American Design in the Twentieth Century: Personality and Performance (review)

For those among us who teach design history and attempt to create order out of chaos with twentieth-century design in the United States, it is encouraging to discover a new source that provides a structure to assist in this monumental task. In American Design in the Twentieth Century: Personality and Performance, Greg Votolato addresses several perennial problems inherent in any study of design: What is design and what are its main functions? Who are designers? Is design restricted to formal professional work or is it inclusive of any activity that involves creative expression?

While the title of this volume indicates that the focus of the study is American design, its stated purposes deal with these questions of design on a more universal level: “to introduce how design evolved as an activity and as an idea” and “to contribute to a realistic understanding of design at the end of the millennium as part of an ongoing process of correcting and improving the environment in which we all live and of establishing a genuine place for ourselves within it” (pp. 22–23). Acknowledging that American Design is by no means a comprehensive view of design in the twentieth century, Votolato analyzes design in the United States not only to describe what occurred in this country and why but also to illustrate how various critical approaches to design analysis can be applied.

American Design combines large-scale overviews of the historical context and development of American style and design, design theories and movements, and methods of design analysis with individual case studies that focus on postmodernism, the custom-car myth, domestic architecture and interiors, and identity and utility in American fashion. Separate chapters deal with the process of turning ideas into objects, materials and technology, and designers and makers. The overviews present a coherent synthesis of primary and secondary sources from authors in a variety of fields, including Lewis Mumford, Buckminster Fuller, Siegfried Giedeon, Victor Margolin, Jeffrey Meikle, Victor Papanek, Robert Venturi, and Tom Wolfe. The case studies, although they present good arguments, are less complete. While scholars in automotive and fashion history can more effectively address those cases, in the chapter on domestic architecture and interiors there are several notable design changes missing from the text. The front porch was eliminated with the advent of the ranch house. This signaled a major change in the lifestyle of Americans, as family activities were directed toward the private rear areas of the property instead of the more communal space of the front porch. There is also no mention of the split-level house of the 1960s, or of trends in residential construction in the 1980s and 1990s, which include more square footage and more specialized areas within the dwelling.

There are two problems with the format that may frustrate the academic reader. While the illustrations are well suited to the text, their citations do not clearly identify the content, and their sources are not identified. Similarly, a number of references cited in the text fail to appear in either the bibliography, the index, or both.

Through American Design Votolato has provided two useful services to the history and design communities. First, the discussions of theories and movements in design (chapters 2 and 6) and critical approaches to design (section 3) make these areas more accessible to scholars from outside the field of design. While acknowledging that cultural theories such as postmodernism are broad-based, with different meanings for particular groups, Votolato’s design-focused text gives the reader clear descriptions of these theories and approaches, with readily understood examples. Second, Votolato’s use of various methods of design analysis and criticism throughout the text to “demonstrate to the reader how various methods may be used together to shed light on design practice, products and appreciation” (p. 253) provides an excellent format...