Clay, Robert. "Design Evolution." Beautiful Thing: An Introduction to Design. Oxford: Berg, 2009.

43–86. Bloomsbury Design Library~Bloomsbury Design Library 2019 Collection~. Web. 16 Apr.
2020. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350036093.ch-002>.

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Design Evolution
DOI: 10.5040/9781350036093.ch-002
Page Range: 43–86

Chapter Outline

The relationship between human beings and shelter is fundamental to survival and therefore
architecture would seem to be a good starting point from which to consider design
evolution. A particular building’s function and visual aesthetics are strongly related to the
human form and scale, for example, determining the minimum ceiling height and the
proportions of doors. This relationship has, of course, been a fundamental principle since
human dwellings and artefacts first appeared. This became a particular focal point for artists
and architects during the Italian Renaissance, who attempted to relate the human form to
geometry and apply this to buildings as well as town planning.

In the first half of the twentieth century one of the founders of the Modern Movement, Le
Corbusier, attempted to further quantify human proportions as an aid to designing buildings
and objects. As useful as these and other more recently collated anthropometric data are to
designers, such information only gets us so far however, a building or a telephone may
indeed be designed with the human form in mind – but we still get ugly buildings and
products.
Designing things should ideally start with a consideration of the end users’ requirements in as
much detail as possible and end up by producing a building or product that is a delight to
behold and use. This requires a marriage of human needs or desires with the technology
available at the time, balanced against various constraints. Therefore, design evolves over
time as developments in materials and technology provide new opportunities for better or
different ways of doing things. This chapter introduces some of the more important
milestones in design evolution since Roman times that have emerged through man’s needs,
discoveries and inventions and how these have influenced the appearance of things. These
include the emergence of the local vernacular, inventions such as the arch, dome and truss,
and the effect of technological discoveries in materials and innovative structures employed in
buildings, furniture, products and other designs. The three-dimensional form of a particular
object is often determined by the forces it has to withstand and therefore this chapter
includes examples of some of the ways that principal forces can be better resisted through
the manipulation of shape.
Cultural forces and changes in fashion also strongly influence the appearance of things, as
noted in chapter one. For example, car design is as much about fashion as it is engineering
and we often ‘read’ meanings into inanimate objects that someone from a different culture
may not understand. These more subjective issues have effected changes in design evolution
 just as much as technological developments and this chapter introduces some human notions
about the design of objects shared by many cultures, such as classic versus romantic,
masculine versus feminine, zoomorphism and the evolution of visual identity and branding.

Introduction
To acquire an appreciation of or good taste in a particular subject requires an ongoing
education in that subject in order to gain some understanding of the thinking behind why a
certain building (or other design) is a good or bad example of its type. The previous chapter
shed some light on the relationship between good taste and good design but there are also
other, more objective reasons, as to what makes design successful. Designing things should
ideally start with a consideration of the end users’ requirements, in as much detail as possible,
and end up by producing a building or product that is a delight to behold and use. This requires
a marriage of human needs or desires with the technology available at the time, balanced
against various constraints (including the vital one of cost). Therefore, design evolves over time
as developments in technology provide new opportunities for better ways of doing things.
Human expectations and requirements also change over time.
19 VITRUVIAN MAN – BY LEONARDO, C.1450 – ‘MAN IS THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS.’

The relationship between human beings and shelter is fundamental to survival and therefore
architecture would seem to be a good starting point with which to consider design evolution.
Architecture has form and function analogous to a human being. A building must have a sound
structure so that it doesn’t fall down and this structure is usually apparent in its outward form
(although nowadays visible evidence of structure is no longer considered a prerequisite for
good design). Similarly, a human being needs a muscular/skeletal structure, which is expressed
in the outward form and articulation of its parts. The doors, rooms and corridors of a building
must be of a shape and size to allow the accommodation and passage of people. The windows
must be of a particular height if people are to see outside and if they are also to allow sunlight
and fresh air to enter. Therefore, a building’s function and aesthetics are strongly related to the
human form and scale, and this relationship has, of course, been a fundamental principle since
human dwellings and artefacts first appeared.

This became a particular focal point for artists and architects during the Italian Renaissance,
especially in relation to geometry, and writings by the first century Roman architect and
engineer Marcus Pollio Vitruvius were very much admired during this time. Vitruvius was a
soldier in Julius Caesar’s army and later served as a military engineer and architect under the
Emperor Augustus, to whom he dedicated his Ten Books of Architecture – a massive work
covering almost every aspect of ancient architecture, types of buildings, materials and even
town planning. Vitruvius said that: ‘geometry is the very footprint of man’ and that towns and
villages should be laid out on a squared grid. Symmetry was essential to beauty and ‘no temple
can be put together coherently without symmetry and proportion; unless it conforms exactly to
the principle relating to the members of a well-shaped man … only a man well-shaped by
symmetry can be made to produce the circle and the square.’ Vitruvius believed it is because a
man’s body is symmetrical that architects should follow ancient precepts about symmetrical
building. See Leonardo’s famous Vitruvian Man drawing in Figure 19.

20 PROPORTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN RELATE TO HUMAN PROPORTIONS. LE CORBUSIER’S MODULOR. 1948.

In the first half of the twentieth century one of the founders of the Modern Movement, Le
Corbusier, attempted to further quantify human proportions as an aid to designing buildings,
furniture and fittings for architects and designers. Figure 20 shows an illustration from his two-
volume Modulor, first published in 1948, in which, for example, Le Corbusier’s recommendation
for the ceiling height of a house should be set at the height of an averagesized man with his
arm and hand stretched vertically upwards. William Hogarth made similar comparisons
regarding the proportions of doors and windows in the eighteenth century. As useful as these
and other more recently collated anthropometric data are to designers, such information only
takes us so far. A building or a telephone may indeed be designed with the human form in mind
– however, we still find ugly buildings and products. If we can pursue this a little further we
could say that, like most humans, most buildings and products function reasonably well but truly
beautiful man-made objects are rarer.

Proportion in architecture, then, is strongly related to human proportion. If the giraffe had
evolved to become the most intelligent creature on the planet, it too would need shelter in
northern climes and cars to travel around in. What would giraffe architecture or cars look like?
You would probably get buildings that seemed strange to us, even ugly perhaps, but to an
intelligent giraffe some of these buildings would look beautiful indeed. So human factors, in
combination with the available materials and technology in any given period, have together
affected the size and shape of the things that man has designed since the Stone Age and this
will continue into the future.

There follow some important examples of milestones in design evolution (in architecture and
manufactured products) that have emerged through man’s needs, discoveries and inventions
since Roman times.

Evolutionary Design and its Influence on Aesthetics

The philosopher Santayana had this to say about evolution in building design:

Houses and temples have an evolution like that of animals and plants. Various
forms arise by mechanical necessity, like the cave, or the shelter of overhanging
boughs. These are perpetuated by a selection in which the needs and pleasures
of man are the environment to which the structure must be adapted.
Determinate forms thus establish themselves, and the eye becomes
accustomed to them. The line of use by habit of apperception becomes the line
of beauty. A striking example may be found in the pediment of the Greek
temple and the gable of the northern house. The exigencies of climate
determine these forms differently (because a steeper roof better promotes the
run-off of rain and heavy snow) but the eye in each case accepts what utility
imposes. We admire height in one and breadth in the other, and we soon find
the steep pediment heavy and the low gable awkward and mean … In this
manner we accept the forms imposed on us by utility, and train ourselves to
apperceive their potential beauty.[1]

Historically, the sheer variety of dwelling designs worldwide is largely due to the availability of
materials and resources in a particular region. At the extreme end we have igloos made from
packed snow, but more usually shelters or houses were built with the local mud (dried, baked or
fired), stone and/or timber, to designs capable of withstanding the local climate and sometimes
extremes of temperature, as well as coping with other local conditions such as marshy ground,
or providing security against wild animals or pests. Thus there are usually very good reasons
why a traditional building in a particular region looks the way it does and is not simply the result
of a designer’s whim. Knowledge of what worked in practice in a particular region was handed
down through many generations of local builders, though this knowledge didn’t travel very far
in the days before mass communications and therefore local designs became stereotyped over
the years and acquired the status of accepted good design in a particular region.
Buildings in a particular region have evolved naturally into villages and towns having their own
very similar design characteristics – the local vernacular. This includes common elements such as
the colour, texture and size of the local stone, the steepness of northern roofs or the
conservation of precious rainwater in more southerly climes. The Roman villa often employed
inward sloping roofs in order to direct rainwater into a central open area inside the house that
collected water in large pools (often very elegantly designed pools). The outer walls of the villa
were either solid or generally pierced with just a few window openings, large enough to allow
some daylight into the outer rooms but small enough to keep the interior cool at the same
time. Probably the best examples of these remaining houses are at Herculaneum near Naples,
preserved under volcanic ash since the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in ad 79 and
rediscovered in the nineteenth century (see Figure 21).
Stone is almost universal as a building material due to its availability, strength in compression
and durability. It is not strong in bending or tension however and this places limits on the type
of structures that can be made with stone – for example, too large a span between two columns
and the straight stone beam bridging them will obviously crack. In some of today’s neoclassical
buildings the gaps between the columns are far too large for the ‘stone’ architrave above (for
example, the White House portico in Washington, DC) – a sure giveaway that there is a steel
girder hidden in there somewhere. The type and size of stone in a particular region often leads
to unusual or unique designs. For example, flint, a stone naturally plentiful in certain regions
such as Suffolk and Sussex in England, is a very hard material that has been used for purposes
other than building. It can be chipped to produce a hard-wearing sharp edge, used by Stone-
Age man for axes and the tips of spears, and also knives to skin and butcher animals. It has, of
course, also been used to create sparks to ignite gunpowder in the ‘flintlocks’ of early muskets
and guns. However, building with flint stones, or any other similar sized rounded stones that are
very small compared to bricks for instance, creates a particular problem at the corners of a
building. Therefore, flint-stone houses were usually designed with bricks at the corners and also
around the windows and doors. This is because small stones can be embedded quite deeply in
the mortar along a straight flat wall, but at the corners much more of each individual stone
would be left exposed and therefore prone to coming loose or being accidentally knocked out
by passers by. This is also the reason why many early church towers in these regions were
cylindrical – a design without corners that saved having to import stone or brick from elsewhere.
The traditional Suffolk flint house also exploits the reeds growing in and around local waterways
for its roofing materials.
21 ROMAN VILLA AT HERCULANEUM. C.AD79. THE INWARD SLOPING ROOF AND OPENING ALLOWS RAINWATER TO POUR
INTO THE CENTRAL POOL.

