Contents
List of figures vii
Notes on contributors xi
Preface xv
INTRODUCTION: Utility reassessed JUDY ATTFIELD 1
1 DEFINING UTILITY DESIGN
1 Utility prefigured: Ruskin and St George's Mill LINDA COLEING 12
2 'Pro arte utili': the utility principle in Finnish textile
design education MAR)O WIBERG
3 An episode in post-Utility design management: the Council of
Industrial Design and the Co-operative Wholesale Society 31
JONATHAN M. WOODHAM
4 'Beauty, everyday and for all': the social vision of design in 58
Stalinist Poland DAVID CROWLEY
5 'The beauty of stark utility': rational consumption in America 73
Consumer Reports 1936-54 SUSIE MCKELLAR
II REASSESSING THE HISTORY OF UTILITY DESIGN
6 The design of Utility vehicles in wartime Britain 92
JONATHAN BELL
7 Utility furniture and the myth of Utility 1943-48 110
MATIHEW DENN EY
8 The Utility garment: its design and effect on the mass market
1942-45 HELEN REYNOLDS 125
9 Fashion, femininity and 'frivolous' consumption in 143
World-War-Two Britain PAT KIRKHAM
10 Utility forgot: shaping the future of the British pottery 157
industry 1941-45 GRAHAM MCLAREN
11 Enid marx : designing textiles for the utility furniture design
advisory panel Cynthia R. Weaver 171
III THEORISING THE ETHICS OF UTILITY DESIGN
12 Utility, design principles and the• ethical tradition
NIGEL WHITELEY 190
13 Freedom of Design JUDY ATTFIELD 203
203 14 Utility and the politics of consumption PATRICK J. MAGUIRE 221
15 Fascinating Fitness: the dangers of Good Design
JUDY ATTFIELD 233
16 Design and the state: post-war horizons and pre-millennia]
Aspirations JONATHAN M. WOODHAM 245
Index 261