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Moral Design

Luca Perlini and honest design

Staatliches Bauhaus

The design school of Weimar, Dessau and Berlin (1919-1933)

Agitprop

Agitatsiya-propaganda, revolutionary Russia from 1917

Aesthetic Movement

"art for art's sake": peacocks, sunflowers, blue china and Anglo-Japanese furniture in Victorian England

Art Deco

geometry, luxury and modernity between the wars

Art Nouveau

sinuous lines and natural forms between the 19th and 20th centuries

Arts and Crafts

William Morris and the return to craftsmanship in industrial England

Avant-garde

Futurism, Cubism, Expressionism, Dada, Suprematism, Constructivism and De Stijl: the movements that broke with the past in the early twentieth century and paved the way for modern design

Biomorphism

soft shapes that recall cells, bones, pebbles and leaves: from the sculpture of Arp and Moore to the kidney-shaped tables of the postwar years

Compasso d'Oro

the oldest industrial design award, since 1954

Corporate identity

logo, typefaces, colours, products and buildings speaking with one voice: from Peter Behrens for AEG to the London Underground, from Olivetti to Paul Rand's IBM

Constructivism

art in the service of the revolution: from Tatlin's Tower to the posters of Rodchenko and El Lissitzky, the Russia of the 1920s that wanted to turn artists into designers

Craft Revival

the rediscovery of the handmade after the Second World War: potters, glassmakers and furniture makers working in their own studios, against the anonymity of mass production

Cranbrook Academy of Art

the Michigan school where Eames, Saarinen, Bertoia and Florence Knoll met: the cradle of postwar American design

Darmstädter Künstlerkolonie (Darmstadt Artists' Colony)

the Mathildenhöhe hill where in 1899 the Grand Duke of Hesse invited Olbrich, Behrens and other artists to build houses, furniture and objects as a single work of art

De Stijl

straight lines and primary colours: the Dutch avant-garde born in 1917

Deconstructivism

buildings that seem to explode, skewed angles and fragmented surfaces: the architecture and design that challenged order and harmony in the 1980s

Deutscher Werkbund

art, industry and craft together: from sofa cushions to city-building

Dresdner Werkstätten für Handwerkskunst

the furniture workshop founded in Dresden in 1898 by Karl Schmidt, where Riemerschmid invented "machine furniture" and Germany's first garden city was born

École de Nancy

glass, furniture and lamps inspired by flowers, insects and plants: the Art Nouveau of Lorraine by Émile Gallé, Louis Majorelle and the Daum brothers

Functionalism

"form follows function": from Sullivan and Loos to the Bauhaus, from the Frankfurt kitchen to Dieter Rams, the idea that guided twentieth-century design

Futurism

speed, machines and modern cities: the movement led by Marinetti that from 1909 set out to "reconstruct the universe", from furniture to clothes, from graphics to cooking

Glasgow School

Mackintosh, The Four and the Glasgow Style at the turn of the 20th century

Global Tools

the "school" of radical design, founded in 1973 in the offices of Casabella to bring spontaneous creativity and handwork back into design

Good Design

MoMA's exhibitions of the 1950s and the idea that good design is simple, honest, durable and within everyone's reach

Green design

designing with an object's whole life cycle in mind: materials, energy, durability, repair and recycling, from Victor Papanek to the circular economy

High-tech

coloured pipes, exposed steel structures and materials from the factory: the aesthetics of technology from the Centre Pompidou to homes furnished with industrial shelving

Institute of Design (Chicago)

the "New Bauhaus" founded by László Moholy-Nagy in 1937: the school that brought the Bauhaus method to America and made design a university discipline

International Style

how an exhibition in New York gave modern architecture a name, and carried it into skyscrapers and offices all over the world

Jugendstil

German Art Nouveau: whiplash lines, magazines and applied-art workshops

Kitsch

"bad taste": from the cheap prints of Munich to snow globes, the sworn enemy of modern design and later its source of inspiration

Moderne

stepped skyscrapers, ocean liners, cinemas and seaside hotels: the "modern" face of architecture and interiors between the wars

Modern Movement

form follows function: the architecture and design that changed the twentieth century

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

the New York museum that since 1929 has decided what counts as "modern", and was the first to exhibit a chair or a ball bearing as a work of art

Novecento

the "return to order" after the avant-gardes: Sarfatti, Sironi, Muzio's Ca' Brutta and Gio Ponti's porcelain in 1920s Milan

Organic design

from Frank Lloyd Wright's house over the waterfall to the bent plywood seats of Eames and Saarinen: designing the way nature does

Pop design

plastic, bright colours and throwaway objects: 1960s design that spoke the language of consumer society

Post-industrial design

when the factory stops being the centre of the world: the design of services, information and small batches from the 1970s to today

Postmodernism

"Less is a bore": quotations, colour and irony against the rigour of the Modern Movement, from Venturi to Memphis

Radical design

Archizoom, Superstudio, Sottsass and the groups that, from 1966 to the early 1970s, challenged "good design" with wave-shaped sofas, foam meadows and endless cities

Rationalism

the Modern Movement in Italy: Gruppo 7, Terragni and the Casa del Fascio in Como, between avant-garde and regime

Royal College of Art

the London school founded in 1837 to train designers for industry, which became the world's leading university for art and design

Roycrofters

the East Aurora craft community that brought Arts and Crafts to America: books, oak furniture and hammered copper

Vienna Secession

Klimt, Hoffmann and Vienna in 1897: to every age its art, to art its freedom

Semiotics

the science of signs applied to objects: why a chair, a car or a coffee maker "speaks" to the people who use it

Standardisation

the "type", common measurements and mass production: an idea at the heart of modern design

Streamlining

aerodynamic shapes for trains, cars, refrigerators and pencil sharpeners: the style that invented the industrial designer in Depression-era America

Surrealism

the dream comes home: lip-shaped sofas, lobster telephones and fur teacups, from Breton's avant-garde to the design of Mollino and Fornasetti

Swiss School

grid, sans-serif type, flush-left text and photography: the Swiss graphic design that taught the world to communicate clearly

Total design

designing everything, from the spoon to the city: the idea of all-embracing design, from the total work of art to Ove Arup's multidisciplinary teams and Wim Crouwel's Dutch studio

Utility Furniture

the rationed furniture of wartime Britain: a few simple, sturdy models approved by the state for those who had lost their homes in the bombing

Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk (Munich)

the Munich workshops born of Jugendstil: from prize-winning rooms in Paris to ocean liners and Bruno Paul's mass-produced furniture

Victoria & Albert Museum

the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, born in London after the Great Exhibition of 1851 to teach good taste to industry

Design archive

Design history