My Modern Movement

Chapter 1

The Gap

Critic and manufacturer

Since the First World War, industrialists cannot fail to have noticed a growing volume of speculation about the nature of ‘good’ industrial design, much of it bound up with the so-called ‘Functionalist’ doctrine.

After 1934, when the Council for Art and Industry was formed,²⁰ the state became increasingly involved in design criticism and ten years later the Council of Industrial Design set itself to encourage a certain style—‘the contemporary idiom’—by exhibitions, publications and other means.

There is now a whole school of individuals claiming expertise in these matters, which is not the same thing as distinguished performance. They are design critics and not designers, just as professional music critics are a different phenomenon from that of performers and composers.

In industrial design, one type of producer deserves special consideration. I refer to the person who has not only designed and manufactured goods but has taken around the results of his labours and sold them. His feelings about design are inclined to be coloured by his experience and his approach to criticism will be somewhat different from that of the individual who employs others to design and sell, and, in fact, from all those who know about the designer–customer relationship only at second-hand.

I have myself had this first-hand experience, chiefly in connection with light fittings and architectural metalwork. The result has been a growing awareness of a gap between what the critics write and say about ‘good’ or ‘bad’ design and what is actually needed to enrich the flow of designed goods.

The critics and committee-men can no doubt play a useful part in this process of enrichment, but only if the gap between theory and practice is narrowed. In this essay I will discuss whether the gap is not being actually widened through attempts to simplify and provide ready-made rules for something which is, above all, mysterious and irrational; whether a source of confusion, peculiar not only to government councils but to art-school teaching, may not arise through trying to apply principles which are only appropriate to the fine arts; and whether the Kafka-like source of decrees on design might not be infallible because of its remoteness and ministerial imprimatur.

Lines of force

Industrial design seems to exist in a field of opposing forces. On the demand side we find the search for beauty, for satisfaction of the eye, sometimes mixed with the desire for influence and prestige (snobbism) and sometimes competing against it, as Veblen suggests.²¹ Industrial design is sometimes opposed even to questions of utility.

On the supply side, the necessity to please a customer often conflicts with the urge to suit one’s own fancy or to get something out of one’s system—the need to ‘express oneself’ so strongly felt by the composer, poet or artist.²²

It seems probable that, whatever the cash value of a great artist’s work, it remains estimable in its own right. Not so with industrial design which, by definition, must be considered in relation to some market, even when the customer is a government department or, worse, a dictatorship. What sells well may not be ‘good’ design but all good design must sell, and at a price to cover the cost of production under conditions of reasonably good administration.

I referred to dictators. From behind the iron curtains of authoritarian governments there reach us ugly glimpses of power, backed by cruelty, being used against ‘artistic integrity’, such evil forces being answered in their turn by open rebellion or by sycophancy, mingled at times, thank God, with a form of satirical humour, guying the dictatorships.

But we should beware of assuming that the design and art world of democratic Great Britain is entirely free from these dark forces. The seeds of authoritarian government can be found in, let us say, the committee meeting of a suburban tennis club, with its dominant chairman or secretary and its faked skeleton agenda which effectively prevents members of the committee from preparing their thoughts before the meeting. And is not the desire for power, albeit in a mild form, to be recognised in some of Britain’s aesthetic groups: the associations, academies and councils of the period under review?

The united front

There is obviously a special factor in the design of clothing, household appliances and furniture which scarcely exists in the fine arts. It is the functional. Unlike a painting or musical composition, good industrial design can in large respect be measured and graded objectively.

The doctrine of ‘Fitness for Purpose’ is, furthermore, a sound one. It is easy to see, therefore, how human beings, in their craving for simplicity and unification, should cling to this lifebelt when swimming in stormy aesthetic waters.

We must examine this, therefore, and see whether the very simplicity of the functional criterion does not appeal to certain groups of critics as a foundation on which to build their own influence, because behind the functional standard, easy to explain superficially, a united front can be aligned.

If preferences in design matters are, like music and religion, largely personal, what, asks the man in the street, is the point of coteries that push good design? A good question. The real issues in this respect are not so much technical and aesthetic as those that concern human relationships or the exercise of power by groups—questions, that is to say, for investigation by the social psychologist.

