Course Requirements
1 Each student is responsible for completing the required readings in advance of class, at which readings will be discussed. Attendance and class participation count toward the final grade (10%).

2 There will be a one hour mid-term exam (20%) and a two hour final exam (which will include work covered throughout the semester; 30%).

3 A research paper investigating an object designed in the last 20 years (minimum of 10 pages, or 2500 words) is a major course component (40%). The assignment is in two parts, a proposal (ungraded) for review of the objects chosen and for advice on sources, and a final text due on November 30. Goals and methods for the paper will be discussed in class and a detailed sheet of instructions will be supplied.

4 Students are responsible for the twelve digitized images from each lecture that will be posted on the course study website a day or two after each lecture.

Syllabus

Required readings are listed in abbreviated form under the class date to which they relate, and are fully cited at the end of the Syllabus. All readings are on reserve and are also available in a reading packet at Campus Copy Center, 3907 Walnut Street.

September 14 Introduction: Twentieth-Century Design

September 21 Lecture 1: Origins of Modern Design Principles Marcus, pp. 33-46; Ruskin, pp. 160-66; Morris, pp. 51-80.

September 28 Lecture 2: Renewal of Design Hiesinger and Marcus, pp. 11-17; Wright, pp. 59-69; Loos, pp. 100- 103.

October 5 Lecture 3: Movements for Change Hiesinger and Marcus, pp. 49-55; Marinetti, pp. 19-24; Balla, p. 219; Documents, pp. 5-11

October 12 Lecture 4: Styles of Modernism RESEARCH PAPER PROPOSAL DUE Hiesinger and Marcus, pp. 77-83; Le Corbusier, pp. 69-79; Gropius, p. 31; Gropius, pp. 109-10

October 19 Lecture 5: The Machine Age Hiesinger and Marcus, pp. 113-20; Mumford, pp. 344-56; Van Doren, pp. 137-52

October 26 MIDTERM EXAM Lecture 6: Becoming Modern Hiesinger and Marcus, pp. 147-53

November 2 Lecture 7: Good Design / “Bad” Design Hiesinger and Marcus, pp. 175-83; Kaufmann, pp. 7-9; Banham, pp. 90-93

November 9 Lecture 8: Alternatives for Design Hiesinger and Marcus, pp. 215-21; Dreyfuss, pp. 4-6, G1, G2

November 16 Lecture 9: Responsible Design Hiesinger and Marcus, pp. 249-55; Papanek, pp. 118-25; Paz, pp. 50-67

November 23 Lecture 10: Post Modernism Hiesinger and Marcus, pp. 277-83; Venturi, pp. 22-23; Radice, pp. 141-44, 173-74

November 30 Lecture 11: Pluralism RESEARCH PAPER DUE Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Sec. 2; Muschamp, pp. 61-62, 65-66

December 7 FINAL EXAM

Reading List

TEXTS

Kathryn B. Hiesinger and George H. Marcus. Landmarks of Twentieth-Century Design: An Illustrated Handbook. New York: Abbeville Press, 1993.

George H. Marcus. Functionalist Design: An Ongoing History. Munich and New York: Prestel, 1995.

SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS

John Ruskin. Sections XI-XVII of “The Nature of Gothic.” In The Stones of Venice, vol. 2, pp. 160-66. London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1853.

William Morris. “The Beauty of Life.” 1880. In The Collected Works of William Morris, vol. 22, pp. 51-80. London: Longmans Green and Co., 1914.

Frank Lloyd Wright. “The Art and Craft of the Machine.” 1901. In Collected Writings, edited by Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, pp. 59-69. New York: Rizzoli, 1992.

Adolf Loos. “Ornament and Crime.” 1908. Translated by Wilfried Wang. In Arts Council of Great Britain, The Architecture of Adolf Loos, pp. 100-103. 1985.

F. T. Marinetti. “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism.” 1909. Translated by R. W. Flint. In Futurist Manifestos, edited by Umbro Apollonio, pp. 19-24. New York: The Viking Press, 1973.

Giacomo Balla. “The Futurist Universe.” 1918. Translated by Robert Brain. In Futurist Manifestos, edited by Umbro Apollonio, p. 219. New York: The Viking Press, 1973.

Proposals and discussions at the Congress of the German Werkbund. 1914. Translated in Documents: A Collection of Source Material on the Modern Movement, edited by Charlotte Benton, pp. 5-11.

Milton Keynes, England: The Open University Press, 1975. Le Corbusier. “Type-Needs, Type-Furniture.” 1925. Translated by James I. Dunnett. In The Decorative Art of Today, pp. 69-79. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1987.

Walter Gropius. “Program of the Staatliche Bauhaus in Weimar.” 1919. Translated by Wolfgang Jabs and Basil Gilbert. In Hans M. Wingler, The Bauhaus: Weimar Dessau Berlin Chicago, p. 31. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1969.

Walter Gropius. “Bauhaus Dessau--Principles of Bauhaus Production.” 1926. Translated by Wolfgang Jabs and Basil Gilbert. In Hans M. Wingler, The Bauhaus: Weimar Dessau Berlin Chicago, pp. 109-10. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1969.

Lewis Mumford. “The Growth of Functionalism.” In Technics and Civilization, pp. 344-56. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co, 1934.

Harold van Doren. “Streamlining.” In Industrial Design: A Practical Guide, pp. 137-52. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1940.

Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. What Is Modern Design?, pp. 7-9. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1950.

Reyner Banham. “A Throw-Away Aesthetic.” 1955/1960. In Design by Choice, edited by Penny Sparke, pp. 90-93. New York: Rizzoli, 1981.

Henry Dreyfuss. General Information and charts. In The Measure of Man: Human Factors in Design, pp. 4-6, G1, G2. 2d ed., rev. and enl. New York: Whitney Library of Design, 1967.

Victor Papanek. “Twelve Methodologies for Design--Because People Count.” In ICSID [International Council of Societies of Industrial Design], Design for Need: The Social Contribution of Design, pp. 118-25. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1977.

Octavio Paz. “Seeing and Using: Art and Craftsmanship.” 1973. Translated by Helen Lane. In Convergences: Essays on Art and Literature, pp. 50-67. San Diego and New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987.

Robert Venturi. “Nonstraightforward Architecture: A Gentle Manifesto.” In Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, pp. 22-23. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1966.

Barbara Radice. “The Memphis Idea” and “The Design.” In Memphis: Research, Experiences, Results, Failures and Successes of New Design, pp. 141-44 and 173-74. New York: Rizzoli, 1984 .

U.S. Congress. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Sec. 2. Findings and Purposes. 

Herbert Muschamp. “Blueprint: The Shock of the Familiar.” The New York Times Magazine, December 13, 1998, pp. 61-62, 65-66.

RECOMMENDED READINGS

George A. Covington and Bruce Hannah. Access by Design. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996.

George H. Marcus. Design in the Fifties: When Everyone Went Modern. Munich and New York: Prestel, 1998.

Victor Papanek. Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972.

Nikolaus Pevsner. Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1975.