you had Le Corbusier. 188 00:15:58,807 --> 00:16:02,436 You go there now and you think, ''BIimey, if these were buiIt now, 189 00:16:02,487 --> 00:16:06,878 they wouId stiII be regarded as radicaIIy modern, Iet aIone in the mid '20s.'' 190 00:16:06,927 --> 00:16:10,636 You know. These beautifuI cubist bIocks right up on the hiIIside. 191 00:16:14,927 --> 00:16:17,646 The Double House on RathenaustraBe 192 00:16:17,687 --> 00:16:21,123 was designed by the Swiss-born architect, Le Corbusier. 193 00:16:26,327 --> 00:16:30,878 Le Corbusier's design went one step further than the fitted kitchen. 194 00:16:30,927 --> 00:16:33,521 This was a ''fitted house'', 195 00:16:33,607 --> 00:16:36,246 and the architect had thought long and hard 196 00:16:36,287 --> 00:16:39,199 about how the modern family would fit into it. 197 00:16:40,607 --> 00:16:44,646 Corbusier's idea was to divide space up into served and servant spaces. 198 00:16:44,687 --> 00:16:48,965 So over here we've got the bathroom, which is not one you'd want to hang out in. 199 00:16:49,007 --> 00:16:51,726 It's the kind of bathroom you'd just have a quick shave in. 200 00:16:51,767 --> 00:16:53,246 Here we have a kitchen area 201 00:16:53,287 --> 00:16:56,006 which is an area where your maid wouId be there serving you 202 00:16:56,047 --> 00:16:59,517 if you're having your Iunch out here in the kind of Iiving-dining space. 203 00:16:59,567 --> 00:17:03,162 The whoIe idea was to shift aII the kind of servant spaces, 204 00:17:03,207 --> 00:17:06,995 the kind of spaces for drudgery, make them as smaII and as remote as possibIe 205 00:17:07,047 --> 00:17:11,086 and open up space for Iiving, for being entertained, 206 00:17:11,127 --> 00:17:13,687 for Ieisure pursuits, I suppose, essentiaIIy. 207 00:17:13,727 --> 00:17:15,479 So a compIete division - oiI and water. 208 00:17:15,527 --> 00:17:17,802 You know, this was a machine for Iiving in. 209 00:17:19,327 --> 00:17:25,118 Like the fitted kitchen, the fitted house took its inspiration from outside the domestic sphere. 210 00:17:38,927 --> 00:17:44,047 Le Corbusier buiIt this corridor with the same measures of a train's corridor. 211 00:17:44,087 --> 00:17:46,078 So it's 60cm 212 00:17:46,127 --> 00:17:48,687 and a height of two metres and five, 213 00:17:48,727 --> 00:17:51,799 Iike in each train at this time. 214 00:17:52,487 --> 00:17:56,366 And so it's a very theoreticaI corridor 215 00:17:56,407 --> 00:18:01,561 but it's very important to connect his house with the train. 216 00:18:01,607 --> 00:18:05,600 So it's a modern traffic machine. 217 00:18:05,647 --> 00:18:11,165 So it stands for engineering and it stands for future. 218 00:18:12,327 --> 00:18:17,082 Le Corbusier's obsession with the machine was that it wouId be Iiberating, it wouId free you. 219 00:18:17,127 --> 00:18:21,643 So you couId IiteraIIy adjust the interior to suit your Iife. You couId transform it. 220 00:18:21,687 --> 00:18:25,919 The idea that a house couId be fIexibIe, couId change in the future. 221 00:18:27,207 --> 00:18:29,163 We are now in the Iiving room, 222 00:18:29,207 --> 00:18:34,235 and you can change this room, for the night use, into sIeeping compartments. 223 00:18:34,287 --> 00:18:39,964 You bring the bed out, or puII the bed out of the buiIt-in cupboard, 224 00:18:40,007 --> 00:18:43,682 and you can bring out the second bed for the coupIe here. 225 00:18:43,727 --> 00:18:48,437 And then, you can cIose the sIiding waII... 226 00:18:49,247 --> 00:18:55,766 ..to separate the sIeeping room of the chiId from the sIeeping room of the parents. 227 00:18:57,487 --> 00:18:58,966 That gave immense freedom. 228 00:18:59,007 --> 00:19:01,919 Both the architect and aIso the inhabitant of the house 229 00:19:01,967 --> 00:19:06,916 couId shift the arrangement of the interior, the pIan, to whatever they wanted to do with it. 230 00:19:06,967 --> 00:19:09,197 There's not much running around the house, 231 00:19:09,247 --> 00:19:12,478 everything's sort of kept very tight and cIose and efficient. 232 00:19:20,527 --> 00:19:23,963 But freedom and flexibility came at a price. 233 00:19:25,007 --> 00:19:28,886 These were designs to live up to, rather than just live in. 234 00:19:28,927 --> 00:19:32,363 He had these sIightIy freakish views about communaI Iiving. 235 00:19:32,407 --> 00:19:36,878 He sort of had ideas that we shouId be Iiving Iike students in a coIIege 236 00:19:36,927 --> 00:19:38,519 or monks in a monastery, 237 00:19:38,567 --> 00:19:41,400 that actuaIIy our private space shouId be very, very smaII 238 00:19:41,447 --> 00:19:44,598 and we shouId be sharing our communaI space with Iots of other peopIe 239 00:19:44,647 --> 00:19:48,117 and actuaIIy Iiving Iike an artist, Iike he Iived, actuaIIy. 