Leach gets quoted in several sub-sections and on four separate occasionsranging the period 1940 to 1976. DavidPye is given two chances, 1968 and 1978respectively. The anthology ends withChristopher Frayling and Helen Snow-don's articles Terspectives on Craft'reprinted from Crafts issues of 1982.These last articles break from the tenorof the earlier extracts as they representthe critic's comment, ratheT than thepractitioner summarizing beliefs or the'rules' of their craft. Is there somesignificance in this shift? Does it marksome change within the crafts them-selves, or is it more a mark of a differentkind of retrospective comment, anawareness that craft needs another kindof support structure, namely that of thecritic? Written in 1982 the articles moveoff to look more at the impact anddebates of those working through the1970s which, as already stated, is notthe main subject of the book. Herenostalgia and 'Merrie England' arediscussed and, as John Houston, writesin his introduction to their essays:

Frayling and Snowdon have opened up thearguments to outsiders: it is a braveattempt to end the closed shop of craftdiscussion, (p. 110)

This is where John Houston leaves us inan enigmatic way. No crude claims aremade for further avenues to be chaseddown. Yet there are two routes, at least,that might be profitable. One is a furtherinvestigation of the period in question:from the late 1930s through to the1970s. John Houston does hint at areasleading to this, like the crafts magazinesthat had to be ignored through lack ofspace. The exhibition did promptconference events or draw attention toresearch, as summarized by PamelaJohnson in 'One Hundred Years ofGrumbling'1 or expanded by TanyaHarrod in The Pot as Product'.2 Theseshow that there is room both for diggingup the history and of relating it to thepresent situation within craft activity.

The recent debates on whether thereare different concerns for design historyand craft history, prompted by con-ferences like the 2D/3D conference(Newcastle, 1987) but especially theOral History and the Crafts Conference(London, 1989) might also be side-

stepped for a while in that the bookquotes ample evidence of a relationshipbetween design and craft that washistorically specific and worth investi-gating for that very reason.

Another aspect not tackled by thebook, which was the role of the exhibi-tion rather than the collected essays,was the investigation of the visual andthe objects produced by the craftspeopleworking during this period. It would beuseful to see a similarly lavishly illus-trated British equivalent to recentAmerican publications like Paul J. Smithand Edward Lucie-Smith's Craft Today:Poetry of the Physical (published by theAmerican Craft Museum in 1986) or TheEloquent Object: The Evolution of AmericanArt in Craft Media Since 1945, edited byMarcia and Tom Manhart (published bythe Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, in1987). In these books events arevariously documented; for example, byway of a chronology of American Craftfrom 1851 to 1986 as in Craft Today, oras personal recollection by Rose Slivka,the influential editor of Craft Horizons,and by leading art critic Lucy Lippard,writing on cross-cultural consciousnessin The Poetry of the Physical. Theemphasis rests more with initiatives inthe fine arts and covers developmentsup to the 1980s.

Not necessarily any better than CraftClassics, these books hint at a lavishnessand generosity of both publication andenthusiasm that would be a welcomeapproach to British craft. Even so, CraftClassics gives us a chance to takeanother look at Bernard Leach, throughmaking his writings more accessible,and yet also placing him within a widercontext and alongside contemporarieslike Arthur Lane. However, we alsoneed the means to see the objects afreshand by doing so those 'boring brownpots' might also take on a fresher hue.

SUZETTE WORDEN

Brighton Polytechnic

Notes

1 Craft History, no. 2, April 1989, pp. 29-36.

2 Crafts, no. 94, Sept./Oct. 1988, pp. 14-15. See also Tanya Harrod, The For-gotten '50s', Crafts, no. 98, May/June1989, pp. 30-3.

Interior Design of the TwentiethCentury

ANNE MASSEY. Thames and Hudson,1990. 216 pp., 180 illus., 29 col. pis.£5.95 paper, ISBN O 500 202 47 8.

