Abstract
In the ‘Introduction’ to their compendium of essays, Floré and McAtee quote Tony Fry: ‘Design gives material form and directionality to the ideological embodiment of a particular politics’ (p. 4). This statement prompts them to argue that furniture, as an element of design, has political agency, with the result that their volume purports to ‘examine’ (p. 4) the political agency of modern furniture in the post-war era. They have brought together 10 case studies, from a diverse selection of geographic areas – Africa, the Caribbean, North America, Europe, Asia and Australia – and the reader is justified in expecting an examination of the domestic and public interiors of cultures extant in the selected countries. Disappointingly, however, examination is rare. Instead, the majority of the historians contributing to The Politics of Furniture have simply documented furniture’s presence and ignored the predominant political ideology that is embedded in modernism and its design manifestations.
The predominant entities in this book are Knoll Associates, Knoll International and the products that emanated from their manufactories in the United States and Europe during the 1945 to late 1970s period. In their acknowledgements, Floré and McAtee admit to ‘sharing a fascination’ for Knoll, and being ‘fascinated’ and ‘intrigued’ by its proliferation worldwide (p. xvi). This adoration is evident in the duo’s essay ‘Knolling Paris: from the “new look” to Knoll au Louvre’ in which abundant superlative adjectives – ‘sensuous and sophisticated cachet’ (p. 101), ‘refreshing differences’ (p. 105) and ‘eye-catching color ads’ (p. 109) – dispel any sense of impartiality. Other chapters – one on Puerto Rico and Cuba and another on Brasilia – are less obsequious in their documentation of Knoll. Yet not a single author questions the ubiquity of the company and what this represents.
Fry and Eleni Kalantidou (2014) expanded upon design’s politics in Design in the Borderlands. Globalisation – Knoll’s agenda – is not only the agent of capitalism but also the agent of Western knowledge and ways of thinking that negate the local. Globalisation is post-colonialism. Those who are subject to colonialism are socialised to aspire to the progress assumed to be inherent in the systems and trappings of modernity: ‘the desires for, and values of, global commodity culture arrives as the means to gain entry into modernized reality’ (p. 3). In the face of overwhelming evidence of the ‘superiority’ of foreign goods and services, this aspiration turns a blind eye to native commodities and practices and fails to develop vernacular potential.
Johan Lagae characterises this circumstance in his chapter about modern design in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Sweden, the United States, Belgium and France were the sources for furniture deemed suitable for Western colonists whose economic and political interests in the country were focused on raw material reserves. He states that Knoll furniture and furnishings designed by Harry Bertoia and Arne Jacobsen were sold in Kinshasa in the 1950s. These objects were part of ‘a more general emergence of an American way of life in post-war Congo’ (p. 20); Jean Prouvé’s aluminium chairs represented the French colonial agenda for economic expansion (p. 20). Magazines and books advocated modern European interiors and prominent businesses were exemplars. Sabena, the Belgian airline, and Air France built terminals and staff accommodation in Kinshasa and Brazzaville, respectively, whose architecture and furnishings ‘reinforced their corporate identities, presenting themselves as innovative and globally oriented enterprises fully embracing modernity’ (p. 24). If there was a local presence in these interiors, it was by way of indigenous artifacts that were patronising of Congolese culture and traditions. Lagae’s chapter records the imposition of colonialism and commodification on an African nation with no discussion of the local that was usurped.
In stark contrast is Pereira and Gillett’s (2014) exploration of design in another African nation, Angola, published in Design in the Borderlands. The authors critique the modernisation of the country through design: ‘Aside from the use of modernist architecture to create large public monuments and institutional buildings that clearly communicated and maintained the order of colonial power, it was also used as a civilising vehicle in inducting the native population into the European way of life’ (p. 112). This more circumspect analysis of modernity, by citizens of a country on which it was imposed, aligns with Fry and Kalantidou’s (2014) admonition that new ways of thinking and the breakdown of existing design discourses are needed.
Two chapters in The Politics of Furniture save it from being totally dismissed: Martin Racine’s scrutiny of post-war furniture in Québec and Yasuko Suga’s documentation of furniture made in Japanese prisons. Racine focuses on two streams of furniture production that arose out of educational philosophies: the craft-based notions of Jean-Marie Gauvreau that perpetuated traditional Québécois cabinetmaking incorporating wood and the industry-based ideas of Julien Hébert. The latter took inspiration from the metal furniture of Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Breuer as well as designers working under the Knoll umbrella, but created designs and educated future designers for furniture production and use in Québec and Canada.
The practice of prison-made furniture is not limited to Japan (Kenyan prison-made furniture is highly sought after). Suga discusses the differentiation of styles adopted among prisons and the rivalry that was manifest at corrections fairs. While Western styles were replicated, there were difficulties of adapting this furniture to the smaller dimensions of Japanese homes. Suga’s summation of the politics of corrections fairs is more in keeping with expectations of the content of this book: creating a positive image of prisons, enlightenment regarding the prison system, giving worth to prisoners and maintenance of the craft tradition.
A number of authors in The Politics of Furniture invoke the term soft power – ‘the shaping of preferences and actions through attraction and persuasion’ (p. 33). The expression implies a benign influence, with American (often under the sponsorship of the US State Department) and European furniture designs quietly occupying foreign environments. Instead, modern furniture was one of the elements in the hegemony of Western capitalism and economic domination that decimated local skills, resources and societies. In addition to the issues touched on in this review, a book on the politics furniture might include consideration of materials and their procurement, climate change, labour sources and their compensation, health and safety and utility versus luxury goods. Rather than continue to condone and laud the actors and symbols of colonialism and post-colonialism, design history must wake up to the reality of its discipline.