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The Genius of Design
The Genius of Design is a documentary series which explores the history of design. The very first episode gives a fascinating account of the birth of industrial design. The film explores the work of the famous and anonymous designers responsible for prosaic but classic designs for cast-iron cooking pots to sheep shears.
The documentary is interspersed with interviews with famous designers Dieter Rams and J Mays, Ford Motors’ global head of design.
When the world was facing a the worst crisis in the form of the two world wars design gave new and different ideas about the shape of things to emerge from the radical futurism of the Bauhaus to the British love affair with mock-Tudor architecture and the three-piece suit.
The Genius of Design examines the Second World War and discusses the rival war machines designed and built in Germany, Britain, the USSR and the USA. These war machinery as the film suggests reveals a fascinating the ideological priorities of the nations and regimes which produced them.
The story of design moves to the world of the 50s and 60s, when a revolutionary new material called plastic was introduced. It was combined with the miracles of electronic miniaturization which allowed designers to provide something new: liberation to the post war generation,
The story moves to the late 70s, the final episode tracks the explosion of wild creativity that defined the ‘designer decades’ of the 80s and early 90s. Addressing wants rather than needs, the mantra of the age of Consumerism and the emergence of ‘retail culture’, designers moved out of the backrooms and claimed starring role in the shaping of modern life.
The Genius of Design,
Really enjoyed this documentary. Thanks for posting it.
indeed thank you
This BBC series ‘The Genius of Design’ has several episodes which deal with different decades of the C20th:
(1) Ghost in the Machine (1900s-1920s)
(2) Designs for Living (1920s-1930s)
(3) Blueprints for War (WW2)
(4) Better Living Through Chemistry (1950s-1960′s)
(5) Objects of Desire (1980s-1990s)
For some reason there is no episode that deals specifically with the 1970s
The link on this website only takes you to Episode 3, ‘Blueprints for War’ (split into 4 parts and posted on You Tube). It is worthwhile to search out the other episodes — I think they are more interesting than this one.
I enjoyed this series because it explores a subject not often discussed on television documentaries and records interviews with people who are not often asked to tell their stories. Altogether that makes this a very useful archive of snippets of information and opinion. However, it really is a very superficial review of the material and it is hard to fathom what the editors are trying to say about ‘design’. The title mentions ‘genius’ but nothing in the content of the documentaries explains why it does so. The relationship between ‘genius’ and ‘design’ remains unexplored. What we have are some talking heads, archive footage, and a sample of museum exhibits — a ragbag which might have been worked up into an essay about design and/or genius but the makers either could not or would not do this intellectual work. That means the viewer has to do all the thinking. Well, okay, I don’t mind thinking for myself but I wonder why I should waste time watching a documentary series that has so little to say.
You know, someone could take these images and record a new voice-over and give us a worthwhile documentary series as a result. I’d be curious to see the results and might give it a go myself one day. Anything would be an imporvement on the existing narration which is marred in my opinion by the overly sombre tone that puts me in mind of BBC broadcasts of royal funerals — maybe they think you have to talk like that when discussing ‘genius’? Fortunately, this over-the-top pomposity sets itself up for some very amusing unintentionally funny moments. For example, episode 3, discussing the role of design in wartime, first shows us a sten machine gun and tells us with po-faced sincerity that in wartime design determines “not just the fate of the world but the shape of the world to come” and then jump cuts to footage of a person respectfully admiring a plywood chair (prototype of the design repeated so often by Ikea and such). I laughed out loud! There are many such examples of hilarious bathos in this series and I recommend you watch it if only for these gems.
Wow!!Thank you.