We can add to these practical elements other more culturally driven design traits influenced by
religion and local customs, such as a preferred taste in decorative elements or paint colours
established over time. The local government of Lanzarote in the Spanish Canaries has imposed
a strict colour code for the island’s houses and buildings – white for a building’s walls (but built
from the local black volcanic rock) and a particular green for painted woodwork, although blue
woodwork is acceptable for buildings near the coast. This was a recommendation by the local
artist César Manrique and was put into practice by the Island Council in the 1970s. It is still in
force today (although a few residents still try to flout the rules). The number of storeys for
buildings on the island is limited to a maximum of three, a far-sighted decision when you
consider the number of coastal resorts ruined by the sheer density of high-rise hotels built in
recent decades.

The Arch
In addition to using local natural materials, evolution in technology, materials science and
construction methods has strongly influenced the design and appearance of buildings over
time. The Romans were the original inventors of the simple semi-circular arch constructed from
individual blocks of stone or brick over 2,000 years ago (Figure 22) . In France in the Middle
Ages the semicircular Roman stone arch was superseded by the Gothic pointed stone arch
(Figure 23). Many people think that the Gothic arch was merely a stylistic change applied to
cathedrals and churches, symbolically ‘pointing’ the way to heaven, as do traditional church
steeples. Although the pointed arch and steeple do turn our thoughts ‘upwards to heaven’, the
real reason for the introduction of the pointed arch was of a structural nature, allowing
designers much more freedom in the design of churches and other buildings. The design of the
pointed arch alters the direction of compressive forces in the stonework,
22 THE ROMAN ARCH REQUIRES SUBSTANTIAL BUTTRESSING TO WITHSTAND SIDEWAYS FORCES.
23 GOTHIC (POINTED) ARCH FORCES REQUIRE MUCH LESS BUTTRESSING.

making them much more vertical compared with the Roman arch and this can reduce sideways
forces by as much as 50 per cent.[2] Therefore, the Gothic arch requires much less in the way of
buttressing compared to the semicircular arch (although sometimes both types of arch were
reinforced by placing a horizontal metal tension rod across the base).
Because of the much-reduced need for massive buttressing against sideways forces, the Gothic
arch opened up the structure of churches allowing more space and light to be created within
the building, and also paved the way for the inclusion of large areas of stained glass. The ‘flying
buttress’ was a direct consequence of the Gothic arch, its form delicately counteracting the line
of forces produced by the pointed arch or vaulting, replacing the previously solid buttressing
walls necessary to the Roman design. Sometimes the vertical element supporting or ‘anchoring’
the base of the flying buttress was extended upwards into a pinnacle (or other design of
decorative stonework) in order to increase the weight and downwards thrust on the anchor to
further counteract any sideways forces (see Figure 24).

The pointed arch also circumvents another problem of Roman vaulting where two vaults of
different widths intersect, resulting in two different heights of arch (Figure 25). Awkward ‘stilts’
for the smaller arch enabled both arches to be the same height, but this is far from an elegant
solution, resulting in a wavy groin where both arches meet, as shown in Figure 26. By employing
the pointed arch the heights of the two intersecting vaults can be made the same simply by
slightly altering the curve of one of the arches, as shown in Figure 27.

24 GOTHIC DESIGN – FLYING BUTTRESSES OF NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL, PARIS. C.AD1280. (NOTE THE UPWARD
EXTENSION OF THE VERTICAL PINNACLES ABOVE THE STONE ARCHES.)

25 INTERSECTING ROMAN VAULTS OF DIFFERING WIDTHS.

26 SAME AS FIG. 25, BUT USING ‘STILTS’ (SHOWN IN SOLID TONE). THIS RESULTS IN WAVY GROINS WHERE THE TWO
ARCHES MEET.
27 INTERSECTING GOTHIC VAULTS OF DIFFERING WIDTHS BUT OF EQUAL HEIGHT.
28 AERIAL VIEW OF THE PANTHEON’S CONCRETE ROOF, ROME. AD123.
29 THE POINTED DOME OF SANTA MARIA – FLORENCE, BY BRUNELLESCHI, COMPLETED AD1436.

The Dome
The forerunner of modern concrete was invented by the Romans, using a heavily compacted
mixture of lime and a little water, plus aggregates of broken bricks, hollow ceramics and pumice
stones (for lightness), and pozzolana – a volcanic ash from Pozzuoli near Naples. The dome of
the Pantheon in Rome finished in ad123 (Figure 28) was constructed using this material and, at
42.5 metres (142 feet) in internal diameter, remained the largest unsupported span for well over
1,000 years until overtaken (though only by less than 3 metres (ten feet)) by Brunelleschi’s
pointed dome for Florence Cathedral in 1436 (Figure 29). Nowadays, concrete reinforced by
internal steel rods enables much larger structures to be cast in an endless variety of shapes.

The dome could be described as an arch revolved through 360 degrees and, as such, it
produces an outward thrust all the way around its base – a force that would cause it to collapse
if not counteracted. This analogy with the simple ‘two-dimensional’ arch however is slightly
misleading, as a pure dome consists of compound curves in three dimensions, like an egg,
seashell or an animal’s skull, and is therefore an extremely strong shape. Because of this the
dome’s skin can be much thinner than that required for an arch having the same span (today’s
Formula One racing cars use this principle in the construction of ‘monocoque’ composite
carbon-fibre shells surrounding the driver). Thick buttressing with walls at the base of the dome
could be one solution to counteract the outward thrust, as employed in the Pantheon design
and also at the Church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul finished in ad537 (although this also uses
smaller half domes on two opposite sides of the main dome in the east–west axis, in a way
anticipating the flying buttress). Hagia Sophia’s main dome is about 30 metres (100 feet) in
diameter but the two half-domes increase the apparent span in the east–west direction to
around 60 metres (200 feet).

Another way of counteracting the outward thrusts of a dome would be to use many tension
rods (or a tensile sheet) across the open base, tying together the opposite ends of each arch
member. This would not be a very elegant solution, however, and the view up inside the dome
would be obscured by these tie rods or the sheet. Sometimes the dome is placed on top of a
cylindrical ‘drum’ (for example, the Capitol building in Washington), which also rules out
external buttressing. The simplest and most elegant solution is to place a tension member such
as one or more iron chains (hoops) around the base perimeter of the dome – as used by
Brunelleschi for the dome of Florence’s Santa Maria Cathedral in 1436, Michelangelo’s design of
1546 for St Peter’s in Rome (redesigned by Della Porta into a more pointed form and built after
Michelangelo’s death) and Sir Christopher Wren for the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral in London,
finished in 1710. These iron chains were hidden from view by stonework and the somewhat
rusty iron chain of St Paul’s was replaced by several stainless-steel ones in 1925. In the case of
smaller domes using wooden structures, the same effect could be achieved by joining together
all the ends of the arched members around the perimeter base with timber struts in tension
(which would require sound carpentry joining methods). Modern pure geodesic domes are by
their very structure ‘tied together’ and usually need no other reinforcement to stop them from
spreading. However, on closer inspection, larger geodesic designs are actually triangulated
spaceframe structures ‘curved up’ into domes and spheres that prevent them from flexing too
much and collapsing.
‘Gothic’ was first used as a derogatory term during the Italian Renaissance when referring to
buildings of the Middle Ages. Not belonging to the Classical tradition of post and beam, these
pointed-arch designs were regarded as ugly unsophisticated products, akin to the ‘uncivilized
and barbarian’ Goths and therefore completely lacking in artistic merit. The Goths were a
northern Germanic people who invaded much of central Europe after ad238, which included
the sacking of Rome in ad410. However, Filippo Brunelleschi’s design for a pointed dome on
Florence’s cathedral (finished in 1436) was greatly admired (Figure 29) and was itself a brilliant
feat of structural design and execution.[3]

The building of the cathedral had begun in 1296 but had stopped after reaching the crossing in
1367 when it was realized that no one knew how to vault such a huge space. At the time many
considered the placing of a dome on the top of the cathedral an impossible task, given the very
large span required, without the use of massive buttressing placed around the outside of the
building. It is also said that the dome was built without the use of wooden centring – support
for the dome during construction. This may be due in part to Brunelleschi’s ‘herringbone’ (or
zig-zag) brickwork design for the inner shell of the dome. Herringbone pattern brickwork is a
much stronger construction method than simply laying horizontal courses of bricks on top of
one another. This method interlaces or ‘keys’ each brick to several other bricks, thus making for
a much more secure shell structure that was less likely to collapse inwards as the curved dome
was slowly built up.
Nowadays the term ‘Gothic’ is generally used to describe buildings between the Romanesque
and Renaissance periods. Different nations often produced their own peculiar brand of Gothic,
for example, ‘Venetian Gothic’ or ‘Belgian Gothic’, which still employed the pointed arch or
dome but differed in the detailing and ornamentation. This variation also occurs in other styles
of architecture. For example, many later Classical-style buildings (using the Greek post-and-
beam method) also incorporated the Roman arch. Later, as a product of the Italian Renaissance,
greater expressive design and ornamentation led to what is now termed Baroque and Rococo
architecture. The terms ‘neo-Gothic’ or ‘Gothic Revival’ refer to a renewed interest in the Gothic
style in the nineteenth century, and many new Gothic-style churches and other buildings were
built during this period, promoted especially by A. W. N. Pugin in England, as previously noted.
A prime example of this revival architecture is the Houses of Parliament in London built
between 1840 and 1888, designed by Charles Barry in collaboration with Pugin.

