What happened to design?

We asked the Iberian Design Team the question. 

Sue Page - Design Engineer

What happened to design? - Do you ever look back at historical designs and think - wow, that’s so beautiful, and then look at the Modern World and wonder where we went so wrong? The answer is time, and I don’t mean years or decades, I mean seconds and minutes. 

Fashions have always changed, the cycle of renewal is constant as we fall in love with new colours, shapes, patterns, and ideas. The pace of this cycle may have change but the cycle itself is the same through out time. What has changed though is something else, the detail has gone. 

Most notably in architecture but insidiously in all of the things we make now the character has been taken away. Sold to us as 'sleek and modern', the simplification of everything surrounds us in smooth surfaces, plain boxes, in cold unfeeling modern materials. Minimalism is meant to be about owning less, not seeing or feeling less. 

Then the rebellion, maximalism! To fill that void we buy more, but it's more soulless modern and it never fills the void left behind in the absence quality design. 

So what happened, and why is it time's fault? - Because these designs are easier and faster to make. The industrial revolution gave us a burst of new ways of making things and year after year we changed how we did everything. And we never stopped changing, every day somewhere in the World someone works out how to make something faster or simpler. This innovation is amazing for medicine, space exploration, or solving world hunger, but kinda sucks for home furnishings. 

I remember when spotlights became the fashionable light fitting. Sleek and modern, point the light at any part of the room you want to. They were cheap enough, not much more than a lampshade. Now I can’t wait to get rid of them and have something with warmth and character. 

It's fast to cut and fold a piece of metal for a spot light. Labor for many products is the largest part of the cost, so if you can make a product that needs less time, you make more money, and that's what everyone wants. So slowly, one simplification, one product at a time, our world got more boring and we were sold it as a upgrade. 

So if you are wondering why we don’t ship next day? We are making your lampshade by hand, especially for you. And it takes time to make something beautiful.

Tom Acciarini - Head of Design

What happened to Design? - Modern design is built upon the skewed principles of the Bauhaus school. Walter Gropius and his fellow artists and architects sought to liberate traditional elitist art education and bring it back to masses. In doing so they set the groundwork for modern architectural education and product design teaching principles where ornament is a crime, truth is given to materials and form follows function.

This is a far cry from Gropius’ initial intention of turning artists into craftspeople and craftspeople into artists. Art and ornament were meant to be freed from class and brought to the masses however the Bauhaus movement, misunderstood and attacked for its socialist and leftist connections, was watered down and its teachings pruned until we arrived at what we recognise as Bauhaus, and it’s influence today.

Ornamentation and aesthetics have fallen by the wayside, if they exist at all it is because someone somewhere has decided it is a selling point rather than a necessity.

Yet the profession of interior designer is booming as we all quietly revolt against the starkness and emptiness of the modern world. The Lockdowns of the past years have shown most of us that we need to have a connection to the natural world.

Maximalism flourished and brought back myriad natural patterns in bold and beautiful unapologetic colours and even Minimalism has turned to natural materials and mixed textures.

A little over 100 years after Gropius art and crafts have broken away from being a privilege of the wealthy. Highly individual bespoke lighting is being reclaimed as an integral part of individual style as more and more people are rejecting the ‘invisible’ downlight and directional spotlight in favour of colour and texture.

Bespoke and decorative lighting are here to stay and at the Iberian Design Team we believe in good design.