Frederique Krupa
Fall 1996History of Design from the Enlightenment to the Industrial Revolution
The Enlightenment (1689-1789)
18th Century Germany Kant "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his nonage." Man has failed to reach his majority not through lack of intelligence but from lack of determination and courage to use that intelligence without another's guidance. Dare to know! Have courage to use your own intelliegence." What Kant was refering to here was to have the courage to Reason on your own and to question prevailing modes of thought, since power and knowledge was still controlled by the church and by the nobility. He and other Enlightenment figures were propositioning nothing short of breaking religious and metaphysical dogmas of the past. Other imprtant figures include Adam Smith, David Hume (UK), Voltaire, Diderot, Holbach, Rousseau, Montesquieu (France), Lessing & Kant, Hegel (Germany), Ben Franklin, T. Jefferson, & James Madison (US). Their criticism was an act of aggression and they impartially claimed the right to examin everything. While they were for the most part philosophers, their work influenced the worlds of religion, morality, politics, economics, law, psychology, sociology, education, literature, the arts.... New types of institutions came into existance: Museum, which separated Art from Real Life, Schools, Prison, Hospitals, Exchanges, Asylums...
The Enlightenment sought to systematicaly categorize, organize, explore, understand everything. With the scientific method from Newton 17th Century, free-thinker sought to break religious and metaphysical dogmas of the past through examination. Diderot started the Encyclopedia, Rousseau and Kant sought to understand the human conscience and the nature of knowledge and developed social and political systems. Adam Smyth published the Wealth of Nations in 1789 and ushered in the world Laissez-Faire economics, capitalism, believing that the benefits of the individual would in turn benefit or trickle down to the rest of society, a concept held dearly by Republicans, this being called "the invisible hand"....
So what other values were held dear by this large, varied, but close-knit international movement? Christianity was wrong and that science, withits dependable results and principled modesty was the way to truth (In so far as it was possible) and to happiness. They believed in the Critical Method. They also believed in Decency, humanitarianism, freedom from censorship, loosening the moral code. Others include: Knowledge, Universality, Objectivity, Reason, Logic, Science, Individualism (Law), Progress, Perfectibility of Man, Capitalism, even socialism...
They were hoping to change the world for the better, to make humanity freer, richer and more civilized.
You may be wondering why we are discussing this in a Design History Class, well, over the course of Design History, we will see how these ideas manifest themselves in the Design field. The Enlightenment is our legacy, some argue, one that is coming to an end.
Society had already started to change from a rural/agrarian/feudal culture to an increasingly urban/industrialized one. The nature of work was changing as well, from guilds with master craftsmen and apprentices who designed, built and marketed their goods, to large format production with increasing specialized and repetitive tasks. The gradual introduction of machines in production increased the pace even more. The steam engines first developed by James Watts in 1769 (and its need for coal) and advances in the textile mills, like the Spinning Jenny & jacquard loom, required a huge number of workers for its factories, and displaced peasants streamed into the English, French and New England cities to find works in the factories and the coal mines.
This was a period of colonial expansion, especially after the Napoleonic Wars which ended in 1815, in order to increase trade and obtain raw materials and cheap labor. Advances in transportation, most notably oceanliner steam ships and the expansion of national railways from 1840 onward, lead people to seek land and fortune in less crowded parts of the world. This migration frequently lead to the dissemination of trade secrets, especially in regards to the design of industrial machinery and precipitated the development of the Industrial Revolution in other parts of the world. The first textile US textile mill in Rhode Island began when a mill worker who had memorized the construction of the looms emigrated from England. Laws had been enacted to protect trade secrets, making the voyage of ex-factory workers very difficult.
With expanding factories, expanding trade routes, many European and American cities double in size, sometimes every 20 years. For example, Paris had 1 million in 1800, 2 million in 1820, 4 million in 1840, and while cities expanded slightly, workers had to live close to their jobs or close to the railroad lines, since mass transit aside from a few trains was practically non-existant. London had the fisrt underground trains in 1863, which were powered by steam engines and had windowless carriages...) Chronic housing shortages, inflation, lack of sanitation, scarce sources of potable water, expensive food, 7-day work weeks, long hours, no workers rights, child labor. All this made for an absolutely wretched existance for the working classes. Mass rioting erupted in cities every 15 years, 1830, 1848, etc. So wretched was their plight that a number of individuals who will discuss in the coming weeks, sought to change the methods of production to lessen the exploitation of the workers and increase the quality of aesthetic quality and craftsmanship of mass-produced objects. They initiated a moral imperative to design and manufacturing...(ie. Ruskin, Pugin and Morris) One person who responded to this was Karl Marx (with Federick Engels) who wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848 having lived in London for only a year.