30 SLOPING RAFTERS PRODUCE AN OUTWARD THRUST AND CAN BE CONSIDERED AS AN ARCH COMPRISING JUST TWO
ELEMENTS.
31 A SCHEMATIC OF A ROOF TRUSS DESIGN FOR THE BANQUETING HOUSE CEILING. 1622.
32 INNOVATIVE ROOF TRUSS DESIGN. DAVID MELLOR DESIGN MUSEUM, HATHERSAGE. 2006.

The Truss
In Italy from the sixteenth century onwards, developments in wooden roof truss design led to
increases in the span of ceilings. This meant that larger interior spaces could be created without
the need for obtrusive supporting pillars. Prior to this, the roof space in most buildings were
simply left ‘open’ and relied on the strength of the walls or buttressing to resist the outward
thrust of the inclined roof (Figure 30).

The Banqueting Hall in Whitehall Palace, London, had the largest unsupported ceiling span (at
12.6 metres (42 feet)) in Great Britain when it was created by Inigo Jones in 1622 using a type
of wooden truss design he had seen on his travels in Italy. Shortly afterwards Sir Christopher
Wren created designs with spans of up to 21 metres (70 feet). Inigo Jones is also credited with
introducing the first Classical-style building into the UK, in the form of Queen Anne’s House in
Greenwich, completed in 1635 (which still exists and is well preserved).
33 JOSEPH PAXTON’S PREFABRICATED DESIGN FOR THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 1851.

The roof truss employs a tie beam (in tension), which counteracts the outward thrust of the
principal rafters (in compression), reducing the need for thick walls. The addition of a ‘king post’
(in tension) supported at the top by the two sloping rafters and fixed to the horizontal tie beam
at the centre, prevents the tie beam from sagging under its own weight and that of the ceiling,
making the whole structure much more rigid (Figure 31). Secondary or ‘queen posts’ further
strengthened the truss, as did additional diagonal struts – helping to prevent the sagging of the
rafters under the heavy weight of the lead or slate roof covering.[4] Such were the advantages of
these seventeenth-century designs that they would not look out of place on a modern building
site today.

Figure 32 shows a contemporary design for a roof truss used for the David Mellor Design
Museum in Hathersage, UK, built in 2006. This uses the same principles as the truss design by
Inigo Jones – two rafters in compression, with the original king post and tie beam tension
members replaced by three steel cables, all joined at a point higher up than is usual compared
with the traditionally straight tie beam (or tie cable). This particular design however puts each
cable under greater tensile forces, but has the advantage of providing more roof space when a
flat ceiling is not required.

Iron and Steel

The introduction of iron-trussed roofs in the nineteenth century, stimulated by the railway and
shipbuilding industries, led to much larger spans. Different types of truss design can also be
seen in various bridge structures. Cast and wrought (forged) iron structures revolutionized
building methods during this period and these buildings were in a sense the forerunners of
twentieth-century modernist architecture using steel. One of the most famous of these iron
structures was Joseph Paxton’s design for the Crystal Palace in London (Figure 33). This was the
winning design in a competition (which included a proposal by Isambard Kingdom Brunel) for a
building to house over 100,000 exhibits of manufactured goods from around the world. It was
intended for inclusion in Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park, following an idea
by Henry Cole (a member and leading activist of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts,
Manufactures and Commerce). The aim of the exhibition was an attempt to raise the quality of
British manufactured goods on the world stage and, at the same time, to educate the public in
matters of good design and taste. Paxton’s design for the building (which was hated by John
Ruskin and William Morris) was of prefabricated cast iron and glass construction assembled on
site and erected at great speed in about four months.
34 ‘‘UNDECORATED’ CLARET JUG DESIGN BY CHRISTOPHER DRESSER. C.1879.

The son of a farm labourer, Joseph Paxton had joined the Horticultural Society’s gardens at
Chiswick House in London as a young labourer and gardening trainee in 1823. Chiswick House
was the first Palladian Villa to be built in Great Britain (by Lord Burlington in 1727) and was
owned by the sixth Duke of Devonshire – who in 1826 employed the twenty-three-year-old
Paxton as his head gardener and landscape architect at his Chatsworth Estate in Derbyshire.
Paxton was knowledgeable about greenhouse and conservatory design (known as stoves)
through his training at Chiswick and went on to design iron and timber glass houses for a variety
of plants and fruit trees at Chatsworth. Paxton’s design for the Crystal Palace was based on his
experiences at Chatsworth but represented a huge leap of faith necessitated by the sheer scale
of the proposed new building.

It could be said that the Great Exhibition signalled the start of industrial design proper in the
UK – which demonstrated that design does not need to plagiarize historical styles but should
embrace modern production methods of the day instead. The American exhibits such as the
Colt revolver demonstrated that standardization of parts, simple and honest construction, were
a better way forward – the machine aesthetic was a valid outcome in its own right without any
need for ‘constructed decoration’ ornamental applications typical of much Victorian designs of
the day.

Christopher Dresser was Great Britain’s first professional designer to put these ideas into
practice with his designs for metal, glass and ceramics (Figure 34). Dresser admired the simple
yet elegant designs of Japan and saw nothing wrong with using contemporary methods of
production – his ideas and designs anticipating the Modern Movement of the twentieth century.
After the Great Exhibition closed the Crystal Palace was dismantled and re-erected (with
additions to the building and also the creation of large gardens with fountains designed by
Paxton) at Sydenham in North London in 1854, where it had a variety of public educational and
amenity uses over the ensuing years (often narrowly escaping bankruptcy) before being
destroyed by fire in 1936.
It has been known for centuries that steel has a much greater tensile strength than iron (it is
claimed that steelmaking began as early as 500 bc in India). Up until the latter half of the
nineteenth century, however, steel artefacts such as tools, armour and weapons could only be
made in relatively small quantities due to steel’s complex and costly conversion from iron ore.
Steel was therefore not used in buildings in any significant way. However, the advent of cheap
mass-produced steel made possible by the new Bessemer process (invented in England by
Henry Bessemer in 1855) meant that stone and iron structures could be replaced with the
simple straight steel girder, in a way harking back to the Classical post-and-beam stone
structures of ancient Greece. The steel post and beam designs enabled much faster
construction of buildings and, as such, had a strong influence on modernist architects with the
girder’s combination of high strength and simplicity. Mass produced steel made possible the
building of the first (10–20 storey) skyscrapers in the 1880s and the fact that tall buildings are
extremely economical in terms of land use, together with developments in elevator design,
plumbing, heating and the telephone, soon led to the construction of much higher buildings at
the beginning of the twentieth century. Now, of course, skyscrapers dominate the skylines of
many cities.

There are many different types of structural elements such as panels, shells, beams and tubes
used in the construction of buildings, bridge designs and vehicle frames. Structures have to be
strong enough to withstand considerable forces – often different forces acting simultaneously.
As well as coping with static forces, such as the weight of the walls in a building, structures are
often subject to changing forces over time (dynamic forces). For example, the variable wind
load on a high building or the different loads a road bridge has to support – a much greater
weight of traffic at rush hour compared with other times of the day or night. The family car has
to cope with variable numbers of passengers, their individual weights and distribution within the
car, as well as resisting bending, twisting and g-forces whilst the vehicle is in motion. Also
structures are affected by temperature, for example, steel expands in hot weather and therefore
gaps, flexible mountings or other methods must be employed where elements meet to avoid
dangerous distortions occurring. The expansion of adjacent steel plates could actually cause
shearing of the bolts holding them together as they expand and slide past one another.

Beams, Tubes and Boxes

As outlined above, the particular shape of a structural member, such as an arch, a shell or the
introduction of a diagonal element, can have a considerable impact on the effectiveness of a
design to resist forces, sometimes deflecting the direction of forces or thrusts acting upon it,
like the gothic arch, and designers have exploited the different shapes

35 WAYS TO COUNTERACT BENDING FORCES.

36 COMPRESSION AND TENSILE FORCES UNDER BENDING (F) WEIGHT REDUCTION (G) AND COUNTERACTING TORSION
(H).
of components to more elegantly solve particular problems. Today’s cars are much lighter in
weight, to aid fuel efficiency among other things, and yet are much stronger structurally than
designs of even just a decade ago. Although a detailed study of structures is outside the scope
of this book, it is worth looking at some of the principal forces and some of the shapes of some
components (not already mentioned) used to counteract these. Obviously the shape of a
component, determined by the forces it has to withstand, has a huge impact on the appearance
of a particular design and therefore its resulting physical beauty – whether used in a bicycle or a
building.

