An Introduction to Design and Culture, 3rd Edition

9    Postmodernism and design

Modern design in crisis

Pure function does not eliminate the need for stylistic choice … A neglect of the vital connection between form and expression is traditional.¹

From the moment in the early twentieth century when the Viennese architect–designer, Adolf Loos, proclaimed that ornament should be equated with crime, an essentially rationalist approach to modern design began to dominate all other ways of thinking about the subject. Not only did that view give rise to a highly reductive philosophy of design, summed up by the oft-repeated maxim ‘form follows function’, it also generated a minimal aesthetic for designed artefacts, characterized by geometric forms, undecorated surfaces and a restricted use of colour ...