Technology and Culture

The title of Jeremy Aynsley's book toys with the complexity and the many facets of design history. Designing Modern Germany asks if there is a German design—and if so, what it is. Even more, this book also reminds us that design provides a society with a face, asking if there is a design that makes modern Germany.

The subject of the book is "the particular character of German design, its tendencies and discourses" (p. 9). Typically, Germany is associated with modernism. However, Aynsley's book does not get caught in the trap of equating German design with the avant-garde of modernism. Instead, he aims to show the complexity of German design, which cannot be reduced to a history of modern design. He makes clear that at "significant moments in the country's history, anti-modern sentiments and forces have come to the fore, challenging the idea that continued progress towards modern ideals could be achieved or should indeed be the ultimate goal" (p. 8).

Covering the time span from the 1870s to 2005, his book delivers an excellent overview of German design/design in Germany. Aynsley writes a fully contextualized history. Each chapter begins with an introduction into the political and cultural situation in which he embeds the history of design. The chapters follow a political chronology, each covering design history during a different regime: the Kaiserreich, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era, the early FRG and GDR, and finally the period from 1975 to 2005. [End Page 223]

Without a doubt, the book delivers a brilliant overview of the history of German design. Beginning with the constitution of professional design in the Kaiserreich, he focuses on the first Arts and Crafts schools and analyzes the history of the Werkbund, then tells the story of the most important institutions of modern design such as the Bauhaus and the Ulmer Hochschule für Gestaltung. He continues by analyzing the role of famous designers such as Peter Behrens, Bruno Paul, and Hannes Meyer, as well as representatives of recent design history such as Ingo Maurer, Jil Sander, and Eva Gronbach. Significantly, he does not only write about product design, but also about graphics, fashion, interiors, and architecture. The reader is impressed with Aynsley's capability to organize the complex material, and the book is simply a pleasure to read.

A few comments going beyond the book and Aynsley's way of writing design history might be allowed. The first concerns the role of everyday life in design history. Aynsley is very aware that German design should not be confused with modern design and that modernism was not hegemonic in the twentieth century. As he makes clear, the central role and enormous importance of modern design in research stand in striking contrast to the relatively small importance of modern design in everyday life. Aynsley reflects on this gap between official design, which is presented in design magazines, and design in everyday life. He nicely illustrates this division in a discussion of an improvised house, a tree house, which he saw in Berlin Kreuzberg (p. 21). Yet he does not explore this trace, although that would deliver a fresh perspective to design history. Petra Eisele's recent (2009) analysis of the important role of Ikea for German design history and the many "do-it-your-self" movements in German history could serve as an example. Thus, German design gains a further facet, that of everyday life.

A second remark refers to the very commendable decision to write the design history of both Germanys. Aynsley asks how both dealt with modernity. He sees the Formalismus-Debatte in the early GDR as an exception, not the rule, preferring to emphasize the similarities between the two Germanys. In particular, he finds a "strong cultural commitment to the benefits of Modernism in design" (p. 185) in both states. In the end, Aynlsey writes a parallel history of the two, not a history of their interaction. Further research has to show how designers communicated and circulated concepts of design...