For our purposes here, forces can be classified into five main types:
compression;
tension (tensile, stretching);

bending;
torsion (rotating, twisting);

shear (sliding).
The effects of some of these forces are illustrated on the previous page. A simple beam
represented by a flat strip of material is subjected to a bending force in Figure 35 (A). The strip
obviously better resists bending when turned on its edge as there is more material being used
to resist the direction of force (B). This ‘edge on’ beam is still weak in lateral bending however
(C) but the introduction of a flanged edge or edges, for example, ‘L’ steel angle, ‘U’ channel or
‘I’ beam (shown in D and E) strengthens the original strip and to a large extent prevents it from
twisting sideways to the direction of the force and then buckling under the load. Another way
of strengthening the strip (C) without the use of flanges would be to introduce vertical folds or
curves along its length, thereby producing a zig-zag or serpentine shape (corrugations). We see
this sometimes in brick walls – a straight wall of about the height of a man made from a single
thickness of brick would be relatively easy to push over but the serpentine (wavy) wall of the
same thickness would be highly resistant to the same force. Of course, corrugated sheet iron
and steel have been used for roofing for a long time because of a combination of light weight
and strength.

When analysed further in Figure 36 (F), we can see that the top layers of the simple beam in
bending are under compression, while the bottom layers are being stretched. As we move
further towards the central layers of the beam, however, we can assume that, increasingly, the
material is doing less and less work in resisting the load – neither being stretched nor
compressed. Therefore, to save weight, a lot of the central material could be removed without
having an adverse affect on its overall strength, as long as the top and bottom layers were still
rigidly attached to each other. One result of this is the perforated ‘I’ beam (G) – a type of beam
used in many buildings and also those large factory or warehouse ‘sheds’ often seen on
industrial estates. The ‘I’ beam or girder uses four flanges that provide a much greater
resistance to buckling than the single-flange design. The flanges also make it easier to bolt two
or more beams together, whether in line or at right angles to each other.
However, a weakness of the simple beam (whether flanged or not) is its relatively poor
resistance to torsion (twisting), so it is not a good idea to use it under situations prone to
twisting forces as indicated in (H). Replacing the simple beam with a tubular design circumvents
this problem as a tube is highly resistant to torsion as well as bending. This is one reason why
tubes are used for motorcycle and bicycle frames, among other things. On a more mundane
level every gardener knows just how strong bamboo stems are for supporting growing plants.
Bamboo’s tubular structure is extremely strong yet very lightweight and resists bending in any
direction (as it would also resist torsion) and, of course, bamboo has been used in furniture
design for centuries (and also for bicycle frames in the Far East). The cross-section of a tube can
be of just about any shape, and for a tube subject to bending as well as twisting forces, an
elliptical or rectangular tube should be chosen with its widest axis in line with the direction of
the bending force. This is sometimes used in bicycle frame design, where another benefit of
choosing the elliptical section tube is the reduction in the front-facing area, thereby reducing
wind resistance.

An aeroplane’s fuselage is in effect a large tube and of course needs to resist large bending and
twisting forces, especially on take-off and landing. One of the most innovative designs of
aircraft frames of the twentieth century was Barnes Wallis’ design for the Wellington Bomber in
1936. This used a lightweight ‘geodesic’ lattice-work of curving aluminium struts which formed
the ‘cylindrical tube’ of the fuselage. Because of the inherent strength and ‘open’ structure of
the latticework the aeroplane could withstand much damage and yet remain flying (also many of
the incoming bullets would pass straight through the holes in the latticework and out the other
side). The Wellington’s strength and superior performance greatly exceeded the initial contract
specification from the Ministry of Defence.
The continuing industrial revolution in the nineteenth century saw the introduction of fabricated
and riveted iron girders and rectangular section tubes, components that were used for bridge
and large shed construction due to their ease of manufacture – flat sided elements can be easily
drilled and riveted together. Flanges were simply bent strips of wrought iron riveted along the
length of the main beam. Examples of these can be seen in any large Victorian railway shed or
station, as shown in Figure 37, which includes an example of a fabricated version of the
perforated ‘I’ beam mentioned above, having criss-crossing triangulating struts joining the two
flanges together. Modern hot-rolling methods, however, can turn a red-hot solid slab of steel
into long lengths of ‘H’ section girders (or other cross section flanged beams or rails) without
any joins and are therefore even stronger than riveted girders.
Modern methods of large-diameter pipe manufacture and welding techniques (borrowed from
offshore oil-rig construction) have enabled structural designs to be made using continuous
hollow steel tubes (instead of riveted sheet/plate fabrications), which can be shaped, cut and
welded to each other, thereby providing stronger (as well as watertight) joints that also
produces a more elegant and cleaner visual aesthetic. It is also usually easier to curve a rounded
section tube than a square one, which might more easily kink. A square section tube is also
prone to distortion when subject to heavy bending loads – exactly in the same way as a pin-
jointed square frame distorts by parallelogramming sideways. As with the square frame this can
be prevented by triangulation, cross bracing or the placement of internal flat panels at intervals
along the beam’s length. This is analogous to a cardboard box with a close-fitting lid – without
the lid the box can be easily parallellogrammed but once the lid is replaced the resulting cube is
extremely rigid. Thus our square section steel girder with internal panels has become a series of
boxes – hence the name ‘box girder’.
A car’s body could be considered as a box construction and is therefore basically a very strong
shape. That is, of course, until you start cutting holes in the shell for the doors and windows.
The more doors a car has the less it can

37 FABRICATED AND RIVETED IRON GIRDERS FORMING A VAULT OVER THE RAILWAY TRACKS. TIE RODS ACROSS THE BASE
OF EACH ARCH CANCEL OUT OUTWARD THRUSTS ON THE SUPPORTING OUTER WALLS. DARLINGTON RAILWAY STATION,
BUILT C.1875.
resist twisting and bending forces – a problem greatly exacerbated with an open-top design,
which needs some (visually subtle) reinforcing methods to maintain a stiffness comparable with
the closed-top version. This is also true of boat design – a boat with a deck is in effect a box (or
a tube) and is therefore highly resistant to twisting and bending forces. However, an open-
topped boat, like a simple rowing dingy, does not have a deck and relies to a large extent for
stiffness on its shell-like shape of compound curves. Also ‘flanges’ running round the top edges
of the hull, together with a central ‘main beam’ (the keel or crease) running the length of the
bottom of the hull from bow to stern, greatly add to the boat’s strength.
Additionally, in the absence of a deck, the positioning of longitudinal thwarts (a seat fastened to
the hull at its top and bottom) at intervals along the length of the boat will locally stiffen it as it
makes that part of the hull into a tube – as long as the thwarts are firmly fixed to the hull.
Sometimes open boats have ‘boxes’ integrated in the front and/or rear of the hull structure and
also continuous seats running from stem to stern on each side, designed as flat topped ‘tubes’
that you can sit on.
Some of these hulls are made from glass fibre/ epoxy resin composites, such as glass-reinforced
plastic (GRP), and some weight-saving experiments have been carried out in recent years with
these using a sandwich construction – a double
38 NORMAN FOSTER’S SPACEFRAME DESIGN FOR THE SAINSBURY ARTS CENTRE, NORWICH. 1977.

thin-skinned hull with the gap (or core) between the skins filled with various materials – plastic
foam, aluminium honeycomb or even balsa wood – and bonded to both skin surfaces.
Theoretically these ‘cored’ hulls should be very strong as they mimic the action of a beam in
bending – one skin in compression while the other is in tension – as well as being shell shaped
(made up of compound curves). However, in practice this design is controversial as the hull only
remains strong for as long as there is a perfect bond between the two skins and the internal
core. Once the core material detaches from either skin, or breaks up due to water ingress, the
two surfaces no longer act together (analogous to a H beam with the middle part missing), lose
their rigidity and therefore reduce the boat’s original performance and, if water has penetrated,
the boat becomes very heavy and is easily damaged. Many boat builders using GRP have
reverted to designs just using one single thick skin, as before.

Frames
Technological evolution means constantly having to modify our perceptions of man-made
beauty – particularly as new materials and processes are invented. The iron arch replaced the
stone arch, iron being superseded in its turn by the steel beamand-post construction, and the
introduction of the triangulated tubular steel space frame design (first invented by Alexander
Graham Bell). This is a sort of three-dimensional version of the old wooden roof truss, based on
the simple triangle which is an extremely rigid shape, and used to great effect in Norman
Foster’s Sainsbury Arts Centre in Norwich shown in Figure 38. Space frame designs usually
employ rigid struts in compression and tension (like the roof truss) and have been used in
applications other than buildings for many years, for example, automobile designs like the Lotus
Seven (and more recently Alex Moulton’s bicycle frames). Most car designs of today, however,
employ a ‘monocoque’ shell-like frame fabricated from welded-together pressed-steel
components and fabrications, onto which everything is attached. Early cars had separate
‘rolling’ chassis and bodywork which were then bolted together.

Tubular steel frames have been, and still are, commonly used for motorcycle frames, providing
the main chassis for supporting the engine and other components (Figure 39). Some of these
more recent frames are proper triangulated spaceframe designs but others simply try to look as
elegant as possible whilst holding everything together. Attempts at reducing weight and at the
same time increasing stiffness have led to some interesting designs where the engine has itself
become a stressed part of the frame, up to now probably the German manufacturer BMW has
taken this idea the furthest (Figure 40) – you could say that the engine is the frame. Note also
the modern cast magnesium alloy wheels (instead of assembled spokes and rim), discs in place
of drum brakes, and fatter tyres – all technical developments that contribute to the motorcycle’s
visual and sculptural evolution. With these and other improvements, modern road-going
motorcycles for sale in high street shops today would easily outclass the factory tuned racing
motorcycles of just twenty years ago.

