MOMA design curator Paola Antonelli previews the groundbreaking show "Design and the Elastic Mind" -- full of products and designs that reflect the way we think now...(...about science and design.)

Hmm...

I've seen the video, but I don't think that there is a change. There's nothing different now with the work of 100 years ago. This woman could have talked in the 1800's, and she would only have had to change the examples. Granted, we have more products now, so more variation in the examples... but that's it.

 

"Design" has always been about making something look good... at least, when you use the definition of the woman talking. (For me, "beauty" definitely includes functionalism). But ever since humans have started to construct things have we had the desire to make it look good. Aren't old city centers looking great? Old bridges, cars, pottery, whatever?

 

It's just that recently, people who have no clue about science and engineering have become involved in producing something. The only "revolution" and "elasticity of the mind" is that we simply split up the task. The "designer" now makes a wishlist for what is needed for a really fantastic beautiful idea... and then the scientist/engineer grabs the red marker, and goes: "All nice, but that, that, that and especially that is not possible, so the result will be this"...

 

Then the designer complains a bit, comes up with more money perhaps, and the iteration ends when everybody is happy.

 

Honestly, this woman seems to suggest that scientists and engineers never have any good taste... that scientists and engineers cannot make anything beautiful.

 

I get sick of people like this.

 

She seems to forget that often, the desires of the "designers" reduce functionalism, and therefore make something more useless. And that is only still popular because we haven't changed much since the days that we were impressed with dumb shiny objects that have no purpose.