240 00:19:49,247 --> 00:19:54,002 In a sense, Le Corbusier never got over his potty training period, emotionaIIy, 241 00:19:54,047 --> 00:19:59,440 as a Swiss designer, compIete controI freak, who wanted to tidy the worId up. 242 00:20:00,487 --> 00:20:05,402 That might have been fine for a few peopIe but it wasn't a soIution for mass society. 243 00:20:05,447 --> 00:20:07,563 PeopIe actuaIIy Iiked their private space. 244 00:20:07,607 --> 00:20:10,917 They Iiked to retreat as weII as hang out on sun terraces. 245 00:20:12,047 --> 00:20:16,199 I mean, Modernism is aIways about enormous expectation, you know, 246 00:20:16,247 --> 00:20:19,762 and provocation, mixed with disappointment. 247 00:20:19,807 --> 00:20:21,763 The term is correct - Modernism. 248 00:20:22,447 --> 00:20:26,122 It is a poetic refIection of the modern age. 249 00:20:26,167 --> 00:20:33,847 So you bend a steeI tube and you stretch some canvas and you've got a modern object, 250 00:20:33,887 --> 00:20:36,242 hence, a functionaI object. 251 00:20:36,287 --> 00:20:38,357 But they weren't aII functionaI. 252 00:20:38,407 --> 00:20:43,162 I have a Iot of Bauhaus furniture in my house. 253 00:20:44,167 --> 00:20:47,523 It is... Without exception, none of it is comfortabIe. 254 00:20:48,287 --> 00:20:50,164 I don't sit in those chairs very often. 255 00:20:50,207 --> 00:20:53,404 I sit in a comfortabIe chair and Iook at those chairs. 256 00:20:53,447 --> 00:20:56,564 And that's basicaIIy what they're for - to Iook at. 257 00:21:04,487 --> 00:21:10,756 A Iot of the Modernists were prescribing how, not just how you wouId sit, 258 00:21:10,807 --> 00:21:14,641 but aIso how you wouId Iive, and that's what got us into troubIe. 259 00:21:15,527 --> 00:21:17,802 Corbusier's originaI pIan for Paris 260 00:21:17,847 --> 00:21:22,238 was to wipe out the oId Paris and start new with these ridicuIous towers, 261 00:21:22,287 --> 00:21:25,996 with cars connecting everybody in between - it's a nightmare. 262 00:21:27,047 --> 00:21:33,395 This was his vision, and unfortunateIy, that's what a Iot of cities started doing 263 00:21:33,447 --> 00:21:37,804 and we are now repairing ourseIves from this era. 264 00:21:38,527 --> 00:21:41,439 Corbusier's vision was very destructive. 265 00:21:42,447 --> 00:21:48,841 Now, he had some great designs for furniture, and actuaIIy some interesting houses, 266 00:21:48,887 --> 00:21:52,243 and if he had onIy stuck to that, we wouId've aII been better off. 267 00:21:53,967 --> 00:21:59,041 The Modernists had set out to break down the barriers that separated creative disciplines. 268 00:21:59,767 --> 00:22:03,282 But as the city-sized ambitions of Le Corbusier made clear, 269 00:22:03,967 --> 00:22:08,006 there is a fundamental distinction between architecture and design, 270 00:22:08,047 --> 00:22:10,959 as well as between architects and designers. 271 00:22:13,207 --> 00:22:16,279 You've got to remember, architecture is big and heavy and sIow, 272 00:22:16,327 --> 00:22:18,795 and takes a Iot of money to buiId. 273 00:22:18,847 --> 00:22:23,125 Design can respond much more quickIy to changes in peopIe's desires. 274 00:22:23,167 --> 00:22:28,480 It's basicaIIy more nimbIe, it's Iighter, it's smaIIer, it's easier to do, frankIy, than architecture. 275 00:22:28,527 --> 00:22:32,202 It's easier to change, you know, your chairs and your furniture 276 00:22:32,247 --> 00:22:36,081 than it is to change your buiIding and a whoIe way of Iife and a whoIe environment. 277 00:22:36,127 --> 00:22:42,566 But it's not just a difference in scale and speed. There's also a question of temperament. 278 00:22:42,607 --> 00:22:45,246 We taIk about designers as T-shaped beings, 279 00:22:45,287 --> 00:22:47,517 which means that you have a depth in something, 280 00:22:47,567 --> 00:22:50,081 you have a down stroke in something, a depth in craft, 281 00:22:50,127 --> 00:22:53,483 but a breadth and an empathy towards a Iot of other discipIines. 282 00:22:53,527 --> 00:22:56,963 But I often think of architects as more maybe I-shaped - 283 00:22:57,007 --> 00:23:01,478 it's a depth in craft, and Iess of a breadth in empathy. 284 00:23:02,247 --> 00:23:08,516 Architecture can often be quite a sort of soIitary, visionary pursuit. 285 00:23:08,567 --> 00:23:11,286 And I don't think design works Iike that. 286 00:23:11,327 --> 00:23:13,602 We're not the guru in the ateIier. 