Tensile Structures
Other structures use rigid members in compression in combination with flexible members such
as wire cables, which are only useful in tension. Although providing a strong visual statement,
the ‘X’ cross-bracing tension members on the Pompidou Centre in Paris (Figure 41) are not
mere decoration.
39 BMW R51/3 MOTORCYCLE, 1951–6. ‘TRADITIONAL’ TUBULAR STEEL FRAME DESIGN, WITHIN WHICH THE ENGINE IS
MOUNTED.
40 BMW R1200 RT MOTORCYCLE, 2004. THE ENGINE PROVIDES THE MAIN FRAME COMPONENT.

Cross-bracing prevents the structure from ‘parallelogramming’ – collapsing sideways (a

weakness of four struts arranged in a square or rectangle). Cross-bracing can be effected by
simple tension members such as steel cables, where one or the other cable is in tension at any
one time, doing away with weighty compression members. Wire cables have been used in
suspension bridge design since the nineteenth century (replacing iron chains) and nowadays
more unusual expressive designs of suspension bridges can be seen in the work of Santiago
Calatrava. Cross-bracing wires were also used on early biplanes as well as many other more
mundane structures, such as freestanding bookshelves in the home – sometimes replacing
panels that would otherwise do the same job.
Although commonly used in bridge design, developments in tensile (tension) structures are
increasingly being applied to new buildings, Some ‘supersheds’ use steel cable in tension and
steel posts and struts in compression (for example, Norman Foster’s design for the Renault
Distribution Centre in Swindon). Suspending the roof of a building from above maximizes the
volume of unhindered space inside. Of course tensile structures have been with us for
thousands of years in the form of tents. The earliest tents used the branches of trees to support
a covering of animal skins, such as the American Indian’s wigwam or the desert Arab’s tent.
Advances in synthetic materials in the twentieth century have led to the creation of huge tent
structures, used in stadium design and outdoor concerts, for example. It is also known that
some natural fibres, such as that produced by the silkworm, have greater tensile strengths than
steel, and material scientists are currently investigating how the common spider produces the
filaments that go into constructing its immensely strong and resilient web, with a view to
repeating this process synthetically in man-made materials. Probably the most well known of
synthetic tensile cable and sheet structures to date are the polyester sheet tents of the German
architect Otto Frei, who designed the tensile roofs for the 1972 Munich Olympics shown in
Figure 42 (and more recently Richard Roger’s tensile design for the Millennium Dome in
London). Otto Frei also designed pneumatic (air-supported) domes, which used sheet materials
in tension. These are supported with the assistance of a slightly higher internal air pressure
(being pumped inside) compared to the external atmospheric pressure.

The properties and behaviour of different materials provide significant constraints as well as
opportunities for the design and shapes of objects. However, the sensitive handling of these
materials and structures by the designer is crucial and can make the difference between an
elegant design and an ugly one, even though both designs may function well. Ship and
aeroplane designs are significantly constrained by the medium they have to travel through and
must resist the stresses and strains to which they are subjected. Streamlined shapes obviously
travel through air and water more efficiently and circular ‘porthole’ and rounded windows
prevent stress cracks from starting – a problem with square-shaped windows or holes, which
concentrate the forces at the corners.

Plywood, Plastics and Composites

The introduction of new materials and construction methods – and the resulting different
shapes for once familiar objects – has always been treated with suspicion by the public. In the
first half of the twentieth century plywood structures were first used in furniture design,
replacing ‘proper’ traditional solid timber construction, which provided opportunities for new
forms due to plywood’s high strength, shock-absorbing properties and springy nature
(resilience) – for example, Alvar Aalto’s chair No. 41 (Figure 43). The American designers
Charles Eames and his wife, Ray, pioneered many experiments with moulded plywood and
produced a variety of chairs and other products (for example, a splint for broken legs) made
from moulded plywood between the 1940s and 1960s. Notably, several of these designs are still
in production today. Plywood’s greater strength compared to a solid piece of timber having the
same dimensions is due to the bonding together under pressure (using adhesives) of several
thin sheets of wood (laminates) having alternating directions of grain – solid timber has of
course the grain only going in one direction. As well as plywood’s greater strength, the
potentially catastrophic splitting along the grain of solid wood is therefore avoided.
Plywood is still used today for a wide variety of applications including furniture and boat
construction. Perhaps the most famous demonstration of plywood’s strength, however, is its use
in the construction of De Havilland’s 1941 Mosquito bomber (Figure 44), which was originally
designed to save on scarce aluminium and viewed as a stop-gap by Great Britain’s Air Ministry –
until it proved itself to be the fastest aircraft in Bomber Command for the next ten years.
Regarded as a most beautiful aircraft by its crews, the fuselage was a sandwich of balsa
between two skins of birch plywood built on spruce stringers and glued together under
compression until dry (cured), and is about half to three-quarters of an inch thick. The main
wings used birch plywood for the upper and lower surfaces, two skins for the top surface and
one for underneath. The top skins were screwed to the internal spruce spars and ribs in addition
to being glued because of the enormous aerodynamic upward suction forces on the wing when
in flight (in more than one early test flight the top skin was ripped away). The engines and
undercarriages are mounted to the wings via welded tubular steel frames.
Aluminium alloys have gradually replaced timber in the construction of aeroplanes since the
early 1900s and today carbon-fibre composites are replacing metals in many applications that
require lightness and strength. The 1980s US ‘Stealth’ aircraft (Figure 45) uses composite
materials in its construction, its surfaces coated with radar absorbing materials (rather like matt
black paint absorbs visible light and infra-red to some extent) and its faceted forms help to
reflect radar waves at oblique angles – away from the radar transmitter and receiver.

‘Buckminsterfullerene’ (named after the American architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller) is a
special geodesic construct of carbon molecules – currently found only in stars – that herald
future materials having strengths over a hundred times that of steel. Maybe this is the sort of
material the science-fiction novelist Arthur C. Clarke had in mind when, decades ago, he
predicted an earth-to-geostationary satellite connecting cable having sufficient strength to
support itself and provide a means for an earth-to-space ‘elevator’ – which would make those
awe-inspiring terrestrial rocket launches (and the Dan Dare aesthetic) redundant. Applications of
such novel materials would mean new and unusual shapes for familiar man-made objects – the
bicycle is already morphing into shell-like structures as carbon composite materials are applied
to the frame and wheels (but what would a future Buckminsterfullerene bicycle look like?).
Furniture design is going in this direction too, requiring our adjustment to new and unusual
forms. Our notions of beautiful shapes are therefore constantly evolving. No doubt there will be
elegant composite furniture as well as ugly composite furniture – how will we decide which is
41 ‘CROSS-BRACING’ – POMPIDOU CENTRE, PARIS. BY RICHARD ROGERS & RENZO PIANO. 1977.
42 TENSILE ROOF STRUCTURES FOR THE MUNICH OLYMPICS IN 1972. OTTO FREI. VIEW OF THE ROOF OF THE OLYMPIC
STADIUM, DESIGNED BY GUNTHER BEHNISCH WITH FREI OTTO AS ROOF CONSULTANT.

which? (More importantly, how will we recycle it?)

Early modernist designers such as Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer and Le Corbusier
experienced a similar situation in the 1920s with the introduction of tubular steel furniture
(Figure 46). Many people, used to solid timber furniture, severely criticized these new designs at
the time. Now however they are regarded as design classics and many of these designs are still
in production. Developments in plastics technology in the twentieth century also led to the
introduction of ‘disturbing’ new forms in furniture design. Following on from earlier experiments
with plywood furniture, Robin Day’s injection moulded polypropylene stacking chair (using
tubular steel legs) for Hille International (Figure 47) was the first of its type in 1963 and is still
mass-produced today. The chair is cheap, extremely resilient and resistant to abuse, and is
therefore widely used in the public sector. The first all-plastic chair was designed by Verner
Panton, a stacking design made in polyurethane (the first prototype being made in glass-
reinforced plastic) that went into production for Herman Miller in 1967, and since 1999 has
been produced in injection-moulded polypropylene (Figure 48). Today, carbon fibre and similar
materials are being introduced in furniture designs where a combination of strength, light
weight and resilience is required.
Convergence, Change and Beauty
Today’s cars, bicycles, tools, houses and the built environment are a part of a continuing
technical evolution, started many thousands of years ago with the appearance of bone and
stone artefacts.

43 ALVAR AALTO PLYWOOD ‘PAIMIO’ CHAIR (1931). STILL IN PRODUCTION TODAY AS ARTEK NUMBER 41 CHAIR.

Nowadays research and development take place among many different fields of technology
simultaneously – for example, materials science, chemistry, thermodynamics, electronics and
computer science, electro-mechanical engineering and also space exploration and (increasingly
in the future) sustainable energy power sources. These, often very different technologies,
continually converge into new and/or better products as engineers and designers learn to
combine them in new ways. The family motor car combines all the foregoing technologies into
one product – a fast light- weight car (in future powered by hydrogen fuel cells) including GPS
(global positioning system) instruments that enable the driver to navigate with the help of
geostationary orbital satellites in space.
As cars and other products increase in complexity, the role of the human factors specialist is
becoming more crucial to the understanding and safe operation of machines. This includes
everything from the satisfactory physical ‘fit’ of the human body with a product (ergonomics),
for example, an office chair, to the design of the computer interface with its often very complex
programs. Most of us have experienced frustration with computers in some form or other but
this becomes a matter of life and death when the GPS system in the car becomes too
distracting. The human factors specialist’s job is to make complex things simple to understand
from the point of view of the user and simplicity is often a very difficult thing to achieve.
Although human factors, ergonomics and interface design can contribute to beauty (both
physical and conceptual beauty) through their impact on the design of products, these are
subjects largely outside the scope of this book and are covered in depth elsewhere.
Early man-made products have a beauty of their own which we can still appreciate today.