So what we are dealing with here is a period of radical change, PROGRESS, which make people very very nervous. On one hand, you had enlightenment figures who thought progress was entirely desirable, while the majority felt a loss of things they valued, were compelled to change their assumptions and forced to adjust to the new and unfamiliar. People are naturally inclined to resist PROGRESS. A peculiarity of Capitalsim is that each beneficial innovation, also brings a sequence opf other changes, not all of which are desirable to all people. The steam engine brought greater expediency to manufacturing and greater speed to transporation, but made master craftsmen into wage laborers and allowed towns to grow out of control. How were the masses going to overcome this fear, in order to accept new products? Obviously, one way was thorugh Design. Design alters the way we see commodity.
Adrian Forty, an English critic, mentions that there are 3 principal approaches to changing commodity: The ARCHAIC, the SUPPRESSIVE and the UTOPIAN. As an example he talks about early radio cabinets, which were not selling when they were just a mass of resistors wires and valves. The first a approach was to turn into an imitation of an antique piece of furniture, the second was to conceal it within another peice of furniture that served an entirely different purpose, like an armchair, and the 3rd, was to place into a peice of furniture that suggested that it belonged to a better and future world, which was the least disturbing when people finally got used to the technology. So while the 20th Century tended to use the UTOPIAN approach, 18th and 19th Century tended to us the ARCHAIC approach to overcome resistance to innovation.
In design, the antidote to progress was found in NEO-Classicism (which supplanted Rococco in the mid to late 18th Century). Neo Classicism aimed to regain for art and design a purity of from and expression which was felt lacking in the Rococco style. While tours to look at the main manufacturing centers of England were extremely popular, tours to study classical remains was a major component of the artistic education for any cultured aristocrat. Much of the inspiration came from the discovery of Herculaneum in 1738 and Pompeii in 1748. The study of Roman remains would provide an inspirational model for the present, not to be slavishly copied, but to express modern sentiments.
Since Rome's Golden Age was believed to be a time of perfect peace and harmony, which was subsequently upset by the introduction of Christianity after the 2nd Century. The pleasure they derived was from studying a society that they believed was stable. This belief has pretty much been disproved, that Rome was indeed constantly in the midst of change, and that their empire subsequently succumbed to their slaves and foreigners, when they were unable to suffciently reproduce (lead water pipes, lead drinking vessels, hot Roman baths...)
So the Perversity of the situation was that a society so fascinated by progress was so devoted to study of the far distant past. Unease about progress and compulsive interest in the past were related phenomena.
(SLIDES OF PALLADIO & JEFFERSON & LEDOUX & ADAMS)
<The first was the FASHION category, like Robert Adams that designed his <interiors to look like the latest excavations being unearthed in <Pompeii. There was a UTOPIAN element, represented by Ledoux with his <Saline de Chaux, a worker's community. There are apsects of <IMPERIALISM, especially designs for Napoleon, trying to link his empire <to the imperial splendors of Rome. There is also a Romantic Nostalgia, <found in the drawings of Piranesi, of Nature taking over the futile <efforts of Man, ruins as garden decorations becomes all the rage. All <these aspects focused on past ornamentation for guidance, especially <Roman, especially Palladian.
Publishing had created a growing literate audience who could keep up with the styles through pattern books that explained and depicted the right Neo-Classical ornamentation. There were also books that closely detailed what was being excavated in Italy and Greece....There were no professional architects or designers, just gentlemen who took a fancy to these pursuits. The men who started factories, like Chipendale, Wedgewood and Boulton bought & used designs from pattern books for their goods. They basically used classical shapes to show the quality of modern production techniques.
(slide BOULTON & WEDGEWOOD)
Josiah Wedgwood, b. July 12, 1730, d. Jan. 3, 1795, the most important figure in British ceramic history, was born of a family of potters in Burslem, Staffordshire. Physical disabilities forced him to concentrate on the technical side of pottery making, to which he brought an outstanding intelligence and a scientific turn of mind. In 1754 he became the partner of Thomas Whieldon, a leading Staffordshire potter, and with his encouragement Wedgwood experimented with ceramic bodies and especially glazes. Wedgwood was always primarily interest with what went on in the kilns.
Doubtless to exploit his own discoveries, he set up his own works in Burslem in 1759. His motives were: To make more pots, to sell more pots and to increase the unit prices for each. He refined the production process to more specialized stages, which could be more closely supervised, which speeded up production. He could also use his skilled workers to do the more diffficult aspects while the less-skilled were occupied with the simpler tasks and were more supervised. He became very aware of the need for consistency in his products, so some unpredictable glazes were phased out. He began using enamels applied on printed transfers in addition to handpainted enamels. These were developed by the firm Sadler & Green, with whom he worked. These transfer printed patterns, were not only faster and easier than hand-painted enamel, therefore cheaper, they also allowed a greater variation in production while keeping the same body shape. VERY IMPORTANT....
