Constructing Regional Narratives - JDH - 2005
Constructing Regional Narratives - JDH - 2005
Constructing Regional Narratives - JDH - 2005
1093/jdh/epi054
Anna Calvera
This paper aims to clarify the methodological problems faced by a local historian when he or
she attempts to describe design from his or her own viewpoint. It will set out the theoretical
and general questions that arise when the many different aspects of the creative design process
are documented. To document an item means to provide information about the designer’s
biography, the manufacturing company’s history and policies, the marketing strategy, the
zeitgeist shared by designers and consumers at a particular concrete historical moment, the
technological context and means of production, and the prevailing design trends. We also
need to explain the design concept, or problem, in design terms in order to understand what
sort of solution the design is intended to offer and, even more complex, we must also justify
the value system within which the historian selects and evaluates a particular design object.
© The Author [2005]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Design History Society. All rights reserved. 371
Anna Calvera
same time, integrating them in a new synthesis such local or national historians. The first one deals with
as that included in the scope of a Worldwide History? the differences existing among Design cultures trying
In that case, what could be the logic, or rather the to establish identities of Design, grasping peculiarities
articulation, of that general history in case it should and national oddities. This is a direction that could
act, or has to perform the role of a larger narrative? easily help to build a general, or rather a common,
These questions are approached from the point of large narrative of the World History of Design, open-
view of a local, or national, historian who studies minded enough to be shared by different regions or
what is close at hand, but who sometimes also plays nations. It permits a research approach that works
the role of a world historian outside his/her own from the general to the particular. The second research
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design, the ‘alternate’ ones, the ‘peripheral’ or the about it when facing the question of the different
‘marginalized’ ones, using and taking advantage of worlds that existed prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall:
the polysemic character of all these words. Therefore, ‘I use the term Third World provisionally to include
the Barcelona conference ‘Design History Seen from those countries outside the sphere of the industrially
Abroad’ had mainly geographical connotations but it developed nations. Perhaps a better term is countries
also suggested the need for a way of looking that is of the periphery which is used by Gui Bonsiepe and
able to recognize boundaries wherever they exist: in others. The latter offers a better description of where
the social environment, in cultural performances, these countries are actually located in the world econ-
among demographic groups or even academic omy’.6 Perhaps Guy Julier is the historian who has
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approach, it does not acknowledge alternative experi- What is and should be understood by a peripheral
ences that can be peculiar to local characteristics: or marginal country in design matters? From Barcelona
‘Marginal modernity is built upon appropriation to Havana we tried to find a definition that allows us
(…) desire is produced by the circulation of directly to deal with those peculiarities Er was talking about.
or indirectly imported signs’.10 In fact, according Then, in Havana, we defined the peripheral condi-
to Fry, ‘the notion of geography being put into play tion according to the dependency of models whether
is marked by the spatial, social, historical and the economic or cultural, coming from a centre; we also
economic as expressed in and relations of exchange’, stressed the fact that those models or ways of life are
and thus, the relationship between countries is cen- usually not refused, but, on the contrary, they are
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global history of Design and, secondly, how periph- multiplicity of different experiences placed in a shared
eral research can win credibility and be attractive and globalized ‘landscape’. Each then acquires its own
enough to locate its outcomes in Design History. It is image and may be easily perceived, and in doing so,
easy to deduce the first step is necessary and it is a it is possible to retrieve the polycentric character of
consequence of the statement about the boundaries of development.15 Following this trend, Victor Margo-
history. To get a place in history and enter inside its lin proposed a method to discover the many centres
boundaries, it is necessary to have a history, and to of spreading design cultures. He suggested that
have a history, it is necessary to build up local and ‘grouping design literature per countries provides
national histories and begin to tell them. That was the some sense of National differences in Design thinking
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straightforward. A first problem is whether new data ing to the Spanish government around 1987. This
coming from local and peripheral realities can add beginning gives personality to the design made in
genuinely new information to what is already known Spain afterwards and to the paths adopted through-
and covered by global history. To offer an example out its evolution until its international recognition by
close to my own experience, Jonathan Woodham’s the mid 1980s and beyond. It is worth mentioning
last book on twentieth-century design18 showed here that Spanish is one of the few European lan-
clearly the range of countries in which the arrival of guages which possesses a specific word to name the
Design practice and the spread of Design culture hap- profession and the activity as adopted during the
pened in a similar way; through the building up of debates in the early 1960s about the concept and
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change their meaning completely, depending on Something similar can be seen if the word in ques-
where and by whom they are used. In my own coun- tion is Design. Just as modernity changes meaning
try, for instance, the word Modernism refers to the will and actual performance moving around the world, so
to reach modernization through cultural improve- does design as seen in relation to Spain and to Cuba.
ment and up-to-date performance, an ideal articu- A necessary and urgent step for the Geography of
lated by intellectuals and artists from the 1870s until design is to inquire into the different meanings the
the 1910s. Therefore, ‘Modernism’ in Spanish refers word design has taken on when arriving in a particu-
to that specific movement generally known abroad as lar regional situation.