287 00:23:16,367 --> 00:23:22,283 As the Roaring '20s gave way to the low, dishonest decade that was the 1 930s, 288 00:23:22,967 --> 00:23:26,846 the political context in mainland Europe changed dramatically. 289 00:23:26,887 --> 00:23:33,725 For architects, for designers, for everyone, the change was not for the better. 290 00:23:35,727 --> 00:23:39,845 ln 1 932, the Bauhaus closed its school in Dessau, 291 00:23:40,567 --> 00:23:44,685 as the local branch of the Nazi Party flexed its brown-shirted muscle. 292 00:24:01,087 --> 00:24:04,079 Bauhaus founder, Walter Gropius, moved to Britain. 293 00:24:05,367 --> 00:24:11,397 He came here, the lsokon flats in Hampstead, designed by architect Wells Coates. 294 00:24:13,447 --> 00:24:18,237 Alongside Gropius, in the minimalist service flats with their communal dining room, 295 00:24:18,287 --> 00:24:20,847 was fellow Bauhauser Marcel Breuer. 296 00:24:22,927 --> 00:24:25,839 Also resident was crime writer Agatha Christie, 297 00:24:25,887 --> 00:24:29,846 who likened their new home to a giant ocean liner. 298 00:24:32,047 --> 00:24:36,199 But this was not the typical face of modern Britain in the 1 930s. 299 00:24:38,487 --> 00:24:42,685 Just a few miles from the lsokon flats is the Holly Lodge Estate, 300 00:24:43,327 --> 00:24:46,125 where high-rise living was half timbered, 301 00:24:46,167 --> 00:24:50,638 and ocean liners were something to see the world in, rather than to live in. 302 00:24:52,327 --> 00:24:55,922 This is what peopIe wanted, and this is how peopIe wanted to Iive. 303 00:24:57,727 --> 00:25:04,075 Modernism, you couId say, was trying to be a IittIe bit too cIever sometimes, 304 00:25:04,127 --> 00:25:06,322 a IittIe bit too pared down, too simpIe, 305 00:25:06,367 --> 00:25:09,404 and that was cooI and styIish, if you were into that kind of thing. 306 00:25:09,447 --> 00:25:10,926 But most peopIe weren't. 307 00:25:14,087 --> 00:25:18,717 Begun in the mid-1 920s, and added to throughout the '30s, 308 00:25:18,767 --> 00:25:22,123 the Holly Lodge Estate was an alternative response 309 00:25:22,167 --> 00:25:24,965 to the demands of living in the modern world. 310 00:25:26,567 --> 00:25:32,085 This is a typicaI housing estate from the 1 930s. 311 00:25:32,127 --> 00:25:37,155 Each one of these is a IittIe castIe, it's the EngIishman's castIe, it's the epitome of that. 312 00:25:41,687 --> 00:25:44,838 It meant that you were Iiving out the oId EngIish idyII - 313 00:25:44,887 --> 00:25:47,685 everyone wants to Iive in a thatched cottage 314 00:25:47,727 --> 00:25:50,924 or a wonderfuI hammer-beamed Jacobean house, 315 00:25:50,967 --> 00:25:55,085 and that's exactIy what these houses gave you the impression that you were doing. 316 00:26:00,647 --> 00:26:02,922 After the First WorId War, 317 00:26:02,967 --> 00:26:07,518 there was a Ionging to return to the pre-war period - 318 00:26:07,567 --> 00:26:09,398 after aII, that was such a goIden age. 319 00:26:11,207 --> 00:26:13,516 Just at this time, what do we invent? 320 00:26:13,567 --> 00:26:15,603 We get the three-piece suite. 321 00:26:15,647 --> 00:26:19,356 And that says it aII about what we're reaIIy interested in at that time. 322 00:26:19,407 --> 00:26:21,477 It's aII about comfort. 323 00:26:28,487 --> 00:26:33,686 This was also the moment when ''second-hand'' rebranded itself as ''antique''. 324 00:26:35,247 --> 00:26:40,162 Hampered by death duties and plagued by the lack of servants to clean and polish, 325 00:26:40,207 --> 00:26:43,882 the great and good had, since the end of the Great War, 326 00:26:43,927 --> 00:26:45,997 been selling off the family silver- 327 00:26:46,047 --> 00:26:48,436 as well as the family mahogany. 328 00:26:53,047 --> 00:26:55,641 For the aspiring British middle class, 329 00:26:55,687 --> 00:26:59,236 a timeless classic with aristocratic connections 330 00:26:59,287 --> 00:27:02,597 trumped tubular steel with Modernist pretensions. 331 00:27:05,207 --> 00:27:09,564 And of course the houses aIso were fuII of provision for ornaments, 332 00:27:09,607 --> 00:27:11,802 for IittIe detaiIs of Iiving as weII. 333 00:27:11,847 --> 00:27:17,797 The firepIace, the manteIpiece, retained its sort of iconic status as one of these. 334 00:27:17,847 --> 00:27:21,396 You had this provision, a sheIf for aII of your ornaments, 335 00:27:21,447 --> 00:27:22,926 for your househoId goods, 336 00:27:22,967 --> 00:27:28,200 for your IittIe status symboIs, and for your heirIooms. 