44 PLYWOOD CONSTRUCTION MOSQUITO AIRCRAFT. 1941.

45 COMPOSITE CONSTRUCTION B-2A STEALTH BOMBER. 1988.

Certainly ancient civilizations placed a high value on an object’s form, colour and decoration,
much of which carried symbolic meanings. Many ancient and modern tools combine form and
function that are inseparable from each other – the basic shapes of knives and forks are
determined by the shape of our hands and mouths and the task of
46 EARLY TUBULAR STEEL FURNITURE – MIES VAN DER ROHE CHAIR. C.1927.
47 ROBIN DAY’S POLYPROPYLENE STACKING CHAIR. 1963.
48 VERNOR PANTON’S ALL-PLASTIC STACKING CHAIR, FIRST PRODUCED IN 1967.

cutting food into manageable lumps. But why are some cutlery sets more elegant than others?
These are vexing questions. Like cutlery, a chair is designed to fit the human form and also to
be strong enough to support the user’s weight without breaking. Many such chairs perform this
task admirably, yet some will be more visually attractive than others.

It has been said that the most elegant forms are those achieved by the perfect integration of
form and function without the need for any decoration. The architect Le Corbusier’s maxim ‘a
house is a machine for living in’ became the motto for generations of architects and designers
throughout the first half of the twentieth century, although today many would disagree with this
philosophy, especially postmodernists. However, modernist designers have produced many
wonderful examples of pared-down elegant designs. For instance, Mies van der Rohe’s tubular
steel chair, pictured in Figure 46, was designed in 1927 and is still in production today. Ideally,
new buildings and products should be a seamless integration of function, form and expression
of purpose, as well as being a spiritual delight to behold and use – for example, Zaha Hadid’s
Nuragic and Contemporary Art Museum at Cagliari (Figure 5 in Chapter 1). These iconic
buildings can be very expensive to build, however, and although they may never become
mainstream design, they are sure to influence the everyday work of future generations of
architects and designers in perhaps more subtle ways.

All natural life forms on the Earth have evolved through natural selection into the most efficient
designs, materials and structures suitable for survival in a particular set of circumstances. The
human form encapsulates the most complex and efficient ‘machinery’ (both physical and
mental) for its survival, inside a very small and extremely efficient package – form definitely
follows function here! By any definition this must be an elegant solution – there’s not much
room for useless parts in the context of survival. However, as we have seen in Chapter 1, when it
comes to judging man-made designs there are no universal guidelines to help us decide which
design is elegant and which is ugly.
Culture and taste also evolve over time and notions of beauty and other forms of excellence are
subject to changing opinions and fashions with every successive generation. Richard Dawkins
describes a form of cultural evolution, which is just as real as physical evolution (only much
faster), and this has a considerable effect on our well-being and outlook as social animals.
Dawkins refers to ‘memes’ as the cultural equivalent of ‘genes’, being slightly modified with
each successive generation. Thus different societies have different notions of beauty depending
on their own set of circumstances and evolving culture, as we have already seen. In addition to
understanding how technology influences design (perhaps we could regard technology as
‘genes’), we need to be aware of cultural notions (memes) which also have a profound effect on
design evolution, and these can differ depending on which particular culture you are referring
to. There follows a brief outline of two of the more obvious cultural notions – classic/ romantic
and female/male.
Classic Versus Romantic
The terms ‘classic’ and ‘romantic’ can be applied to various fields in the fine and applied arts
and it is important to understand the difference between the two terms. Deciding which work
belongs to which category involves subjective judgements and, like much in the arts, these
judgements are open to individual interpretation. Classicism and Romanticism (with capitals ‘C’
and ‘R’) also refer to particular historical periods, specifically Classical Greek architecture and
sculpture between (roughly) 500 bc and 300 bc and early nineteenth-century ‘Romantic’ artists
and painters such as William Turner and Eugene Delacroix. These different approaches are
particularly striking when comparing the emotionally charged paintings of horses by Delacroix
with the classical studies of horses by the eighteenth-century English artist George Stubbs.
Works of literature, music, theatre, performing arts, the visual arts, architecture and design, all
usually have tendencies to one or the other term. Frequently a piece of work can express both
romantic and classic tendencies at the same time – compare the largely classical music of
Mozart with the largely romantic music of Wagner. Romanticism usually involves a deeper
emotional response in the observer compared with classicism, which usually appeals to our
intellect more than our hearts.
49 ‘MANNERIST’ OR BAROQUE CHURCH OF ST. CARLO, ROME. BORROMINI. C.1640.

There are many examples of renewed interest in the Classical style of Greek architecture in the
years since the Renaissance (and also a return to Classical themes in painting in the late
eighteenth century). Even today Neo-Classical architecture is still being built and our fascination
with Classical design seems undiminished. In general however it is more difficult to distinguish
between classic and romantic (small ‘c’ and ‘r’) tendencies in architecture and design. Buildings
and furniture produced by the twentieth century Modern Movement are generally regarded as
classical (with a small ‘c’) because of the logical and rational thinking behind them, analogous to
the structural logic behind Classical Greek and Roman architecture.

The artists and architects of the Italian Renaissance in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
combined elements of Classical Greek and Roman styles with a more expressive dynamic. Thus
this art and architecture began to express a more romantic, emotional or ‘theatrical’ appeal –
see Francesco Borromini’s sculpturally expressive treatment of the Church of San Carlo in Figure
49 – and this shift towards more expressive or emotionally charged works became known as
‘Mannerism’. Although there has always been a strong link between architecture and sculpture
(as exemplified in Michelangelo’s designs for St Peter’s and other buildings in Rome), there is a
significant difference between meaningful sculpture and mere decoration or ‘entertainment’. It
could be argued that the columns on the façade of Borromini’s church are not really holding
anything up – they are decorative rather than structural.

Classical Greek and Roman sculpture was very restrained in its forms; its statues of human
figures usually expressed little or no emotion, perhaps only one of understated gesture (though
there were exceptions). The artists of the Renaissance, however, were more interested in
showing figures engaged in some dramatic or emotional event – for example, a heroic figure
involved in some struggle, or a mother’s grief for her dead son. This ‘Mannerism’ led to what
has become known as the ‘Baroque’ in architecture and art. Later on however this interest in the
development of the Baroque style got somewhat out of hand, resulting in over-blown garish
ornamentation and decoration in architecture, with interiors festooned with carved plants and
cherubs - the ‘Rococo’ style.
Rather confusingly in today’s Western society, the term ‘classic’ is also given to particular
designs (whether inherently romantic or classical in nature), which are recognized as significant
and have stood the test of time. Probably car design exemplifies this best – the original Fiat
Panda and the Porsche 928 are both modern classics but the romantic associations of travelling
in speedy comfort to exotic locations are best conjured by the Porsche. Most of today’s four-
wheel drive vehicles are bought largely for romantic reasons – these are lifestyle purchases and
most will probably never be used off-road.

Masculine and Feminine

Many societies refer to inanimate objects as being either masculine or feminine, though this
may have nothing to do with their appearance. For example, the French refer to a yacht as
male, whereas a car is female. In the United Kingdom ships are regarded as female – ‘god bless
all who sail in her’ – but the British do not seem to have the equivalent for ‘male’ objects,
perhaps British culture doesn’t regard males as ‘beautiful’ – a quality that can probably be more
easily ascribed to a ship. It is true however that in Western society certain cars are regarded as
more appealing to women than men – masculine tastes tend to prefer more aggressive forms
whereas women tend to prefer softer shapes, although a member of a different culture would
probably not understand these varying tastes as applied to particular objects. Western thinking
also tends to attach objective (function) qualities to masculinity and subjective (form) qualities to
femininity – though many arte-facts will of course have elements of both.[5]
50 DORIC, IONIC, AND CORINTHIAN (AND COMBINED) ORDERS. EXPRESSIONS OF GENDER? THE ORDERS OF
ARCHITECTURE FROM ORDONNANCES DES CINQ ESPECES DE COLONNE BY CLAUDE PERRAULT. 1676.
The attaching of male and female values to designed objects is probably as old as civilization
itself. The neo-Classical architect Quinlan Terry has suggested that the different orders of
Classical Greek architecture have different personalities – the Doric Order has a manly beauty,
Ionic is more feminine and the Corinthian Order expresses a more flamboyant personality and
could be either male or female (Figure 50). This follows Vitruvius’ original assertion of the
male/female nature of Doric and Ionic capitals, but the Corinthian joins them together to create
a symbol of nature’s regeneration. Many built or manufactured objects can express a tendency
towards either gender – compare Robin Day’s and Vernor Panton’s chairs above, most people
would probably choose the Panton chair as being more ‘female’. So different objects can have
masculine or feminine, classic or romantic tendencies, many of which will be examples of good
design, but our personal preferences for each are issues of taste.

Zoomorphism
In addition to deciding which objects are male or female, most cultures will ascribe other animal
characteristics to inanimate objects. A Japanese person will not buy a car with an ‘unhappy
face’ for example (Donald Norman once described direction indicators as a ‘facial expression’ of
the car). This should not be surprising as human beings are programmed to spot living creatures
against the background environment – our very lives once depended on it (and of course still do
in some cultures). We often describe a house as friendly or welcoming and another house may
appear soulless or even hostile by comparison. We can ‘read’ someone’s facial expressions and
body language even before we enter into a conversation with them and, from these visual clues,
judge their internal emotional states. We can usually tell if they are jolly extroverts or quiet
introverted types from a distance, by their body language.
The philosopher Alain de Botton has attempted to describe the different ‘personalities’ of
buildings, furniture and objects, and how these can impinge on our emotional wellbeing.[6]
Many designers would not take this topic very seriously but designs and environments can
definitely affect our mood and should also be fun from time to time. Some of the many kitchen
products and gadgets made by the Italian company Alessi do have a deliberate element of a
‘happy creature’ about them and have proved very popular, prompting other companies to
follow suit. This is a fashion that may not last, however – to surround yourself completely with
whimsical objects might eventually drive you mad.

