Anne Massey

Unsustainability: towards a new design history, with reference to British utility

Does design history need to be rewritten? Do we need to constantly re-invent disciplines and approaches, negate all previous scholarship because we can assert our own as more credible? This paper argues for a New Design History which does not eschew everything from the original Design History, in the spirit of sustainability. The wardrobe of Design History has some items which deserve thrifty recycling. The argument is presented by moving through three different modes/voices: first, the challenge of sustainability for the discipline of Design History is examined; then an autobiographical account of the acknowledgement of sustainability within the history of Design History is presented; finally, the British Utility scheme is considered as a case study in the history of sustainability.

'A feminine touch’: gender, design and the ocean liner

This article offers an interdisciplinary account of gender in relation to ocean liner interior design. It outlines a case study of what the discipline of design history can bring to gender and maritime history. A historiography of the subject is followed by an analysis of the ways in which the spaces on board British ocean liners were conceived of, designed and used in terms of gender. Some spaces on board were designated as female only and other spaces understood to be male only – particularly the smoking room. The concluding part of the article considers the role of women designers within the patriarchal world of ship design and construction, by investigating the contributions of Elsie Mackay at P & O and the Zinkeisen sisters on the Queen Mary. Using primary sources, including visual evidence, the article considers a range of liners, from the Hindostan (1842) through to the Orontes (1929; refitted 1948). This bridges the gap between design history, gender and maritime history and adds to debates around gender and maritime history with a consideration of the overlooked area of design and its histories.

Book Review: Jeffrey Edward Green, The Eyes of the People: Democracy in an Age of SpectatorshipGreenJeffrey Edward, The Eyes of the People: Democracy in an Age of Spectatorship. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 284 pp. ISBN 10: 019983847X

With The Eyes of the People: Democracy in an Age of Spectatorship, Jeffrey Green aims at contributing to the development of a democratic theory that is based on the figure of the spectator. His main argument is that a vocal understanding of citizenship – as illustrated by the figure of the ‘citizengovernor’, that is, the ‘participating citizen, who discusses, acts, joins, protests, takes a stand, legislates’ (p. 32) – is rather limiting. Instead, he proposes to view citizens as ‘citizen-spectators’, a figure ‘that, as a matter of law and abstract principle, has full political rights but, as a matter of practice, experiences politics primarily as a spectator’ (p. 32), and argues that to do so amounts to a form of popular empowerment. Despite its intentionally restricted disciplinary scope, the book provides an important contribution to the much needed mitigation of the hiatus between orthodox political theory and current discussions of political spectatorship that traverse visual culture studies, film studies, art theory and curatorial studies.

The Mother of Pop? Dorothy Morland and the Independent Group

The historiography of the Independent Group, dominated at present by art and architectural history, positions it within the trajectory of modernism. This Themed Issue demonstrates that there are other readings of the Group, which foreground both its multidisciplinary approach and contestation of cultural boundaries. The author is concerned here with the ways in which the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and its Director, Dorothy Morland (1906–1999), acted as a catalyst for the Group. As an arts administrator rather than a practitioner, Morland’s contribution is often overlooked in the histories of art and architecture. Using the disciplinary approach of visual culture, a more inclusive view is opened up. Claims for prescience are in themselves, problematic, but by positioning Morland as the ‘Mother of Pop’, the commonly accepted view of the Independent Group as the ‘Fathers of Pop’ is contested. Morland trained as a singer at the Royal College of Music, and this background gave her a non-specialist and inclusive approach towards the visual. She managed to facilitate certain kinds of interdisciplinary debate and made it possible for certain kinds of art, design and architectural practice to flourish within the context of the ICA. She also facilitated the exhibition and dissemination of this interdisciplinary practice, acting as a bridge between the ICA management and the Independent Group, as well as being key to the preservation of the ICA’s history and archives.

Introduction to the Themed Issue: The Independent Group

An outline of the themed issue on the Independent Group which draws attention to the disturbance of disciplinary boundaries. A new, more inclusive approach is proposed. The themed issue was guest edited by Anne Massey.