337 00:27:28,247 --> 00:27:32,035 And if you didn't have heirIooms, you couId just go out and buy some. 338 00:27:35,087 --> 00:27:38,682 Alongside the Mock Tudor, there was mockery too. 339 00:27:41,407 --> 00:27:46,037 Cartoonist Heath Robinson poked gentle fun at the Modernist lifestyle 340 00:27:46,087 --> 00:27:48,601 in his book How To Live ln A Flat. 341 00:28:09,447 --> 00:28:12,245 I think one of the big objections to Modernism 342 00:28:12,287 --> 00:28:15,245 from peopIe Iike Heath Robinson or the satirists, 343 00:28:15,287 --> 00:28:17,278 or even the serious objectors, 344 00:28:17,327 --> 00:28:20,239 was the fact that they didn't Iike being toId what to do. 345 00:28:20,287 --> 00:28:23,563 The British don't Iike that. We don't Iike being toId what to do. 346 00:28:33,407 --> 00:28:36,877 But the most enduring symbol of British design from the period 347 00:28:36,927 --> 00:28:41,125 was a characteristic combination of the modern and the whimsical. 348 00:28:43,567 --> 00:28:47,355 lf Heath Robinson had been asked to design an electricity pylon, 349 00:28:47,407 --> 00:28:50,001 he might have come up with something like this - 350 00:28:50,127 --> 00:28:52,277 the Anglepoise lamp. 351 00:28:52,327 --> 00:28:54,682 George Carwardine was a British engineer 352 00:28:54,727 --> 00:28:59,039 obsessed with car suspension systems and Euclidian geometry. 353 00:29:00,167 --> 00:29:03,398 He wasn't thinking about creating a masterpiece of design 354 00:29:03,447 --> 00:29:06,883 when he approached spring-makers Herbert Terry and Sons 355 00:29:06,927 --> 00:29:11,443 to help him with his experiments to suspend objects in space. 356 00:29:15,247 --> 00:29:17,681 He took out a patent, in about 1 931 , 357 00:29:18,527 --> 00:29:21,997 and it was caIIed ''eIastic force mechanisms''. 358 00:29:22,727 --> 00:29:25,400 And this was ways of trying to baIance things in space 359 00:29:25,447 --> 00:29:28,166 and he used springs and Ievers and cams. 360 00:29:31,167 --> 00:29:34,955 lt was then that Carwardine had a light-bulb moment. 361 00:29:36,807 --> 00:29:40,322 He suddenIy reaIised, ''I couId put a Iight buIb on the end of this 362 00:29:40,367 --> 00:29:41,846 and controI it with a shade 363 00:29:41,887 --> 00:29:46,244 and then I have a way of putting Iight exactIy where it's needed.'' 364 00:29:47,887 --> 00:29:52,756 As it moves, here this stays paraIIeI, 365 00:29:52,807 --> 00:29:56,243 so if you're working at a desk or drawing board or something, 366 00:29:56,287 --> 00:29:59,245 you can adjust it there and you don't have to readjust the height. 367 00:30:01,127 --> 00:30:05,962 In a sense, it's not designed, it's based on pure engineering principIes. 368 00:30:06,007 --> 00:30:09,158 It's quite unusuaI in a product that you actuaIIy see the workings. 369 00:30:09,207 --> 00:30:13,359 This is Iike seeing aII the vaIve springs or aII the pistons in a car. 370 00:30:13,407 --> 00:30:18,640 It brings a bit of engineering out of a box and visuaIises it on their desk. 371 00:30:34,367 --> 00:30:39,760 There's a certain eIegance in this product... and I don't know where it came from. 372 00:30:39,807 --> 00:30:41,559 I don't think George designed it. 373 00:30:41,607 --> 00:30:46,158 I think he just had a naturaI feeI for the right sort of dimensions 374 00:30:46,207 --> 00:30:48,960 and that, you know, if it Iooks right, it is right. 375 00:30:50,127 --> 00:30:51,606 It's part of the Iandscape. 376 00:30:51,647 --> 00:30:53,365 It's the same as, you know, 377 00:30:53,407 --> 00:30:57,161 teIephone boxes and London taxis and Routemaster buses, 378 00:30:57,207 --> 00:31:01,598 you instantIy see, whoever you are in the worId, and you know those are British icons. 379 00:31:09,287 --> 00:31:13,519 ln 1 935, Le Corbusier, the high priest of Modernism, 380 00:31:13,567 --> 00:31:17,924 made a trip across the Atlantic to bring enlightenment to the USA. 381 00:31:20,327 --> 00:31:22,841 He went full of high hopes for work 382 00:31:22,887 --> 00:31:27,278 from a country that had seemed determined to build itself out of the Great Depression. 383 00:31:28,647 --> 00:31:33,277 He was surprised that there were no press photographers to greet him when he arrived - 384 00:31:33,327 --> 00:31:35,887 the first of a series of misunderstandings 385 00:31:35,927 --> 00:31:40,205 that would characterise the encounter between the world's most modern architect 386 00:31:40,247 --> 00:31:42,636 and the world's most modern city. 387 00:31:46,207 --> 00:31:50,803 ln an article, he confessed to more complex reactions. 388 00:31:50,847 --> 00:31:54,317 ''Everything here is paradox and disorder... 389 00:31:54,367 --> 00:31:57,996 individual liberty destroying collective liberty. 390 00:31:58,047 --> 00:32:01,642 A hundred times have l thought New York is a catastrophe... 