A 'concise but wide-ranging survey'extols the blurb. A good selling line,perhaps, but not a satisfying meal. True,Interior Design of the Tioentieth Century isconcise. But conciseness, per se, con-stitutes, of course, neither a literary norscholarly virtue. Only as part of a largercombination of intellectual and stylisticproperties does it have value. Inhistorical writing one looks first for anhistoriographical perspective and ima-gination which enlarges one's socialunderstanding through an awareness ofthe past, and then for a niceness andeconomy of expression in the service ofthis. What we get in Massey's review ismore frequently stodgy resume, such asthis turgid description of Art Nouveauin Russia:

Moscow was the centre of the SKI Modemein Russia, and Fedor Shekhtel (1859-1919)united the three influences in designingthe Ryabushinsky house (1900) and theDerozhiskaia house (1901). His upholsteryfabric for armchairs is based on therhythmical use of line seen at this time inthe paintings of Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910), artist, theatrical designer andcraftsman who had worked at the artists'colony established by Princess Tenishevaon her estate of Talashkino, and at thesimilar colony at Abramtsevo . . .

The descripton continues to grind out awelter of proper nouns for several morelines, before the next paragraph turnsabruptly to Art Nouveau in Spain andItaly. The book is sprinkled with thesebald listings. For experts in the fieldthey offer no new insights; for new-comers to it they can offer littleincentive to learn.

Admittedly during the course of thebook, Massey notes a range of import-ant issues for the history of interiordesign in the twentieth century. So inopening she recognizes a relationshipbetween design tastes and social class;and later she raises the issue of how theprofessional aspirations of architectshave acted as an independent variableon the development of interior design

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styles. She acknowledges a relationshipbetween methods of production anddesign style; and periodically commentson how the press has sought to shapeinterior design preferences. She makesthe point that paralleling the growingappreciation of the role of interiordesign in the marketing of goods andservices it began to receive greateTrecognition; and she is conscious thatconsumers can and do exert an influ-ence on design. Thus, at one point oranother, Massey touches on most of thethemes a serious account of the de-velopment of interior design thiscentury needs to address. But 'touches'is the key word. What she fails signallyto do is to develop these themes syste-matically or illuminatingly.

For the book lacks a theoretical per-spective. And in the absence of this ithas no way of tying the various issues itraises together coherently, nor of evalu-ating their relative significance in rela-tion to each other and to thedevelopment of interior design throughthe century. The book thus adopts alargely chronological approach, inwhich the innovative issues remainscattered and the arguments whichwould make the text original andstimulating are squeezed into asidesand never properly explored. The resultis a format which rarely moves beyondstandard accounts of well-known move-ments, and is not infrequently, as noted,bogged down in indigestible detail.

But even if one accepts that Massey isdeliberately limiting herself to a straightnarrative history, it seems reasonable toexpect a critical scrutiny of the principalideas which impelled the leading figuresand movements of the period. Dis-appointingly, however, she fails toprovide this. Chapter three, for exam-ple, opens with the assertion that theModern Movement was 'Inspired by anew machine aesthetic'. But what thismeant in terms of the relationshipbetween the ideas which initially stimu-lated the designer's imagination, andthe subsequent appearance, and per-formance of a design, is never properlyconfronted. The closest we get are enpassant comments as in a brief descrip-tion, twelve pages later, of the interiorsof the staff housing which Gropiusdesigned at Dessau:

these quarters were designed strictly withfunction in mind. Apparently uncomfort-able to live in, they were sparselyfurnished and decorated with very littlecolour.

This, of course, also begs the question ofthe extent to which it can properly becalled 'functional' to create discomfortin a domestic interior. But to ponderover issues like this is not the style ofthis book and Massey plunges on.

A comparison between Massey andTom Wolfe might be objected to on thegrounds that Wolfe is a polemicist whospecializes in humorous malice whileMassey's purpose is to provide carefulexposition combined with balancedappreciation. But one yearns for a touchof the intellectual sharpness whichenables Wolfe to turn a short descrip-tion of a dining-room into a pungentcommentary on a whole set of social andartistic attitudes:

The dining room table was a smooth slabof blond wood (no ogee edges, no beadingon the legs), around which was a set of theS-shaped, tubular steel, cane-bottomedchairs that Mies van der Rohe haddesigned—the second most famous chairdesigned in the twentieth century, his ownBarcelona chair being first, but also one ofthe five most disastrously designed, so thatby the time the main course arrived, atleast one guest had pitched face forwardinto the lobster bisque. Somewhere nearbywas a palm or a dracena fragans or someother huge tropical plant, because all thefurniture was so lean and dean and bareand spare that without some prodigiouspiece of frondose Victoriana from thenursery the place looked absolutely empty.

