Discourse analysis of the good form concept in Industrial Design in Switzerland and in Germany between 1948 and 1968
Abstract
This article presents critically some approaches to the idea of “good design”, considering the weight of economical, technical, moral and esthetical values of the “good form” concept in the speeches of Henry van de Velde, Theodor Brogle, Max Bill, Walter Gropius, Hans Finsler, Max Bense, Georg Paulsson, Tomás Maldonado, Lucius Burckhardt, Horst Rittel, Otl Aicher, Abraham Moles and Gui Bonsiepe. These discourses were published between 1948 and 1968 in the Swiss and in the German “Werkbund” and also by the “Superior School of Design” in Ulm. After a historical introduction of the concept of “good form”, this paper will cover some relevant topics in each of these discourses to show the specific internal contradictions as well as the external conflicts related to the paradigm crisis of the technical rationality and the aporia existing in the impossibility to integrate economic interests and technical-scientific methods (positivism) over the social and moral functions of design.
Keywords: good design, good form, “Werkbund”, School of Ulm, rational beauty, technical rationality, social goals, economic interests, contradictions.
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