The Culture of Nature in the History of Design ― Making and Unmaking the Environment

Design and designers hold an ambiguous place in contemporary environmental discourse. They are alternatively being blamed for causing environmental problems, and hailed as possessing some of the competences that could help solving those problems. Despite this long-standing centrality of design to environmental discourse, and vice versa, these interrelations remain underexplored in design historical scholarship. Designs on Nature will address this lacuna, providing pioneering scholarship on the ever more pressing issue of the crucial, but complex role of design in creating a more sustainable future—past and present.

In the Anthropocene, we can no longer talk about design and culture without also talking about design and nature. This book stimulates new directions in design historical discourses that take seriously design’s complex interrelations with nature and the environment. Not only does design feature prominently in the making and unmaking of the environment; studying the history of these processes will also help reveal how the idea of the environment itself has been articulated over time. Engaging with issues of environmental controversies and sustainable development can move design history beyond its conventional societal significance, and may thus enable more resilient futures.

This book will be of great interest to a range of scholarly fields, from design education and design history to environmental policy and environmental history.

Kjetil Fallan is Professor of Design History at the University of Oslo and a founding member of the Oslo School of Environmental Humanities. He is the author of Designing Modern Norway: A History of Design Discourse (2017) and Design History: Understanding Theory and Method (2010), editor of Scandinavian Design: Alternative Histories (2012), and co-editor, with Grace Lees-Maffei, of the book series Cultural Histories of Design as well as the edited volumes Designing Worlds: National Design Histories in an Age of Globalization (2016) and Made in Italy: Rethinking a Century of Italian Design (2014).