The changing scale and new techniques of industrial output are leading to new forms of organisation and techniques. This is common knowledge. It is only to be expected that governmental groups should seek to extend industrial planning and dirigisme into the sphere of art and design.

But decentralisation, with devices for sharing power and responsibility, and for promoting two-way traffic in ideas, is as badly needed in the group activity we call ‘design criticism’ as in industrial units administered by the National Coal Board.

The Design Centre²³

The opening of the Design Centre on 26 April, 1957 must have seemed an event of the greatest importance, a ‘landmark for the Council of Industrial Design’.²⁴ It was the culmination of many years’ patient work, the result of much propaganda, many reports and divers committee meetings in which official and unofficial bodies had been involved. As they entered No. 28 Haymarket, many felt a sense of relief and gratitude; but others, like myself, were uneasy about the way the landmark had been reached and doubtful as to its future.²⁵ This enquiry into the politics of industrial design is an attempt to trace the events leading up to such a notable occurrence and the causes of division. Since my own life has been very much mingled with these events, I have chosen the form of a memoir.

By trade I am a manufacturer, and through circumstances, education and character, industrial design has occupied my attention for many years. Although, at the beginning of the century, the foundations of my education were laid in the moralistic climate of Ruskin, most of the views expressed in the following pages were arrived at empirically.

In this biographical assessment I have set myself the task of determining within the limits of my experience whether there are absolute standards of design but the subject is complex. That is why ‘design politics’ in this country, from 1934 onwards, deserves the social psychologist’s attention. Without it, much is likely to remain hidden or unnoticed unless, as in this essay, an attempt is made to uncover it and present it for discussion.²⁶

Chapter 2

Setting the stage

My earliest memories are of W.T. Stead’s Books for the Bairns, cheap potted classics and fairy stories illustrated by Brinsley le Fanu.²⁷,²⁸ His influence on my childish drawings was profound. Later, when in 1902 I entered Bedales School, I encountered followers of Aubrey Beardsley, William Morris, Phil May and many others. Working alongside Allan Gwynne-Jones and Ivon Hitchens, whose output even then showed distinction, I continued to turn out lamentable drawings in the manner of le Fanu, which nevertheless earned a disproportionate number of good marks from our drawing mistress. I was therefore encouraged to design in this style for that particular market, thereby carrying out a policy, sound enough for industry, but questionable in the fine arts.

The child-artist is in a difficult situation. Something inside him tells him to paint and draw things as he feels they are but he will continually be tempted to depict them as he has been taught they should look on paper.²⁹ Unfortunately, there are plenty of well-meaning people ready to act as agents for this perverted demand.

The pattern makers

The student-designer of lighting fittings can probably learn most about workshop practice in the pattern-making shop. To my younger brother Frank and me, such practice soon became a centre of pleasure and interest. My father, R.H. Best, was fully alive to its potential attraction, for when we were no more than seven or eight years old, he would allow us to spend some of our holiday time with the pattern makers, the three Steventons and Ernie Warden, who helped us to carry out in wax, plaster and bismuth our primitive designs for lighting fittings, as well as toy engines, boats and machines.

We were taught always to start with a drawing. If, sometimes, it happened that we would draw on paper an article beyond our capacity to carry out, the drawing would then be taken away and in due course, amidst great excitement, the article itself would appear, always beautifully finished, smelling slightly of lacquer and wrapped in tissue paper.

Once I passed to my father, for factory production, a sketch of a thing like an eggcup intended as a trophy or cup or prize for a race in the playground of the school we attended. My drawing, with straggling handles of thin wire, was misunderstood, but so were those of the designer of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin when they were shown to the late German Emperor. The Kaiser mistook an asterisk, or some dimensional sign above the spire, for an architectural feature and rather than show up his patron’s mistake the architect altered the building accordingly!

I too had shown an asterisk on my drawing, with an arrow pointing to some technical instruction in the margin. I was astonished, therefore, to find this star and arrow engraved on the smooth surface of the cup.

But disappointment was quickly forgotten when I came to examine the workmanship, the faultless silver plating, the polish and the engraving of the signs themselves, for which I invented some imaginary significance when later, in the playground, the presentation was made.

