{"id":33,"date":"2010-08-24T06:37:07","date_gmt":"2010-08-24T06:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lo13.com\/attitude\/?p=33"},"modified":"2010-08-24T06:38:20","modified_gmt":"2010-08-24T06:38:20","slug":"design-me-an-american-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lo13.com\/attitude\/2010\/08\/24\/design-me-an-american-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"Design Me an American Hero"},"content":{"rendered":"

I made a comment on Design Observer<\/a> on “Design Loves a Depression” in 2009 which got reposted on the furniture society<\/a>‘s website with the editor of Dwell. Looking back, I’m still waiting for my American designer hero. I hope that some of the writing in this blog can help you become my American design hero. <\/p>\n

Original post:<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an unmentioned underlying issue here with which I struggle myself. In the following analysis I see a systemic problem: Current American three-dimensional design is failing to contribute to the larger dialogue in the global design community.
\nWhether disdained or hailed by the two articles, here are the designers mentioned
\nLorcan O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Herlihy \u00e2\u20ac\u201c born in Ireland
\nRem Koolhas – born in Netherlands
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153S, M, L, XL\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Bruce Mau born in Canada
\nPhilippe (Starck) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c born in France
\nZaha (Hadid) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c born in Iraq
\nEstablished & Sons \u00e2\u20ac\u201c UK Based Collective
\nWilliam McDonough \u00e2\u20ac\u201c born in Japan
\nMichael Braungart \u00e2\u20ac\u201c born in Germany (chemist)
\nCampana Brothers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c born in Brazil
\nHella Jongerius \u00e2\u20ac\u201c born in Netherlands
\nMarcel Wanders \u00e2\u20ac\u201c born in Netherlands
\nRussel Wright \u00e2\u20ac\u201c born in the USA (1904-1976)
\nCharles Eames \u00e2\u20ac\u201c born in the USA (1907 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 1978)
\nRay Eames \u00e2\u20ac\u201c born in the USA (1912 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 1988)<\/p>\n

The only \u00e2\u20ac\u0153American\u00e2\u20ac\u009d designers mentioned have all passed away. They are no longer producing new ideas to contribute to the three dimensional dialogue. Even the people quoted in Cannell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s article are no-longer actively creating designs, although very well-respected with their intellectual insights. P. Antonelli is an Italian curator and K. Wilson, R. Kroloff, and J Lasky is an American historian, an academic, and an editor respectively.<\/p>\n

Objects, created by our past heroes and by non-American designers listed above, are infused with philosophical depth. The modern American designed-objects are deficient in having this philosophical impact because of our cultural prioritization with function. The American culture puts a great deal of emphasis on being functional. This desire \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to do things\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is what makes life meaningful for Americans, rather than, say something else like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to love more\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Americans, including Cannell, have a thirst for function in order to enhance productivity, effectiveness, and efficiency in society. Function is a great prioritization for technology and capitalism (Americans have invented quite a bit of functional magic in the past century) but not for designs prioritizing the true essence of humanistic philosophies.<\/p>\n

Cannell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s title that the economic depression is good for design can be true but only so that we can create inspirational objects worthy of the shelves at Moss. Cannell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s suggested response to this economic depression is to focus design on efficiency, productivity and function to get back to our old America. We can instead reassess our cultural values and create designed-objects with our new American voice, infused with humanistic philosophies.<\/p>\n

With our forced detachment from the cultural addiction to productivity and money, we can finally stop focusing on designs that help us do more, but instead, focus on designs that help us love more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\n<\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I made a comment on Design Observer on “Design Loves a Depression” in 2009 which got reposted on the furniture society‘s website with the editor of Dwell. Looking back, I’m still waiting for my American designer hero. I hope that some of the writing in this blog can help you become my American design hero.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,7],"tags":[18,15],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lo13.com\/attitude\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lo13.com\/attitude\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lo13.com\/attitude\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lo13.com\/attitude\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lo13.com\/attitude\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lo13.com\/attitude\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lo13.com\/attitude\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lo13.com\/attitude\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lo13.com\/attitude\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}