Book Review of Modern Swedish Design: Three Founding Texts / Edited by Lucy Creagh, Helena Kaberg, and Barbara Miller Lane.--ISBN 978-0-870-70722-3. Reviewed by Alan Michelson

Alan Michelson

Humanities Commons

Modern Swedish Design: Three Founding Texts / Edited by Lucy Creagh, Helena Kaberg, and BarbaraMiller Lane.—New York, NY: The Museum of Modern Art, dist. By D.A.P. (Distributed Art Publishing),August 2008.—320 p.: ill.—ISBN 978-0-870-70722-3: $35.00 (pa.).Modern Swedish Design: Three Founding Texts consists of newlytranslated essays by the pioneering Swedish design theorists Ellen Key(1849-1926) and Gregor Paulsson (1889-1977). These translations, laidout as near facsimiles with their original illustrations and fonts, provideinsight as to why and how Swedish designers--and Scandinavians ingeneral—exerted great influence over contemporaries in the U.S. andU.K. during the mid-twentieth century.In the book’s first essay, “Beauty in the Home” (1899), Keyasserted the power of simplification and honesty in residential design,and the important role women played in shaping this formative domesticenvironment for children. Key, like her American contemporaries GustavStickley and Charles Keeler, critiqued the stale and meretricious mass-produced products of the Victorian age and the period’s tendency toromanticize and revive historic styles. For her, simple models for designincluded folk art, natural objects, and select utilitarian items. Key was astrong social democrat, who believed that design could help improve the economic and spiritual existenceof all classes. To raise the profile of Swedish-made goods globally, she called for domestic manufacturersto form close alliances with artists and artisan groups.In the second essay, “Better Things for Everyday Life” (1919), Paulsson—the head of the SvenskaSlöjdföreningen (Swedish Arts and Crafts Society)--continued Key’s main themes: shunning revivalism,encouraging simplicity and honesty in design, and stressing collaboration between factory owners andartists as a way of elevating Swedish products in the international marketplace. Paulsson stronglyunderscored Key’s assertion that improved taste in Sweden would help to insure prosperity andsatisfaction among all social classes.Paulsson and six young modern architects collaborated on the final essay, “acceptera” (1931).“Acceptera” sought the abandonment of outmoded craft traditions and revivalism, and encourageddesigners to embrace mechanization’s liberating potential for mass-producing honestly contemporary,functional goods. Its authors produced a sweeping and nuanced analysis of current trends making thisessay one of the key manifestos—written in any language—of the Modern Movement.Editors Lucy Creagh, Helena Kåberg, and Barbara Miller Lane have contributed brief but informativeessays that establish the context for each translated essay, as well as informative footnotes. A skimpybibliography demonstrates how little Swedish modern design theory has been translated into English.Modern Swedish Design: Three Founding Texts is essential for academic libraries with programs in designand architectural history and very useful in museum contexts.Alan Michelson, Head, Architecture and Urban Planning Library, University of Washington,alanmich@u.washington.eduCopyright © 2009 ARLIS/NAPDF Creator - PDF4Free v2.0                                                    http://www.pdf4free.com

Modern Swedish Design: Three Founding Texts

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Modern Swedish Design: Three Founding Texts

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