Books in the Cultural Histories of Design series

Norman Bel Geddes has long been considered the 'founder' of American industrial design. During his long career he worked on everything from theatre design, world fairs and cars to houses and product and packaging design.Nicolas P. Maffei's magisterial biography draws on original material from the archive at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, and places Bel Geddes' work within the fast-changing cultural and intellectual contexts of his time. Maffei shows how Bel Geddes' futuristic but pragmatic style - his notion of 'practical vision' - was central to his work, and highly influential on the professional practice of American industrial design in general.

Jugendstil, that is Germany's distinct engagement with the international Art Nouveau movement, is now firmly engrained in histories of modern art, architecture and design. Recent exhibitions and publications across the world explored Jugendstil's key protagonists and artistic centres to firmly anchor their activities within the trajectories of German modernism. Women, however, continue to be largely absent from these revisionist accounts.Jugendstil Women and the Making of Modern Design argues that women in fact actively participated in the cultural and socio-economic exchanges that generated German design responses to European modernity. By drawing on previously unpublished archival material and a series of original case studies including Elsa Bruckmann's Munich salon, the Photo Studio Elvira and the Debschitz School, the book explores women's important contributions to modern German culture as collectors, consumers, critics, designers, educators, and patrons.This book offers a new interpretation of this vibrant period by considering diverse manifestations of historical female agency that pushed against historically entrenched conventions and gender roles. The book's rigorous approach reshapes Jugendstil historiography by positing women's lived experiences against dominant ideologies that emerged at this precise moment. In short, the book advocates women as an integral part of the emergence, dissemination and reception of Jugendstil and questions the deeply gendered histories of this key period in modern art, architecture and design.