Evolution of Visual Identity and Branding

Evidence of a visual ancestry can be seen in the products of all well-known and long-established
companies and organizations. This is usually obvious in a company’s two-dimensional graphic
identity – you can usually spot the petrol company’s identity half a mile away from the motorway
filling station. Also the visual identity of a particular company evolves over a period of years,
usually determined by fashion preferences prevailing at the time. However, this visual identity of
a company is also the case in three dimensions, for example, you only have to glimpse at a
Dyson vacuum cleaner or BMW car to know which company produced that particular product –
even before you spot the familiar logo or badge. In the two images of BMW cars (Figures 51
and 52) it is easy to spot the ancestry of the twin ‘nostrils’ radiator air intake. However, there are
also much more subtle developments to be discovered in terms of perceived ‘muscularity’ and
‘personality’ in the development of a family of cars – analogous to the appearance of our own
family members through the generations. No doubt car stylists have a heightened sensitivity to
these factors, perhaps even subconsciously drawing curves and details, which automatically fit
the family album.

51 EARLY ‘NOSTRILS’ – BMW ROADSTER 328. 1936.

52 LATER ‘NOSTRILS’ – BMW CONCEPT M5, 2004. NEO-BAROQUE MEETS ZOOMORPHISM – HEADLAMPS AS EYES?

Car design at the start of the twenty-first century has evolved into more expressive use of form
and detail as exemplified in the BMW illustration. Commentators have named this ‘ugly design’
or even ‘neo-baroque’ (or ‘modern baroque’) – harking back to the expressive theatrical and
romantic forms of the late Renaissance, where designers such as Borromini applied dynamic
curving forms to otherwise classical buildings.

The visual identity of a particular company and its products can be protected by law under the
registered design and registered trade marks facilities at the Patent Office. These images,
symbols, shapes and forms are vital pieces of intellectual property essential to the long-term
success of a particular business, preventing unscrupulous competitors from producing products
pretending to be something they are not. This has become a real problem for many companies,
especially in the field of fashion design where counterfeit clothes and accessories can be made
in a very short space of time, appearing in the marketplace not long after the launch of the
genuine articles on the catwalk. This is also true of perfumes and packaging. The brand itself
has, in one sense, become almost more important than the product in terms of financial clout,
allowing the owners of brands to outsource manufacturing wherever it is cheapest in the world.
The owners of many brands nowadays have become mere ‘badgers’ – sticking their badge or
logo onto products made by others. Thus the brand itself becomes even more financially
important – it is sometimes a company’s only main asset – and firms will go to great lengths to
protect it. This has also introduced a political element with the exploitation of local labour
forces in regions where the choice of alternative work is severely limited. Branding, or the
‘designer jeans’ syndrome (a term usually hated by designers themselves) has therefore become
a double-edged sword, especially for the high-end fashion houses whose only real defence is to
change the designs frequently in an attempt to outrun the counterfeiters.

Case Studies

Ducati 998 Motorcycle

53 DUCATI 998, 2002.

The first motorcycle to use the inline V twin-engine layout was built by Harley-Davidson in
1909. This engine layout has been used many times since then by a variety of manufacturers
due to its slimness (less air resistance compared to across-the-frame twins and other multi-
cylinder designs) and relative simplicity, Harley-Davison have stuck with this layout ever since.
Following the Second World War many European racing motorcycle designs in the 1950s
were of single cylinder design – for example, the Manx Norton – but towards the end of that
decade and ever since, factories have employed multi-cylinder designs. As many as six
cylinders have been used for comparatively small engines, for example, the six-cylinder
Honda 250cc ridden to victory in the 1967 Isle of Man TT races by Mike Hailwood (despite
bad handling). Multi-cylinder designs have advantages and disadvantages – for example, gas
flow is more efficient compared to a single cylinder engine of the same capacity and
therefore revs per minute and acceleration rates are usually higher; however, more cylinders
usually mean more weight and complexity.
The Italian manufacturer Ducati built its first roadgoing 750cc V twin-engined bike in 1971,
known as the GT750. Originally designed by Fabio Taglioni, a racing version of the bike
successfully beat a field of world-class competition at the Imola race track in 1972, taking first
and second places, in the hands of the Englishman Paul Smart and the Italian Bruno
Spaggiari (Ducati produced a one-litre limited edition version of Paul Smart’s bike in 2006).
An 864cc version of the bike was raced to victory by Mike Hailwood in his amazing comeback
at the age of thirty-eight in the Isle of Man TT in 1978. Ducati has employed the V twin layout
in many bikes since and has developed it to such an extent that Ducati racing motorcycles
continued to beat the multi-cylinder competition (to several world championships) even at
the start of the twenty-first century. Ducati also pioneered the desmodromic valve – this
physically opens and shuts the inlet and exhaust valves using cams, whereas traditional
engines rely on cams to open the valves but compression springs to shut them – the
desmodromic design thus avoids ‘valve bounce’ at high revs.
Ducati’s 998 production model (Figure 53) was first available to the public in 2002 and had,
like all Ducati motorcycles, greatly benefited from race-breeding in all respects including the
engine, frame, suspension and brakes. Although production ceased in 2004 with the 998S
Final Edition, the design continues to be popular to this day – a sure sign of a design classic
in the making.
The original lattice (or space) frame for the GT750 was designed by the Englishman Colin
Seeley and used the engine as a stressed member of the ‘overall’ frame. The 998 with its
nose-down ‘ready-to-charge’ stance, under-the-seat exhausts and single-sided rear swinging
arm is a visually stunning machine, a work of art deceptive in its apparent simplicity and
beautifully finished in terms of paint quality and other materials. It has been suggested that
the fork yokes alone could be displayed in a museum of modern art, such is their beauty, the
quality of their castings and machining work. Although the engine is by now liquid cooled
(earlier versions being air-cooled), the bike still retains a spare elegant look even with the
fairing removed, unlike so many visual nightmares of plumbing seen on some other liquid
cooled machines.

Product Design – Mixer-grinder for India

By Sean Hughes, Creative Director, Philips Design, Hong Kong
One of the more memorable design challenges early on in my career was the development
of a product for a country, culture and environment that was completely different from my
own point of reference. As a recent design graduate from the UK, working at Philips Design
in Holland I was challenged to design a new product for the Indian market. The brief was to
establish a new design direction for a flagship mixer-grinder for Philips Domestic Appliances,
India.
As the international market leader in the food preparation appliances, Philips aimed to
cement this position by developing a new and innovative approach to the mixer-grinder
category in India. A mixer-grinder is a basically an Indian specific variation on the food
processor that has been designed, developed and engineered entirely to meet the needs
54 PHILIPS MIXER GRINDER FOR INDIA, 1996.
of preparing foodstuffs for the Indian table. A food processor developed for the Western
palette, cuisine and kitchen, transplanted to an Indian context would not survive very long in
the more challenging environment of the Indian domestic kitchen – grinding Indian
ingredients such as hard nuts and spices is a very abrasive process when compared to
western foods. This requires much harder wearing materials to be used in appliance design,
such as metals rather than plastics, which of course also has a big impact on manufacturing
methods and cost.

This project provided an opportunity to put into practice many of the design philosophies I
hold dear. Namely you cannot produce meaningful innovations without fully understanding
the three pillars of the consumer, the business and the technology. In the case of this project
all were completely outside of my existing experience or frames of reference. These three
pillars when combined provide the framework that either enables or inhibits innovation. The
designer has a duty to understand the challenge from these often divergent perspectives in
order to create meaningful and relevant design solutions.
It was clear from the outset that the only to way properly develop a solution that would
resonate with our intended consumer was to fully immerse myself in the market, production
and consumer contexts. Therefore, I spent many weeks on location in India working with
marketing, development and design colleagues in order to create and shape the new
product concept. Enormous amounts of information was gathered during this period. This
process included visiting people’s homes and observing how existing products were used, in
what sort of environments and also co-analysing with these users those problems that the
existing products did and did not solve, as well as asking how they would like them
improved. Research also took into account the retail environments and seeing first-hand how
the products were sold and, from questioning sales staff, enabled a thorough understanding
of the retailers as well consumers’ concerns at the point of purchase. This helped us to gain
critical insights into the issues that would ensure our product would ‘win the battle’ on the
retail shelf. Lastly a full understanding of the project from a business and production
perspective was gathered through meetings with suppliers, engineers and marketing
managers who could relate relevant experiences, define key components and finalize the
product’s performance requirements.
All of this information was captured, documented and discussed before a single sketch was
made. As a result of this process many of the preconceptions I held prior to my visit had to
be reviewed – my outsider’s view was complemented by my newly acquired insider’s view of
this particular world. Armed with this information I was able to offer a new design approach
that mixed the latest design trends from world markets with local needs so that the new
product could be reliably placed into the Indian market. Perhaps the biggest design
challenge was to convince the key stakeholders in Europe that a dramatically new design
approach was needed in order to maintain our leadership position and to align our products
with global trends. It was clear from the research that our consumers were not as
conservative as perhaps we first thought, and were ready to accept a more ground-breaking
approach to design. By reviewing global trends in the kitchen, as well as the design language
of kitchen appliances, it was clear that a new and simpler product characteristic would be a
highly appropriate next step. In order to deliver on this a creative workshop was held and a
number of proposals developed. Our stakeholders were confronted with these new design
directions and an agreement on a winning proposition was reached. This resulted in the
product we see today, which set a new direction in the Indian market and has held its own as
a staple part of the Philips Domestic Appliance product portfolio over the years. It remains
on the market today and is an attractive proposition delivering an enhanced product
experience, a timeless design that improves people’s lives along the way. Proving that a
research-led, people-focused design approach leads to value creation for both our retail
customers as well as end users.

