This book examines the way that objects 'speak' to us through the memories that we associate with them. Instead of viewing the meaning of particular designs as fixed and given, by looking at the process of evocation it finds an open and continuing dialogue between things, their makers and their consumers. This is not, however, to diminish the role of design in shaping human consciousness. The contributors do not view objects as blank carriers onto which humans project prior psychic dramas, but rather, place crucial importance on the precise materials from which they are made, their social, economic and historic reasons for being, and the way that we interact with them through our senses. This book therefore studies the physical within the intellectual, directly testing the concept of material culture.With telling illustrations, and spanning the Renaissance to the present day, leading scholars converge across disciplines to explore the souvenir-value of jewellery, textiles, the home, the urban space, modernist design, photography, the museum and even the sunken wreck. Together they show how the sense of the past and of history, far from being a 'radical illusion' as some post-modernists claim, has been a deeply felt reality.

The Banham Lectures presents a series of essays by leading critics on art, design, architecture and culture. All are inspired by the revolutionary work of Reyner Banham, who continues to be one of the greatest influences on Design and Architecture today. Integrating the study of pop art, industrial design and material culture for the first time, Banham's brilliant analyses of subjects - such as automobile styling, mobile homes, science fiction films, and our fondness for gadgets - anticipated many of our contemporary preoccupations. And just as Banham sought to overturn the views of previous generations, these critics aim to rethink the objects and buildings we use today. Provocative, engaged and inspired, The Banham Lectures is essential reading for anyone interested in the world we have made. CONTRIBUTORS: Mary Banham, Paul Barker, Tim Benton, Beatriz Colomina, Peter Cook, Elizabeth Collins Cromley, Frank Dudas, Adrian Forty, Christopher Frayling, Richard Hamilton, Mark Haworth-Booth, Tom Karen Pat Kirkham, Tomas Maldonado, Jeffrey L. Meikle, Gillian Naylor, Cedric Price, Ruth Schwartz-Cowan, Charles Saumarez Smith, Penny Sparke

This innovative volume brings together international design scholars to address the history and present-day status of national and international design organizations, working across design disciplines and located in countries including Argentina, Turkey, Estonia, Switzerland, Italy, China and the USA. In the second half of the 20th century, many non-governmental organizations were created to address urgent cultural, economic and welfare issues. Design organizations set out to create an international consensus for the future direction of design. This included enhancing communication between professionals, educators and practitioners, raising standards for design, and creating communities of designers across linguistic, national and political borders. Shared needs and agendas were identified and categories of design constantly defined and re-defined, often with overt cultural and political intents. Drawing on an impressive range of original research, archival sources and oral testimony, this volume questions the aims and achievements of national and international design organizations in light of their subsequent histories and their global remits. The Cold War period is central to the book, while many chapters draw on post-colonial perspectives to interpret how transnational networks and negotiations took place at events and congresses, and through publication.

This book examines the way that objects 'speak' to us through the memories that we associate with them. Instead of viewing the meaning of particular designs as fixed and given, by looking at the process of evocation it finds an open and continuing dialogue between things, their makers and their consumers. This is not, however, to diminish the role of design in shaping human consciousness. The contributors do not view objects as blank carriers onto which humans project prior psychic dramas, but rather, place crucial importance on the precise materials from which they are made, their social, economic and historic reasons for being, and the way that we interact with them through our senses. This book therefore studies the physical within the intellectual, directly testing the concept of material culture.With telling illustrations, and spanning the Renaissance to the present day, leading scholars converge across disciplines to explore the souvenir-value of jewellery, textiles, the home, the urban space, modernist design, photography, the museum and even the sunken wreck. Together they show how the sense of the past and of history, far from being a 'radical illusion' as some post-modernists claim, has been a deeply felt reality.