CategoriesDesign Concepts and Techniques
Iconic Works of Design
No open-access works for Iconic Works of Design are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.
About Iconic Works of Design
Some designs outgrow their moment. They solve a problem so clearly, or capture a period so well, that they become the standard against which later work is measured. Often they depend on a new technique. Michael Thonet's bentwood chairs of the 1850s reduced a chair to a few steamed rods that could be made in vast numbers. Harry Beck's London Underground map (1933) ignored geography to show connections, a model for transit maps worldwide. Arne Jacobsen's three-legged Ant chair (1952), still made by Fritz Hansen, pressed plywood into a single waisted shell.
Others define a look: Dieter Rams and Hans Gugelot's Braun SK 4 radio-phonograph (1956) gave electronics a clean white face, and Cassina's reissues of furniture by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, begun in the 1960s, turned pre-war prototypes into lasting products. Look for how often a design has been copied, since imitation measures influence.
The makers