David Harrison has chosen 250 examples of homewares to illustrate his book. In the intro, he writes that colour wasn't really considered in the design of products prior to World War 1, though an obvious exception would be the colourful wallpaper designs by Augustus Pugin and William Morris. By the fifties of the last century, designers had a range of materials, especially plastics and manufacturing techniques that allowed their creativity to blossom. There are thirty-two products shown from 1920 to 1950, the remaining 218 run from the fifties to 2020.
I think it's worth saying that more than half of the featured products are seating, basically chairs and sofas. The rest are a selection of ceramics, lighting, storage furniture, tables, carpets, fabrics and a small selection of electric items. Technology doesn't really extend to colour in a domestic environment, featured is a 1962 Brionvega orange cube radio, Jacob Jensen 1970 B&O Beolit radio and a 1998 green and white iMac.
As seating is so prominent throughout the book some of the examples seem almost anti-design (in the sense that design should be practical and suited to its use). Tom Dixon's Pylon chair made of wire but lacks upholstery to sit on though it does look very much like a pylon, Terje Ekstrom's Lounge chair constructed of bent tubular steel and covered in thick foam has no actual seat or even Gerrit Rieveld's stunning Red and blue chair from 1917 only has a blue lacquered piece of thin wood as the seat and probably feels uncomfortable after a while.
The book is nicely produced with a photo and deep caption on each page, this gives some background detail about the designer and the product. There are six portfolios of designers (Albers, Girard, Panton, Mendini, Jongerius, Levien, Scholten and Wood) with an essay and examples of their work. The book will interest interior design students and anyone who wants to see and read about products designed for the home in the last few decades, especially seating.
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