This was my first experience of designing an article for others to produce. My second was for a toy pistol but this time I personally supervised the first stages of manufacture and in the evening, to my great pleasure, the finished article was unwrapped and handed to me. Made exactly as I had drawn it, with a barrel of half-inch brass tube, finished ‘steel-bronze’, a grip of varnished box wood and a spring operating a plunger within the barrel, it proved an effective weapon if charged with peas or pellets of blotting paper.

Ruskin, Bedales and J.H. Badley

Later, after the influence of Brinsley le Fanu, I was caught up in another powerful influence: Ruskin, as differently interpreted by two persons whom I greatly respected and admired. For my father, Ruskin meant careful work, mastery and ‘Ars Longa stuff’, as he put it; whereas, transmuted by J.H. Badley, the headmaster of Bedales, the teaching of the great Victorian critic emerged as something much softer in outline, much freer, less inhibiting.

My father made his influence felt even in the school studio. He had little liking for Impressionism or, indeed, for unorthodox work of any kind, which he would dismiss as slovenly or an ‘ethereal smudge’. Since Ruskin stood for discipline, he insisted that I should carry out, as part of my schoolwork, nature studies in the manner of the master, by which he understood that they should be as accurate as a photograph and should show an understanding of plant life—to me an uninteresting subject. In a dutiful and over-conscientious mood I fell into line. As a result, my style, such as it was, became more constipated than ever.

Those who teach what the Germans call Ruskinismus widen the gap between their followers and the realities of present-day production. Ruskinismus has not much in common with a ‘period style’ or idiom. It is a backward-looking, nostalgic way of life. During a long and active life, Badley developed—and allowed himself to be influenced by—Modern ideas regarding architecture and industrial design. But when I first met him, as he admitted many years later in a letter (1949), he was ‘an ardent devotee of Ruskin and started with the conviction that everything before the 14th century was right and everything after it wrong and that so far as possible there should be a return to simplicity in all arts and crafts. I still retain the latter part,’ he continued,

though I have long given up the former. In architecture, for instance, I am with the functionalists, and think that building likely to be the most satisfying which is best adapted to its purpose and relies on proportion, light and shade, and material rather than on any superimposed ornament. (Even the despised Gymnasium at Bedales seems to have its good points—though leprous flaking plaster is not one of them.)

This building (1917) had a flat roof and came in for some criticism because it was too plain and not thought to be in keeping with the other buildings.

Himself an able draughtsman, Badley made drawings for the main building and handed them to an architect to work out. The design of the Dining Hall was suggested by the large room at Bedales, the old Tudor house near Haywards Heath where the school started. Badley approved diversity. At different times as many as nine architects were employed on additional buildings and extensions. In 1911 an impressive barn-like hall was built by an old Bedalian to the drawings of Ernest Gimson, who also designed a fine Library, as an adjoining block. It was all very simple and substantial, with solid oak beams, copper nails and exposed brickwork. In building techniques, there were few concessions to modernity. Even the electric light pendants seemed to belong to a bygone age of primitive rural craftwork.³⁰

Originally the furnishings for the main building had been selected and designed by Agnes Garett, Mrs Badley’s cousin. They were of the simplest. For lectures and meals, we sat on deal benches varnished a dark green colour. Originally conceived for sitting back and listening, they were found to be too low for use at table and had to be altered accordingly. We took our treacle and ate our porridge from peasant pottery made at Farnham and slip-painted by hand in a free style. It was thought somehow fitting that local products should be used. We slept between blankets on wooden beds chosen for ‘simplicity and comfort’. In all his life Badley never found a pattern he liked better. Instead of spring mattresses, there were wooden laths or slats which were liable to break in the hurly-burly of dormitory ragging.

Functional requirements may here have been at variance with the principle of pleasantness in use but the headmaster’s intuition has been subsequently confirmed by the market; for metal beds, once popular enough, have for many years been out of favour except for certain institutions.³¹,³²

The teaching of the arts and crafts was appropriate to the furnishing and architecture. There was much freehand drawing and painting from nature, sometimes with coloured chalks on a blackboard. Expeditions were encouraged, when we would sketch or make architectural studies. It was all quite different from the Pre-Raphaelite fiddling required by my father. Pottery, basket-work and carpentry also found their place on the school timetable and there is little doubt that the teaching was much in advance of most schools of that