At first he worked to improve the cream-colored earthenware body (called creamware) that, in varying quality, had been in use by Staffordshire potters for about 10 to 15 years. After 1765, Wedgwood was permitted to name his creamware "Queen's ware," after furnishing tableware to Queen Charlotte, the consort of George III.
On the strength of his successes, Wedgwood built (1766) a new factory specifically to make ornamental wares-- statuettes, tiles, etc...--- in the neoclassic revival style. The factory was named Etruria, after the region of central Italy where classical vases had been recently discovered. Thomas Bentley, his partner and London agent, was largely responsible for the design of these wares. Wedgwood's taste ran to the Baroque rather than Neo Classical. The first were made in the "Black Basalt" body, but after further research, in 1776, Wedgwood perfected his well-known "Jasper ware" in various colors. His most famous productions in this technique were his copies of the Portland Vase (AD 3d century; British Museum, London), a Roman glass amphora with white relief decoration on a dark blue ground. He turned the public viewing into a society event. Here was another paradox, to show the quality of modern production techniques, he had to copy a 3rd Century Roman vase.
Wedgwood's creamware, however, ensured the prosperity of his business and was always his main product. Its refinement and practicality made it the most desirable utilitarian pottery of the late 18th century, and it enjoyed a huge export trade. What really set creamware appart was that it filled a niche between low quality, cheap pottery and the royal manufactories. It catered to the burgeoning middle classes.
To sell these patterns, Wedgwood opened showrooms with samples but no stock. The work had to be ordered, so he took no risk with unsold stock. He also had travelling salesmen in England and abroad with illustrated catalogues and sample tiles with transfer printed and hand-painted enamels on them that allowed customers to choose any combination of decorations and limted number of pottery shapes. These orders would be sent to the factory and they would be delivered direct. The most critical part was maintaining consistency, which he developed into his production techniques mentioned earlier.
The aesthetic value of Wedgwood's pottery as part of the classical revival somewhat overshadows his important contributions to engineering and science. He was, for example, the inventor of the pyrometer, which measures high temperatures, and was the first industrialist to install (1782) a steam engine in his factory. In 1783 he became a fellow of the Royal Society.
In the 1790's The American System of manufacturing was proposed by Eli Whitney. He graduated from Yale College in 1792 and by April 1793 had designed and constructed a machine called a cotton gin that quickly and easily separated cottonseed from the short-staple cotton fiber. Whitney's cotton gin was capable of maintaining a daily output of 23 kg (50 lb) of cleaned cotton, and its effect was far-reaching, making southern cotton a profitable crop for the first time. This had serious repercussions on the slave trade which supplied the labor to pick the cotton. Whitney, however, failed to profit from his invention. Numerous imitations appeared, and his 1794 patent was not validated until 1807.
In 1798, Whitney obtained a government contract to make 10,000 muskets. He demonstrated that machine tools--manned by workers who did not need the highly specialized skills of gunsmiths--could produce standardized parts to exact specifications, and that any part could be used as a component of any musket. He thought that workers would have to unlearn fewer bad habits if their task was simple and repetitive. The firearms factory he built in New Haven, Conn., was thus one of the first to use MASS PRODUCTION methods. It did take him 10 years to fullfil his contract and the parts didn't perform as well as he had hoped, but he started this idea.
Slides...
In 1851, the First Great Exposition takes place in London's Hyde Park. This exposition is intended as a display of human progress in various nations, and England, being the most powerful Empire at this time, really saw this Expo as the chance to highlight the superiority of British enterprise, inventions and technology. Paxton, an ex-gardener, designed the huge building called the Crystal Palace from prefabricated iron and glass structures. (Plate glass technology had been developed in 1680's, while reinforced and pre-stressed concrete were later developed in 1867 and 1886) He modeled it after technology used for greenhouses, obviously changing the scale and the quantity of the structures. The first building burned down, the second took nine months to build, which may sound like a long time, but is remarkably quick for a building of that scale. The building finally burned down in 1936....
The quality of the Objects left much to desired, however. The profusion of eclectic historicism and mediocre craftsmanship that tried to emulate ornamentation of hand-crafting provided unequivocal proof that the Machine Age numbed all aesthetic sensibilities...The mass production which had become possible as a result of industrialuzation and the consequent division of labor had thrown centuries-old traditions of craftsmanship and quality into confusion, resulting in an artistic and easthetic loss of direction.
But another explanation could explain this. Victorian England had a large bourgeois population that ignored the problems of society, wanted little government intervention and focused on domestic architecture and interiors. The home was the temple of the individual and if the poor were to be helped, let religion provide the answer...
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