Racing Yacht Design

By Tony Castro of Tony Castro Naval Architects and Yacht Designers, Southampton

There is a seemingly endless number of different designs of boats, and the particular shape
of a hull depends upon the purpose and function of a particular boat – whether a sailing boat
or a powerboat without sails. It can also be a family cruiser where speed is not important but
comfortable accommodation and stability is, or it can be a racing yacht where speed is the
overriding factor. Generally the wider a boat’s hull is the greater the stability it will have, and
the more resistant it will be to heeling over sideways. However, a wide hull produces more
drag (as there is a bigger surface area in the water) and therefore slows forward motion – not
such a good thing when it comes to racing. As well as cutting through the water more
efficiently, a narrow hull uses less material than a boat of the same length and is therefore
lighter and more responsive. A deep V shape towards the front of the boat’s hull reduces
‘slamming’ head-on to the waves (analogous to diving into the water as opposed to a ‘belly-
flop’) which is a good thing for comfort but, again, this increases the hull’s surface area in the
water and offers less damping to pitching oscillations.
There are many compromises and trade-offs even within yacht designs of the same class. For
example, what makes a boat fast downwind will probably make it slow upwind and the things
that make a boat safer will ultimately make it slower. A ‘safe’ boat usually means that it’s
unsinkable and self righting – a heavy lead ‘bulb’ at the bottom end of the keel (the ‘wing’
that sticks out vertically from beneath the hull) helps to right the boat in the event of a
capsize but, of course, this adds to the weight of the boat and therefore reduces speed and
acceleration. On the plus side, the use of new materials such as carbon fibre and Kevlar have
led to significant weight savings without compromising strength and this has mitigated to
some extent the disadvantages of heavy keel bulbs, thereby increasing speed without
compromising (relative) safety. Sail design is also a complex science of cloth strength, area,
height, shape and the flexibility of the mast. It is no use trying to maximize the area of a sail
to catch the most wind if this results in the yacht tipping over into the water. The sails, mast
and rigging must be designed in such a way as to catch as much wind as it is safe to do so,
while ‘exhausting’ the excess wind that would cause problems – a function among other
things of shape of the sail and the height and flexibility of the mast. Much development has
gone into providing yachts with sails that maximize forward speed whilst reducing heeling
forces and the designs of asymmetric spinnakers – those ‘ballooning’ sails commonly seen at
the front of today’s racing yachts – have played an important role in increasing speeds up to
40 knots without unduly compromising safety. Carbon fibre has also revolutionized mast
design allowing the designers to put the most material where the greatest stresses occur.
Masts are now up to 50 per cent lighter than aluminium masts and the designer can build in
greater control and flexibility nearer the top. Look how ‘glass-fibre’ poles revolutionized the
heights that pole-vaulters now achieve (heights unimaginable in the days of timber or
aluminium poles).

55 LASER SB3-21 RACING YACHT, DESIGNED AND BUILT BY TONY CASTRO. 2002.

The flexible yet strong masts of today can store up large amounts of bending energy without
breaking, and ‘give this energy back’ to the boat automatically when the opportunity arises –
analogous to the athlete’s bending pole storing up the kinetic energy of his/ her run up to
the jump and giving it back to increase the vertical height achieved. The sails of course must
make the most efficient use of the wind from a multitude of directions, depending on which
direction you want to go in. In ordinary circumstance a sailing boat would have to ‘tack’ in a
zig-zag manner to make progress against the prevailing wind. All yachts have to do this to
some extent but the larger the sideways zig-zagging results in it taking longer to get where
you want – not so good when it comes to racing. The ‘closer’ to the wind direction the less
distance will be travelled but this can result in a slower speed. Therefore, the skill of the
racing skipper counts for a great deal in these circumstances.

Swiss Re Office Block by Norman Foster and

Partners
Norman Foster’s office block for Swiss Re (nicknamed the ‘Gherkin’) in the City of London
won the RIBA Stirling prize for new architecture in 2004. Although geodesic buildings have
been with us for many years, for example, Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes of the 1950s,
the Swiss Re building is the first such office tower in the heart of a major city. It rises forty-
one storeys and provides more than 76,000 m2 of office space. The top of the building
contains a double-decker private bar and restaurant and gives a 360-degree view of London.
Although often referred to as a ‘work of art’, there are logical reasons for the Gherkin’s
shape. The building looks curved but all the glass panels are flat, each secured in the outer
apertures of a triangulated steel structure that allows for a fully glazed surface. The only
curved piece of glass is the cone at the very top of the building. The building’s base tapers to
a smaller diameter than its middle, allowing greater pedestrian space and lines of sight at
street level than would have been the case if designed on a rectilinear plan with vertical sides
(or even a cylinder). Pedestrians will also benefit from reduced extremes of wind around the
base compared to conventional buildings with sharp corners. The tapering shape also makes
it look more slender than a straight sided block of the same volume and also serves to
reduce the glare from reflections while increasing transparency. Because the building curves
inwards towards the top, an observer at its base looking up cannot see the top half of the
building and therefore it looks a lot less high and imposing compared with its neighbours.

The building also has passive air circulation. The internal atria spaces that spiral up the height
of the building exploit the differential in air pressure at opposite sides of the building (no
matter which direction the wind is coming from). Fresh air is sucked in naturally from outside
and distributed throughout the internal spaces. Only in extremes of hot or cold weather will
it be become necessary to use energy to power the climate-control systems. This, along with
other energy-saving measures, reduces the tower’s reliance on air conditioning and enables
the building to use up to around half the energy consumed by similar volume air-conditioned
office towers. Because the tower looks the same from any angle, we can enjoy seeing it from
any vantage point – it doesn’t have a front and back, unlike many buildings whose rear faces
may not be so appealing. The two-tone upward spiralling glass patterns of its skin help to
break up what might have been an otherwise monotonous surface; the subtle colours of the
panels combined with strips of bright coloured ribs invariably direct our eyes towards the
conical focal point at the very top. These elements combine together to produce a visually
vibrant yet wonderfully graceful structure.
56 SWISS RE BUILDING (THE ‘GHERKIN’) – BY NORMAN FOSTER, LONDON. 2004.

Theory Box

Cultural Relativism (Twentieth Century)

 Darwinian and psychological evolutionists say that our physical and mental capacities are the
result of millions of years of natural selection since our early hominid ancestors first appeared
in Africa. Denis Dutton suggests that our minds at birth are therefore already equipped with
a set of tools that enable us to cope quickly with life and provide certain survival skills, such
as a propensity for language and built-in preferences that help us to avoid danger. Even
animals, birds and insects have some level of danger avoidance and survival strategies, such
as nest building or seeking out hiding places, already programmed into their brains at birth.
Dutton goes further in proposing that all humans have a common preference (within limits)
for particular types of beauty. For example, certain pieces of music or types of calendar art
can appeal to individuals across many societies and cultural divides.
Cultural relativism on the other hand proposes that all judgements of beauty and taste are
entirely culture specific, that is to say that notions of beauty are learned by an individual
according to the culture in which he or she grows up, and these notions become that
particular society’s shared standards of beauty – we come to admire the things we are
expected to. In Practical Criticism (1929), the British critic Ivor Armstrong Richards describes
experiments he carried out with literature students, which purported to show that even
highly educated people are conditioned by their education, the conventional wisdom of the
times they live in, and other circumstantial factors of their own society when it comes to
judgements of beauty or taste. In these experiments students were asked to criticize
anonymous poems – poems from which the names of the authors, the historical period in
which they were written and other contextual details were removed (one ‘worthless’ poem
was also included – which many students preferred). This shows the difficulty of judging a
work of art (in this case using poetry as the bait) and elucidating meanings without any hint
as to the work’s provenance. Thus cultural relativism says that it is difficult or even impossible
to properly judge works of art that have been divorced from any knowledge of the culture
that produced it.

Other writers have pointed to the powerful conditioning effects of tradition and fashion,
factors that do indeed have a strong bearing on notions of beauty and elegance in any
society. Marxism goes further and argues that art cannot exist on its own (art for art’s sake)
outside of the society that created it – rather, art reflects the underlying economic forces in a
particular culture and only becomes ‘great art’ when it is ‘progressive’ – that is, when it
supports the cause of the oppressed classes (for example, in the case of communist regimes)
and/or other values and principles of the society in which it was created.

[1]
Santayana, The Sense of Beauty.
[2]
Salvadori, M. (1990), Why Buildings Stand Up; The Strength of Architecture , New York: W. W.
Norton.
[3]
[3]
King, R. (2000), Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture ,
New York: Walker & Co.
[4]
Yeomans, D. (1992), The Trussed Roof: Its History and Development , Aldershot: Scolar Press.
[5] ‘The Gender of the Universal’ in Lupton, E. and Miller, J. (eds) (2001), The ABCs of the

Bauhaus and Design Theory , London: Thames & Hudson.

[6]
De, A. (2006), The Architecture of Happiness , New York: Pantheon.