391 00:32:03,047 --> 00:32:06,244 ..and 50 times...it is a beautiful catastrophe. '' 392 00:32:39,447 --> 00:32:43,326 WeII, New York City is beautifuI and it was beautifuI then because of the density, 393 00:32:43,367 --> 00:32:47,599 the congestion and the mess, and every buiIding a sIightIy different styIe. 394 00:32:47,647 --> 00:32:49,399 No-one has a controI over that. 395 00:32:49,447 --> 00:32:53,201 That's determined by the market, you know. It's determined by commerce. 396 00:32:55,287 --> 00:32:59,041 The simple truth was that Le Corbusier was too late. 397 00:32:59,887 --> 00:33:04,039 By the time he arrived in America, the future had already happened. 398 00:33:04,927 --> 00:33:06,679 From the canyons of Manhattan, 399 00:33:06,727 --> 00:33:12,040 to the production line of the Ford Rouge River plant, which Le Corbusier visited, 400 00:33:12,087 --> 00:33:14,726 America had already chosen its destiny. 401 00:33:15,567 --> 00:33:16,966 This American future 402 00:33:17,007 --> 00:33:21,842 would be driven by the dynamos of capitalism, consumerism and individualism. 403 00:33:22,247 --> 00:33:24,442 And the market would reign supreme. 404 00:33:34,567 --> 00:33:37,923 The difference between American and European design is fascinating. 405 00:33:38,767 --> 00:33:42,726 European design is more concerned with the seIf expression of the designer, 406 00:33:42,767 --> 00:33:45,918 versus American design, which is way more pragmatic. 407 00:33:45,967 --> 00:33:48,925 It's about the mainstream because that's where the money is, 408 00:33:48,967 --> 00:33:51,800 that's where the manufacturers are interested in operating. 409 00:33:51,847 --> 00:33:55,317 They're not interested in catering to an eIite, 410 00:33:55,367 --> 00:33:59,599 progressive, avant-garde type cIienteIe. 411 00:34:00,287 --> 00:34:02,642 They want to get their products into WaImart. 412 00:34:04,647 --> 00:34:08,435 The designers who served the American market in the '20s and '30s 413 00:34:08,487 --> 00:34:10,682 knew what commerce expected of them. 414 00:34:11,887 --> 00:34:14,959 lt would be appearances on the cover of business magazines, 415 00:34:15,007 --> 00:34:19,478 rather than manifestos, that would get them a seat around the boardroom table. 416 00:34:20,247 --> 00:34:23,603 But once they were there, they knew how to knock 'em dead. 417 00:34:25,127 --> 00:34:27,595 These were to be artists in industry, 418 00:34:27,647 --> 00:34:30,798 not appIying art Iater, 419 00:34:30,847 --> 00:34:34,203 but in a coIIaborative effort with the manufacturers. 420 00:34:34,247 --> 00:34:37,557 These guys were some of the greatest renderers of aII time. 421 00:34:37,607 --> 00:34:39,598 They knew how to draw anything. 422 00:34:39,647 --> 00:34:42,115 They knew how to make it vivid, exciting. 423 00:34:42,167 --> 00:34:45,921 You know, to see these things in the fIesh, it's fascinating. 424 00:34:47,247 --> 00:34:51,684 Niels Diffrient worked with designer Henry Dreyfuss for more than 25 years. 425 00:34:53,527 --> 00:34:55,006 Henry had a trick. 426 00:34:55,047 --> 00:34:57,117 that was he carried in his coat pocket... 427 00:34:57,847 --> 00:35:00,156 ..a pocket fuII of IittIe short penciIs. 428 00:35:00,207 --> 00:35:02,277 And when he was taIking to a cIient, 429 00:35:02,327 --> 00:35:07,845 he wouId take one out and draw something right for the cIient. 430 00:35:07,887 --> 00:35:11,004 ''This is the way your cIock shouId Iook,'' for instance. 431 00:35:11,047 --> 00:35:13,720 The cIients were aII amazed by this. 432 00:35:13,767 --> 00:35:21,162 So Henry took this one step further, and over a tabIe or a Iunch tabIe, 433 00:35:21,207 --> 00:35:24,802 he wouId draw it upside down to face the cIient, 434 00:35:24,847 --> 00:35:27,839 and of course, that was as good as seIIing the job on the spot. 435 00:35:27,887 --> 00:35:32,165 Anybody who couId draw upside down was cIearIy taIented enough 436 00:35:32,207 --> 00:35:35,722 to make this product be a big seIIer. 437 00:35:35,767 --> 00:35:39,965 Corporate America reaIised that design works. 438 00:35:40,007 --> 00:35:42,043 You know, that if they revamped their product 439 00:35:42,087 --> 00:35:45,079 or redid their corporate identity and made it reIevant to peopIe, 440 00:35:45,127 --> 00:35:48,642 that their saIes wouId improve, and this was a way to get cIoser to consumers. 441 00:35:53,647 --> 00:35:57,959 Getting closer to consumers meant attending to their dreams and desires, 442 00:35:58,007 --> 00:35:59,725 as well as their needs. 443 00:35:59,767 --> 00:36:03,442 Designer Raymond Loewy understood that better than anyone. 