Art Nouveau. It was a cultural and artistic movement Extending the thought, it is possible to assume, or
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explore the effects in countries such as Turkey or only be applied to a range of means and productive
Japan which have a strong and potent craft tradition systems existing in times and places that are histori-
and a well structured culture in their historic back- cally and geographically limited. The consequence is
ground.25 Concerning Latin America, a first step on to see design itself as exclusive, unable to catch reali-
the road to a Geography of Design History is to take ties outside the Western way of life and economic
very seriously the peculiarities of Creole perform- values. Thus, objections are addressed to the official
ance, not only because this can help us to understand definition of Design made by a group of designers
its historical background and define an identity for so coordinated by Maldonado and spread by ICSID
wide a region, but mainly because this embodies since then, and so a new concept of design is
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transformation process experimented by this society Modernization could also arrive through design items
and thus its embarking on a new age in its history. and debates instead of growing from production
Before the eighteenth century in Europe, for exam- processes.29 This is what we said in Havana: ‘There is
ple, the theoretical dichotomy craft/design has been a subtle link between modernisation processes exper-
an important criterion to select among the productive imented by a society through its desire of modernity,
reality of the time that was significant for design his- and the arrival of Design idea since its early promo-
tory, but it has also been a powerful tool to under- tion and diffusion until its setting up and reaching of
stand how different were two historical situations a popular familiarity’.30 Nevertheless, the fact that
existing side by side in a transitional period. From this professional design could exist without being a conse-
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merchandise by the global market since the Second local or national historians, need a general or ideal
World War.31 Some years later, Andrea Branzi history such as that proposed by De Fusco in order
devised what could be considered the most searching to start our work? It depends on the character of
criticism of the quest for local identities and the will this larger narrative; however, we might assume that
to preserve regional cultures because, he argued, they some sort of larger narrative would still be a very
bring about ethnic confrontations and enmities. On useful instrument to have.
the other side, however, it must also be recognized It is clear that if the larger narrative is simply the
that not to respect cultural identities at all, if it is a story of legitimation of different events as part of that
political imposition, could bring similar results. history, then it will not be at all useful since we do
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metropolitan experiences in the international context the equivalent words. Peripheral seemed soon a very victimist
and ideological word to English-speaking people while
is an important job for all historians, and it will always ‘Marginal countries’ proposed by them following Tony Fry,
help to introduce corrective elements to the main had the same or even worse connotations to Spanish speaking
stream of History. Fernand Braudel invariably asked people. The debate was explained in La Havana together with
the proposal of thinking about the Geography of Design in a
national historians to consider their near and distant way that overcomes the dependent relationship implicit in the
neighbours in order to capture the extent to which geopolitical discourse, and to enjoy an egalitarian horizon at
local reality depends on global and general actions. If least at the starting point of the research.
history were to be organized geographically, the 5 In Istanbul, it was the subject of a strand devoted to analysing
what Westernization means in countries such as Japan and
larger narrative could emerge through the compari- Turkey, which have a strong craft tradition and cultural
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The argument was proposed as the main subject for a confer- deslindar lo propio y específico o la manera en que se
ence held in 1985 n Italy: ‘in una pluralità di modi, forme, strategie reinterpretan estas influencias (…) En Cuba, al igual que en
di ragione appare nel panoraman culturale contemporaneo la possibilità otros países fuera del escenario europeo, no se puede hablar de
di una geografia che rimanda all’esistenza di un paesaggio, il paesaggio modernidad sino de sucesivas modernizaciones que, de manera
composito e alterno in cui l’uomo contemporaneo sta disponendo i importada, han sido introducidas por diferentes acontecimientos
materiali e i progetti del proprio sapere e delle sue trasformazioni’ a lo largo de la historia. Modernizaciones son transformaciones
(1988: 8) The polycentric awareness has been also defended bruscas sin tiempo de adaptarse y aclimatarse a nuestras re-
many time ago in Design Issues vol. 8, no. 1 (1991) pp. 74–77 alidades, es decir, sin la adecuada transculturación’.
Letter from Munich: ‘artificial world follows (…) polycentric 22 The statement that design spread internationally around the
and extremely differential logic.’ 1950s and 1960s outside the Western industrialized core is
16 Morin, Edgar: ‘Le vie della complessità’ in Gianluca Bocchi e supported mainly by the activities developed by ICSID and
Mauro Ceruti: La sfida della complessità (1985). Milan: Feltrinelli, ICOGRADA since its foundation in order to embody societies
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32 See Andrea Branzi: Introduzione al design italiano. Una modernità essa non si basa più nel sistema delle certezze da proporre al
incompleta. Milano: Baldini & Castoldi, 1999, p. 175 ‘Tutti mondo, ma su un sistema problematico aperto’.
coloro che hanno che contro il mercato planetario potessero
33 De Fusco, Renato: ‘Artifici’ per la storia dell’architettura. Naples,
ancora valere le alternative locali e le culture regionali, hanno
Rome and Milan: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1998, p. 86:
costatato che da queste ipotesi non sono emerse che guerre
‘La storia ideale eterna è trascendente rispetto alla storia
etniche, conflitti religiosi e separatismi devastanti; anche
particolare delle singole nazioni ma non esclude la relazione fra
possiamo dire che se c’è una costante presente oggi nel mondo
le due: la implica come la relazione tra ideale e reale, tra il
attuale, essa è costituita del fallimento puntuale di tutte le
dover essere e l’essere, tra la norma e ciò che a la norma può
culture locali, rese al suolo dalle communicazioni di masse, dai
elevarsi’.
mercati globali appiattite dal consumismo che ne ha distrutto gli
improponibili modelli (…) La Cultura internazionale è costituita 34 See Fernand Braudel ‘La Catalogne, plus l’Espagne de Pierre
dal vasto sistema di fallimenti, dalle domande senza risposta che Vilar’. Annales, (April 1968) in L’histoire au quotidien. Vol III.
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