FIND 1220. DESIGN HISTORY WEEK 7 THE ERA OF CONSUMERISM ( 1948-1958) The 50’s The picture of American Dream Commercial

1. FIND 1220. DESIGN HISTORY WEEK 7 THE ERA OF CONSUMERISM ( 1948-1958) The 50’s The picture of American Dream Commercial Forces Pop Culture and Youth market Earl Harley. Industrial and Interior design Peter and Alison Smithson. Future Home and New Brutalism Andy Warhol. Pop-Art Organic Abstraction. I. Naguchi, H.Moore, and Eames Abstract Expressionism. M. Rothko, J. Pollock

2. The 50's were the time when the shape of the political landscape in the world could be clearly defined between the Soviet dominated East and the capitalist West. • The cold war became a grim reality because both sides had the power and technology for a Nuclear holocaust, but equally both knew any war could not truly be won. • Following the end of the second world war the economies of the western world boomed which led to the start of a consumer-led economy that seemed to have no bounds . • With the forming of the EEC European Economic Community, West Germany enjoyed a growth which exceeded any expectations at the end of the war. • Following on to the break up of the British Empire which before had occupied 30% of the globe many fledgling democracies were starting to find their own identities including India Pakistan Rhodesia now ( Zimbabwe ), and having the growing pains that any new democracy would face . • During the 50's and following decades more and more of the old colonial empires would be forced to allow allow countries their independence. • Following the creation of the new State of Israel there were many conflicts in the middle east which are still occurring to this day. • Like Germany in Europe Japan saw massive economic growth by supplying the goods needed for the consumer-led society in both Europe and the United State

3. Scrapbooks speak to the labor of leisure—the labor of cultural (re)production. Leisure is thus in the process of becoming commoditized, becoming work in its own right. The act of scrapbook making, the cultural production of family, nation, and middle America, was the "work" of the feminized sphere; women and children who were thus interpellated into the larger consumerist regime, and into the ideological regimes at work in the representations that were re-contextualized in their own "personal" scrapbooks. Ford initiated a consumerist regime of demand-driven economics, and created a middle-income class with money to spend and leisure time in which to recreate. This Fordist revolution initiated a change in individuals' attitudes toward the land—at once more distanced (in terms of labor and production) and more intimate (in terms of car travel and the individualized travel through space). Early car travel upset the "hegemony of the intellectual message encoded in railroad travel" (Rothman 1988, 144) by putting the car owner in the "driver's seat" to deal with the many unexpected contingencies of road travel. This was the "democratization" and appeal to the sense of individualism and adventure that early car travel offered middle-class Americans.

4. "The Cold War era generation, in the wake of the disruption of World War II and the uncertainty of the new, nuclear age, looked "homeward" to the isolated, stable, sexually charged safe haven of the home and family“. Families were "re-domesticating" and suburbanizing "in the intersecting currents of Cold War ideology; the domestic, family romance; consumerism; and the rapid technologizing of mass media". The "family vacation," in this context, became the model of family togetherness: "Taking a family vacation was justified by adherence to the ideal of family togetherness, out of a belief that a vacation would strengthen family bonds" and thus, by extension, the strength of the nation. The newly emerging concept of the "family vacation" was an aspect of the processes that this age of high industrialism and wealth intensified—processes which included massive social reorganization, lifestyle changes and expectations, increased scheduled leisure time, the rise of consumerism, and the valorization of the nuclear, domestic sphere

5. tourists of this age of road travel also engaged in a series of memorializing projects —souvenir and memento collection, photography, and scrapbook production. In these individualizing acts, American subject-hood was constituted in the incorporation of images and "personal" experiences into commemorative, narrativized scrapbook projects that use the road itinerary as a template. Generic post cards become personal proof of passage when collected in a trip's scrapbook …experience of the road trip itself, in the form of silent and invisible workers whose labor made the touristic experience possible , and also in the imagery of postcards, souvenirs, and maps in which radicalized others have become part of the roadside attractions associated with touristic consumption

6. https://archive.org/details/ClassicT1948_7 Ads “Christian Dior’s Corolle collection in Paris  influenced our 1950s ‘New Look’ dress. The style emphasized fully pleated skirts and nipped-in waists and made movie-star style fashion accessible to ordinary women.

8. Popular Culture 1950s Popular Culture in the 50's can be captured in just a few words which speak volumes. "The Cold War", "Baby Boomers" , "Korea" , "The Red Scare",. This was the decade where people built Bomb Shelters, had babies and the news was filled with what the reds were doing or going to do. .

9. Toys 1950s Children's offered a much wider range following the boom in babies born, but toys were very much gender designed with dolls, prams, dressmaking for girls toys and Cowboys and Indians, cars and construction sets for boy The other important change was in how teenagers were viewed up until the 50's teenagers were just children and were treated as such the 50's and future decades changed that where teenagers became an important section of society when politicians and others realized teenagers would very quickly become voters and consumers and a new generation of pop stars including Elvis Presley were created whose main target audience was teenagers.

10. The youth of 50’s influenced by: GioPontidesigned stage sets and costumes for Milan's La Scala; the curvaceous La Pavoni espresso machine (1948), an icon of Italy's postwar boom and coffee-bar culture; and--perhaps his best known design effort--the Superleggera (superlight) chair [1957] for Cassina, so light that it is said that a child could lift it with one finger--though how many were given the opportunity, we don't

11. Design by Harley Earl

12. Alison and Peter Smithson. House of the Future, Living room ,1956. daily mail, Ideal Home Show, London

13. The Economist Building, Piccadilly, London. (1959–65)

14. Studio 54 was the setting for Andy Warhol’s social life in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Always a bit of a wallflower, he was usually away from the crowd hanging out with friends such as Liza Minnelli and Bianca Jagger.

15. Organic Abstraction. I. Naguchi, H.Moore, and Eames Noguchi table an understated and beautiful element in homes and offices since its introduction in 1948. Henry Moore RecliningFigure 1951 Not until 1950 did it become possible to manufacture and market organically shaped seat shells in large quantities, as exemplified by Charles and Ray Eames's famous Plastic Armchair or Saarinen's Tulip Chair

16. Abstract Expressionism. M. Rothko, J. Pollock Rothko.FourDarksRed.1958 Jackson Pollock.No. 5, 1948