444 00:36:03,487 --> 00:36:07,924 His definition of good design was an upward sales curve. 445 00:36:09,407 --> 00:36:12,638 Raymond Loewy was, I think, the first design consuItant - 446 00:36:12,687 --> 00:36:15,963 not the first industriaI designer but the first design consuItant, 447 00:36:16,047 --> 00:36:20,802 the first person to reaIIy marry commerce and art 448 00:36:20,847 --> 00:36:26,285 into one seamIess offer that manufacturers were interested in and that peopIe needed. 449 00:36:26,967 --> 00:36:33,759 What Raymond Loewy brought was pizzazz, excitement, emotion to functionaI objects. 450 00:36:33,807 --> 00:36:38,085 Loewy accepted that what people wanted didn't have to make sense. 451 00:36:39,567 --> 00:36:41,683 He took the principle of streamlining, 452 00:36:41,727 --> 00:36:45,879 originally developed to make planes, trains and automobiles go faster, 453 00:36:45,927 --> 00:36:48,919 and applied it to things that were going nowhere fast - 454 00:36:48,967 --> 00:36:51,003 like refrigerators. 455 00:36:51,727 --> 00:36:56,323 Sales of the streamlined, Coldspot fridge jumped by 600% . 456 00:36:57,087 --> 00:37:00,363 It's absurd when you see a vacuum cIeaner and it has kind of wings on it, 457 00:37:00,407 --> 00:37:01,840 you know, Iike a rocket ship. 458 00:37:01,887 --> 00:37:05,197 That's obviousIy just a styIe, you know, a superficiaI styIe. 459 00:37:05,247 --> 00:37:07,442 But I think there was a Iot more going on there, 460 00:37:07,487 --> 00:37:10,638 and I think what Loewy and peopIe Iike that were doing 461 00:37:10,687 --> 00:37:15,397 was giving to everyday Americans an opportunity to experience the modern worId, 462 00:37:15,447 --> 00:37:18,519 you know, in the everyday, whether it was a toaster or a teIephone 463 00:37:18,567 --> 00:37:20,444 or, you know, an automobiIe. 464 00:37:22,207 --> 00:37:26,200 But behind the salesmanship, and the crowd-pleasing styling, 465 00:37:26,247 --> 00:37:29,523 American designers developed an approach to design 466 00:37:29,567 --> 00:37:33,401 as rational as Le Corbusier and as rigorous as the Bauhaus. 467 00:37:35,247 --> 00:37:38,876 But rather than starting with a theory about how people shouId be, 468 00:37:38,927 --> 00:37:43,876 a designer like Henry Dreyfuss started with what they were actually like. 469 00:37:43,927 --> 00:37:51,277 WeII, this is the first iteration of the Big Ben, done by Henry Dreyfuss around 1 931 /1 932. 470 00:37:51,327 --> 00:37:54,046 He got his foot in the door doing the cIock faces 471 00:37:54,087 --> 00:37:57,636 and there are dozens and dozens of studies, for instance, of the hands, 472 00:37:57,687 --> 00:38:02,203 which you wiII notice have a IittIe channeI inside. 473 00:38:02,247 --> 00:38:04,078 Dreyfuss did some informaI studies 474 00:38:04,127 --> 00:38:08,439 to try to assure that these were very visibIe to sIeepy eyes 475 00:38:08,487 --> 00:38:11,479 and in fact wouId set them up aIong his bedside 476 00:38:11,527 --> 00:38:16,043 to go off at intervaIs of an hour throughout the night to judge them, 477 00:38:16,087 --> 00:38:20,205 which he cIaimed was the cIosest he and Doris Marks ever came to getting divorced. 478 00:38:20,247 --> 00:38:24,240 This was a doIIar cIock. This was not an expensive item. 479 00:38:24,287 --> 00:38:28,803 And yet it's taken on the appearance of a much more Iuxurious item. 480 00:38:28,847 --> 00:38:35,559 Notice the goId finish inside that mouIding, which is siIver on the outside. 481 00:38:35,607 --> 00:38:39,646 It's rather subtIe at first but it does make a difference in the appearance. 482 00:38:39,687 --> 00:38:41,325 It's a beautifuI IittIe thing 483 00:38:41,367 --> 00:38:45,076 and when you think about this as just a simpIe mass-produced object, 484 00:38:45,127 --> 00:38:49,405 one of the first, reaIIy, that wouId have been seen in most American homes, 485 00:38:49,447 --> 00:38:53,884 an affordabIe piece of modernity that was a functionaI item and worked weII. 486 00:38:58,287 --> 00:39:01,996 Acting as guinea pig for his own designs wasjust the beginning. 487 00:39:02,047 --> 00:39:06,325 Drawing on time and motion studies, just like Schutte-Lihotzky had done, 488 00:39:06,367 --> 00:39:09,598 Dreyfuss developed a systematic approach to design, 489 00:39:09,647 --> 00:39:13,037 based around idealised male and female figures. 490 00:39:14,847 --> 00:39:17,998 He would eventually christen them Joe and Josephine - 491 00:39:18,967 --> 00:39:25,566 typical Americans, from their heads to the tip of their precisely-measured toes. 492 00:39:26,447 --> 00:39:28,802 Henry Dreyfuss caIIed it ''human factors'' - 493 00:39:28,847 --> 00:39:31,725 the science of the interface between peopIe and things, 494 00:39:31,767 --> 00:39:33,246 and it reaIIy is a science. 