Is Design a Crime?
- Questions rasied by “Design and Crime”-
In a famous essay entitled “Ornament and Crime”, Adolf Loos wrote as follows:
“the evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from utilitarian objects.”
If we were to interpret this today simply as an attempt to force acceptance of modernism's ascetic sense of aesthetics,
that understanding would be incorrect. This is because the “ornament” referred to by Loos is not simply ornament
that can be done without; it is ornament which is “criminal” insofar as it forces craftsmen to do unnecessary work
and thus deprives them of initiative, or which contributes to the shortening of the useful life of ordinary items by
creating ever changing fashions. Those of us in today's modern world who can't completely reject the idea that waste is a virtue,
or at least a necessary evil, in the sense that it may help promote economic development, have neither overcome nor confronted Loos's argument.
In fact, we may say that the question has now become even more difficult in the sense that while finished goods today may not appear
to have excessive ornamentation, products with new functions are constantly being designed, and it has become possible to
manufacture infinite variations of similar items. As the debate over design during at least the last ten years has shown,
the question being raised is whether the “act of design” is in itself a crime.
A book with the title “Design and Crime” was published last year, almost a century after the appearance of Loos's
“Ornament and Crime”, and reflects the current debate on this subject.
The book is an anthology of articles by Hal Foster concerning current cultural conditions.
Foster has hitherto been involved primarily in the field of art criticism.
How then does he interpret contemporary design and what does he consider to be criminal about it?
In this article, Eizo Okada discusses the meaning of the act of designing in the modern world and the role of the designer
in the light of the ideas presented in “Design and Crime”.
Eizo Okada, Research Associate, Department of Architecture and Design, Kyoto Institute of Technology
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Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization
