GENIUS OF DESIGN BLUEPRINTS OF WAR

When nations go to war, designs- frontline

War time does to the design process is to accelerate it –process, shaping, machines and objects

2ND WW –clash of politics and ideology

Innovation against industrial muscle

Death by design – Bows and arrows to guided missiles

NAZIS inherited an industrial base

Berlin, Germany

Goods- very cheap, very tasteless

1907- Werkbund – embarrassing reputation

Maid in Germany –redefining

Peter Behrens Water Kettle 80 variants (AEG electrical company)

- AEG typeface – branding its products and design for its factories
- 1933 – standardization in design

Wolfsburg Germany Walter De Silva – Volkswagen

Volkwagen Beetle – Ferdinand Porsche – most successful car in the world

-Form follows function

Streamline design, to give the passengers enough space in the car space for engine, give enough space
for the heads

Simple but striking design –german pursuit of excellence

Design= timeless

- This car and company was so successful

- 1955 1 mil had rolled of the production line
- 25 years- 20 mil – most successful car in the world
- Darker side: Design= communication
- This car conveyed a political message – Adolf Hitler – opening of the berlin motorshow
announced the completion of the design of Volkswagen
- Hitler used the Volkswagen – celebration, election
- NAZI’S party- symbolic potential of design

The message- corporate identity 1st of September 1999- 1st wave of war

They wanted to give a sense of power- overall the enemies

Took 9 months for the german war machine- go to france

British were forced to rethink their approach to design.

- Needed submachine guns

- 12th of December 1940
- Designed the MARK 1 STAND GUN
- HAROLD TURPIN AND REGINALD SHEPHERD (1940)

Quality design and cutting edge technology

Used wood and was full length- simplify MARK 2 STAND GUN- easy to assemble and use – flat pack
submachine gun COST 2 POUNDS –does exactly what its made to do

TOY FACTORY IN GREAT BRITAIN

Lines bros. – 1941

Founder and toy designer Walter Lines redesigned gun

69-48 (number of parts)

Develop things down into the degree of simplicity

You have to understand how things are made

AVIATION:

Moaquito air craft- R. E. Bishop for de Havilland, 1940

- Fastest aircrtaft 1941-1945

- Highspeed twin engine aircraft
- 1st truly dynamic war plane made of wood
- Brain child- plywood minimal amount of metal
- Genius of design solution – strategic material

Imperial war museum- LONDON

ABRAM GAMES- designer poster

Wrote the slogans (grow your own food 1942)

-encourage participation and enthusiasm

- graphic expressions of a new british identity

H.A. Rotholz (1943) – Cut Em Short

-commissioned to design posters

- motivating posters GERMS INVADE 1943

TIGER ONE TANK- only one working model survived today

NUMBER 131 TIGER TANK Henschel and Sohn (1941)

Engineering muscle prevailed over design brilliance

- Machine that was feared by enemies

- Design w a message as well as a mission
- 60 ton piece of propaganda- success
- Downside: amount of resources

RUSSIAN t34 TANK- Mikhail Koshkin 1939

-clash in design philosophies

- quantity has quality of its own

- Largest tank battle of war

- design is a process not style

Think of not just the end product but how you make the product

KAISER COMPANY

Kaiser Shipyard Richmond California

- Transformed the lives of thousands ship builders

Henry Ford

- National hero in nazi Germany

- Hitler: QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

LOUNGE CHAIR WOOD – Charles and Ray Eames

- 1999- chair of the century

- Optimism of the post war world
- One of the first examples of high quality design
- -true wonder weapon of world war 2
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