Creating Good-Looking Objects That Work

By Wolf Von Eckardt

A store, a gas station or a typewriter can raise the spirits and make life easier

Most 1981 design was not bad. It was awful. But the few new urban places, buildings, industrial products and graphics that were good, were very, very good. The awfulness was not just a matter of bad taste. A little kitsch in dull surroundings can be as endearing as a whiff of horse manure in the city. The dismaying pollution of the cityscape, like that of the language, stems from illiterate and, worse, semiliterate pretentiousness.

The result is visual gobbledygook. An example is the new crop of "postmodern" buildings. They are three-dimensional collages of discrepant ornament and styles. The design of most new interiors, furniture, cars, appliances and printed matter also continues to follow ill-mannered fads rather than good form. A confusion of design with mere styling, packaging or form-giving still haunts our culture.

The successful designs of which the American public has become aware during the year were not the ones to scream for attention in an already all too noisy world. They stand out because, like all first-rate design, they raise the human spirit and make life a little easier.

Good design is essentially a matter of problem solving. Engineers solve mechanical problems. Designers solve human problems--or should. If the design does not work well, it may be art, but it is not good design.

To make an object work, functionally and aesthetically, it must be placed in its proper context. A chair must fit into the room. The room must fit into the house. The house must fit into the street. The street must fit into the city.

Good design, furthermore, politely takes its place in the context of historic continuity. It does not parade in either a "traditional" or futuristic costume. As time goes by, the context keeps changing. That is why, as each new generation of designers must learn, even the best design does not seem to bring us closer to Utopia. But, as Sir Henry Wotton observed some 350 years ago, the best design gives us "commodity, firmness and delight."

Here are the five best architectural and the five best industrial or graphic designs of the past year:

Bullock's Northern California department store, San Mateo, Calif. L. Gene Zellmer Associates, architects; Geiger Berger Associates, P.C., structural engineers. A soaring, translucent tent structure provides shoppers with daylight and a festive atmosphere. San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas. Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc., architects. A creative yet respectful transformation has turned the slightly loony old Lone Star Brewery into an imposing museum building.

Thorncrown Chapel, Eureka Springs, Ark. Fay Jones & Associates, architects. A simple but evocative structure of pine boards, glass and ingenuity, designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright's. It is one of the few buildings that advance the master's concept of organic architecture.

Viet Nam Veterans Memorial, Washington, B.C. Maya Y. Lin, designer. A brilliantly simple solution to the emotion-charged problem of honoring 57,709 victims of the controversial war.

Wainwright State Office Complex, St. Louis. Mitchell/Giurgola in association with Hastings & Chivetta, architects. A self-negating structure that is almost "non-architecture" adds usable space to Louis Sullivan's famed building.

Bass guitar. Ned Steinberger, designer; Steinberger Sound Corp., manufacturer. An award-winning industrial design. This handsome reinforced plastic instrument recognizes that there is as much difference between the classic wood guitar and the electric guitar as there is between the horse-drawn carriage and the combustion engine. Rock musicians seem to dig the Steinberger.

Burdick Group. Bruce Burdick, designer; Herman Miller, manufacturer. One of the first flexible office-furniture systems to come to terms with computer terminals and other electronic office machines.

Exxon service stations. Saul Bass, Herb Yager, Howard York and Richard Huppertz, principal designers. All elements, including architecture, graphics and gasoline pumps are integrated into one quietly assertive unit that should help calm America's roadside clutter.

Minnesota Zoo Logo and Sign System, Apple Valley, Minn. Lance Wyman, Ltd., designer. Graphic communication that informs with delightful directness, charm and humor.

Olivetti Electronic Typewriter ET221. Mario Bellini, designer. This is in the best Olivetti tradition--clean, elegant, nononsense.

--By Wolf Von Eckardt

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