Design and Beauty: material culture, decoration, concealment and disclosure (2011)

Abstract

In the present paper we intend to ponder upon links between beauty and design within the practical application in a specific framework: (1) beauty as aesthetization strategy at the service of decoration and concealment; (2) beauty as individual disclosure in nowadays society; (3) design as calibrating both mentioned perspectives. The primary issue emerging regards the definition of beauty. What is beauty? And what is the relation between beauty and design? The emotionally compelling, colorful, round and redundant products? Or does it regard the element of strict necessity, the product qualifying its function and efficacy? In point (1) we will elaborate on how the history of design relates to form as surface, to ornament, decoration and concealment. Taking as a point of departure August Endell (1871-1925), who advocated the power of form upon the mind and feelings, emphasizing the importance of a new style in applied arts (and in architecture) to reveal the beginning of a new era (Art Nouveau) that constrains the individual through a stylish, decorative environment. After focusing on the criticism of Modernism, which equated beauty with functionality and sobriety rather than with style, and discussing Adorno’s criticism of this too simple equation, we will continue to review the criticisms that associate the production of beautiful thing with the logic of a consumerist society. We will then debate the Memphis group as its production disregarding the plain ‘functional’, ‘rational’, ‘pure’, ‘abstract’ justification standards for ‘useful’ objects. These objects incorporate unconventional, irreverent lines and vibrant, intense colors. Decoration is not auxiliary but instead essential to define the object’s specificity. Memphis affords decoration a structuring role and the beauty of an object is deemed to be a result of its visual and sensory impact rather than from functionality. In point (2) we will reassume the discussion of point 1, displaying how the ‘old’ debate between the ‘technical perfection’ – beauty as a result of functionality – and ‘form perfection’ – beauty as a result of appearance – still makes sense nowadays but transformed by the concept of ‘individual disclosure’. The designed objects are intended to allow the communication of a personal ‘self’ through the use of things. Still functionality is present – a thing needs to function –, still form is present – a thing should be pleasant, even beautiful – but within a more complex context: the qualification of the self. Among other examples, we will focus on the detailed, sophisticated, intelligent, elegant, light, user-friendly iphone! Two very different theories arise from this contemporaneous debate: the one that we can identity with Carmagnola’s analysis which supports the thesis that beauty is submitted to the principles of an economy of fiction, simulation and simulacrum. The designer designs ‘promises’ of freedom that are nothing else but alienation, answering to the objectives of consumerism and profit. The other one, more optimistic, relies on the belief of the pleasure-based approach (Jourdan) in design. ‘Since the beginning of time humans have sought pleasure. We have gained pleasure from the natural environment (…). Another source of pleasure has been the artefacts with which we have surrounded ourselves.’1 In point (3) we are interested in situate the ‘today’s design’ among the inheritances of the past. Therefore we will discuss how material culture – functional and beauty – can open to the possibility of freedom instead of retreating to alienation (Norman, Csikszentmihalyi, Miller) The idea of disclosing the personal being (existence) through the choice and combination of things with meaning for ‘myself’ (things brought from trips abroad, with family inheritances, with Ikea objects, with the cyber world facilities…) allow us to propose a design that can lead to a balance between an artefact and an artefact with personal meaning.