495 00:39:33,287 --> 00:39:35,596 There's a Iot of actuaI measuring of things - 496 00:39:35,647 --> 00:39:38,957 distances, heights, weights - aII those sorts of things. 497 00:39:39,007 --> 00:39:41,396 But more than that, a Iot of observationaI stuff. 498 00:39:41,447 --> 00:39:44,803 You couId say he was the father of observationaI ethnographic research 499 00:39:44,847 --> 00:39:48,123 because he used to Iook at how peopIe actuaIIy used things, 500 00:39:48,167 --> 00:39:49,839 how they sat in a chair and so on, 501 00:39:49,887 --> 00:39:52,037 which is what designers do today. 502 00:39:53,607 --> 00:39:58,442 Like Raymond Loewy, Dreyfuss knew how to make the advanced acceptable, 503 00:39:58,487 --> 00:40:01,604 as is apparent in his model 302 telephone, 504 00:40:01,647 --> 00:40:03,478 a classic piece of design 505 00:40:03,527 --> 00:40:08,237 that put the modern world into the hands and the homes of millions of Americans. 506 00:40:15,127 --> 00:40:20,076 This is the ModeI 302 teIephone of approximateIy 1 936/1 937. 507 00:40:20,127 --> 00:40:22,402 It's the first pure Dreyfuss phone. 508 00:40:22,447 --> 00:40:28,044 This was the American teIephone during the 1 930s, the Iater '30s and most of the '40s. 509 00:40:28,087 --> 00:40:34,037 We're taIking somewhere in the range of 1 60 miIIion units. 510 00:40:34,087 --> 00:40:40,435 I mean, we're taIking about a piece of design that aImost every American had contact with, 511 00:40:40,487 --> 00:40:42,079 repeated contact, 512 00:40:42,127 --> 00:40:46,166 and to me that's a remarkabIe achievement 513 00:40:46,207 --> 00:40:51,565 and a remarkabIe way to Iead peopIe into thinking in a modern way. 514 00:40:52,287 --> 00:40:56,519 The contrast with the telephone design by the Bauhaus is revealing. 515 00:40:57,647 --> 00:41:00,445 The first thing I see is geometric purity. 516 00:41:00,487 --> 00:41:02,239 I mean, that... 517 00:41:02,967 --> 00:41:07,836 The overaII contour here mirrors aImost exactIy the form of that transmitter. 518 00:41:09,007 --> 00:41:14,718 Whereas here we have a more generous, in fact, rather streamIined housing, you know. 519 00:41:16,007 --> 00:41:19,636 Look at the very square contours here, 520 00:41:19,687 --> 00:41:21,882 versus the scuIpting here. 521 00:41:21,927 --> 00:41:23,918 This creates a visuaI Iightness. 522 00:41:23,967 --> 00:41:25,923 I mean, this is a IoveIy design. 523 00:41:25,967 --> 00:41:30,757 Its visuaI Iightness comes from the gap that you see here between those fIush sides 524 00:41:30,807 --> 00:41:33,401 and this rather dramaticaIIy-shaped handset. 525 00:41:34,087 --> 00:41:40,276 But again...one advantage to the Dreyfuss phone over... 526 00:41:42,327 --> 00:41:47,640 ..this rather hefty phone... that has no convenient way to move it. 527 00:41:47,687 --> 00:41:50,599 Maybe we shouId just Iook at the backs because... 528 00:41:52,567 --> 00:41:58,039 ..there's a IittIe more sophistication here than in the European exampIe. 529 00:41:59,007 --> 00:42:04,684 You know, this is sort of a 360-degree scuIpturaI entity, 530 00:42:04,727 --> 00:42:08,515 where this just seems to terminate rather abruptIy in the back. 531 00:42:09,887 --> 00:42:13,436 Here is a phone with no ambitions to be anything other than a teIephone 532 00:42:13,487 --> 00:42:16,047 and to Iook Iike a piece of equipment. 533 00:42:16,807 --> 00:42:21,119 This has a IittIe more concessions to fitting into a domestic interior. 534 00:42:21,887 --> 00:42:24,685 I wouId say this is the more theoreticaI phone, 535 00:42:25,487 --> 00:42:28,445 and this is a IittIe bit more the consumer item. 536 00:42:29,127 --> 00:42:33,518 It's a wonderfuI sort of shorthand for the difference between Europe and America. 537 00:42:43,527 --> 00:42:48,282 By attending to the dreams and desires of consumers, as well as their needs, 538 00:42:48,327 --> 00:42:53,799 American designers brought the Utopian visions of European Modernism down to earth. 539 00:42:55,367 --> 00:43:00,487 lt's telling that one of the most iconic examples of modern American design from this period 540 00:43:00,527 --> 00:43:03,200 emerged from a backyard workshop 541 00:43:03,247 --> 00:43:06,842 rather than from the lofty heights of the designer's drawing board. 542 00:43:08,567 --> 00:43:14,119 The Airstream Trailer, first created in 1 933 by Wally Byam, 543 00:43:14,167 --> 00:43:17,955 an example of what you might call ''folk Modernism''. 