Since the spread of the Industrial Revolution, design has internalized the century’s reigning economic, technological, and social influences. The entire vocabulary of the design language reflects this: We talk about practicality, cost-effectiveness, new materials and manufacturing processes, and human benefit. Good design is often synonymous with design that “works.” Nonfunctional objects, on the contrary, are automatically banished from the field. Such a view, however, may no longer be adequate. In a new world where culture has become a major determinant, design will have to find a new paradigm, a different mode of “working”—one based less on performance and more on communication, emotion, and joy.
A version of this article originally appeared in Metropolis magazine in November 1995. The text was included in the book Curious Boym: Design Works, published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2002.
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