Massey, by contrast, gives us brevitywithout punch. Le Corbusier, forexample, comes up for criticism. As formany years, of course, Le Corbusierenjoyed an esteem almost amounting toadulation in many architectural and artcircles, a synopsis of some recent re-assessments of his work and ideas isvery much in place. All we are vouch-safed, however, is a meagre generalizeddismissal of his views without a singlecitation for those who might, under-standably, like some more substantialarguments before reaching a judgementabout such a key figure:

He compared the elegant lines of contem-porary cars with the Parthenon to demon-

strate that the same aesthetic was inoperation; that both represented 'type-forms', or the ultimate solution to a designproblem. Whether designing furniture orreplanning the whole of Paris, Le Cor-busier was inspired by the same universal,absolute aesthetic. But the understandingof industrial design upon which Le Cor-busier based his argument was erroneous.It has been shown that such 'type-forms'cannot exist, and that design changes inresponse to market forces. (My emphasis.)

The casual tacking of a new question,the import of 'market forces' on design,onto the end of this paragraph, is alsodisconcerting. And given that this briefreference is the extent of the question'sdiscussion, it is unsatisfactory.

The failure of this chapter to analysethe main ideas of the Modern Move-ment in terms of their strength as philo-sophical concepts, their ideologicalpower by comparison to their practicalapplication, and the roles they played ingaining public recognition for the move-ment's proponents and practitioners,has to be judged a major omission. Andthe other chapters display a similarweakness. One could go on listingexamples of unthought through, muddythinking. The generally good illustra-tions and the reasonable price of thebook cannot redeem this. Despite somesuggestive comments, Massey's bookfails to rise above potted history.

Massey is certainly not alone inshowing a reluctance to attend totheoretical issues. Though there aresome notable exceptions, many writerson design continue to treat theoreticalissues as a gloss rather than as part ofthe fundamental structure of theirapproach.

If the problems Massey's book dis-plays are to be overcome, designhistorians must address two tasks. Theymust acquire some properly developedtheoretical frameworks. Too manydesign historians still fail to recognizethe difference between a Casaubon-likeindustriousness and imaginative his-toriography. In addition, publishers'assumptions about the audience forbooks on design, and their expectationsabout what will sell, can stand in theway of invigorating new approaches towriting on design. Some moves to tacklethis are underway. The journal of Design

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History, indeed, is one. But more initi-atives are needed.

Thus, although it is encouraging tosee how the body of information wehold on the history of design is begin-ning to grow, we have to start askingourselves much more sharply what wewant to do with the material we gather,in other words, why we are collecting it.Only by our pressing this question willdesign history burgeon as a fully maturediscipline capable of enlarging ourunderstanding of the material culture ofWestern societies—and books likeMassey's begin to realize what theynow only tentatively promise.

JUNE FREEMAN

Nay land, Essex

Notes onContributorsAlain Findeli is Associate Professor atthe School of Industrial Design (Ecolede design industriel) at the University ofMontreal wheTe he "teaches History,Theory and Aesthetics of Design. Hehas been doing research on Moholy-Nagy and the Bauhaus since 1982;besides several articles on this subjecthe is the author of Du Bauhaus a Chicago:Les armies d'enseignement de UszldMoholy-Nagy. He is currently workingon ethical and aesthetic questions raisedby technology and industrial design.

s

Sarat Maharaj lectures in art history andtheory at Goldsmiths' College, Univer-

sity of London. He is currently workingon a book 'Molly-fying the Strife ofTongues': Joyce, Duchamp, Hamilton, forpublication by Scolar Press.

John Onians teaches the history of art inthe School of Art History and Music atthe University of East Anglia. His mostrecent book is Bearers of Meaning. TheClassical Orders in Antiquity, the MiddleAges and the Renaissance (PrincetonUniversity Press and Cambridge Uni-versity Press, paperback 1990). Thepresent article emerges ft-om tworesearch projects, one on Classical artand the other on the role in intellectualhistory of metaphors from the world ofart and architecture.

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