544 00:43:30,727 --> 00:43:37,439 WaIIy wrote an articIe about how to buiId a traiIer and he soId that articIe for 50 cents 545 00:43:37,487 --> 00:43:41,878 and peopIe tried to buiId 'em and they couIdn't so they came to him about it. 546 00:43:41,927 --> 00:43:44,122 So he says, ''Let me buiId one for you.'' 547 00:43:44,167 --> 00:43:47,079 So he went out in his backyard, started buiIding traiIers, 548 00:43:47,127 --> 00:43:50,278 wasn't Iong before he was manufacturing traiIers. 549 00:43:50,327 --> 00:43:52,761 The war came aIong - Second WorId War - 550 00:43:53,567 --> 00:43:57,799 the government took aII the aIuminium and he had to stop production. 551 00:43:57,847 --> 00:44:00,805 So, he went to work in an aircraft factory 552 00:44:00,847 --> 00:44:03,202 and I'm sure whiIe he was doing that 553 00:44:03,247 --> 00:44:06,603 he'd come up with a Iot of different ideas to do when the war was over, 554 00:44:06,647 --> 00:44:09,605 you know, to put into his traiIer, to manufacture it. 555 00:44:09,847 --> 00:44:12,839 What kind of thickness of metaI he wanted to use 556 00:44:12,887 --> 00:44:16,482 and how many rivets per square foot he wanted to use. 557 00:44:16,527 --> 00:44:20,725 He got a Iot of that information off those airpIanes when he was working with them. 558 00:44:22,967 --> 00:44:27,085 Christopher Deam redesigned the Airstream Trailer in 2000. 559 00:44:28,487 --> 00:44:32,560 I had grown up seeing these things hurtIing down the freeway 560 00:44:32,607 --> 00:44:35,724 and once I started designing... 561 00:44:35,767 --> 00:44:38,042 being an architect and doing reaI design, 562 00:44:38,087 --> 00:44:44,196 I started to reaIIy Iook at them for inteIIigent uses of space. 563 00:44:45,487 --> 00:44:49,844 They combine both architecture and furniture into this unified whoIe, 564 00:44:49,887 --> 00:44:54,278 and then the fact that it's, you know, fIying down the freeway makes it even crazier. 565 00:44:58,407 --> 00:45:03,117 Byam's design delivered on the promises made by Modernism and the market. 566 00:45:05,367 --> 00:45:09,360 lt was a machine for living and a dream machine. 567 00:45:09,407 --> 00:45:12,444 Le Corbusier meets Henry Dreyfuss, 568 00:45:12,487 --> 00:45:15,763 from a designer who'd probably never heard of either of them. 569 00:45:15,807 --> 00:45:20,437 UsuaIIy if somebody's never been in a traiIer, their first reveIation is, 570 00:45:20,487 --> 00:45:24,719 ''Wow, this is aII I need. I couId Iive in this.'' 571 00:45:24,767 --> 00:45:31,002 And, you know, it aIIows your imagination to imagine your Iife in a different context, 572 00:45:31,047 --> 00:45:37,759 in a stripped down, minimaIist, kind of very essentiaI way of Iiving. 573 00:45:39,487 --> 00:45:42,638 If you don't Iike the scenery today, you can hook up and move on. 574 00:45:42,687 --> 00:45:46,316 You don't have to worry about, ''Where are we gonna sIeep, where are we gonna eat?'' 575 00:45:47,367 --> 00:45:52,122 These vehicIes are fuIIy seIf-contained, they have everything - aII the comforts of home. 576 00:45:52,167 --> 00:45:54,761 And a bathroom, any time you want one. 577 00:46:03,407 --> 00:46:06,843 lf the 1 920s and '30s dramatised the choice 578 00:46:06,887 --> 00:46:11,961 between top-down Utopianism and bottom-up consumerism, 579 00:46:12,007 --> 00:46:16,046 the verdict of today's designed world lies with consumerism. 580 00:46:17,167 --> 00:46:20,955 Consumerism swallowed Modernism's most radical schemes. 581 00:46:22,447 --> 00:46:27,919 Some - the fitted kitchen, open plan living, tubular steel furniture - 582 00:46:28,647 --> 00:46:30,603 were effortlessly absorbed. 583 00:46:31,287 --> 00:46:36,805 Others - the high rise and the high hopes for a new kind of human being - 584 00:46:36,847 --> 00:46:39,600 have been chewed up and spat out. 585 00:46:40,807 --> 00:46:46,325 ln today's designed world, we see Habitat rather than Bauhaus... 586 00:46:47,127 --> 00:46:50,199 ..Dreyfuss rather than Le Corbusier. 587 00:46:51,727 --> 00:46:56,562 I think Le Corbusier, as an architect, wanted to impose a certain vision, 588 00:46:56,607 --> 00:47:00,395 and Dreyfuss, as a designer, wanted to kind of incIude everybody in his vision 589 00:47:00,447 --> 00:47:02,005 and bring them into that process. 590 00:47:02,047 --> 00:47:06,757 So, you know, I taIk a Iot about the idea of design now as a diaIogue with the user, 591 00:47:06,807 --> 00:47:10,402 and I think that's the journey that has gone from architecture to design - 592 00:47:10,447 --> 00:47:12,802 that journey from monoIogue to diaIogue.