This is the fifth essay in a collection of twelve written by Byron Ferris for the "Design Sense" feature of the Sunday Northwest Magazine insert of The Oregonian during 1984 and 1985. – Ed.
Quite a few years have passed since the last exhibition of design at the Portland Art Museum. As I recall, it was a traveling exhibit from the New York Museum of Modern Art called "Objects of the Twentieth Century."
Because the show was organized in the early 1960s, it could represent only the first half of the 20th century, but it did make its point about design.
The collection consisted of industrial technique-produced pieces of fine design: chromed steel tube chairs by Marcel Breuer; mass-produced porcelainware by Rosenthal; factory assembled office furniture designed by George Nelson and Charles Eames; glass-fiber fabric designs; and Jay Doblin's elegant pen and pencil set for Sheaffer.
The objects exhibition made the point that the art of design had established standards that, through industrial mass production, could surround everyone with examples of fine contemporary taste.
At the gallery's exit door, I overheard two nicely dressed women talking to Dr. Francis Newton, who was director of the museum at the time. "I like your exhibition of new things," one woman said, "and I'd like to have this modern furniture."
"Yes," said the other, "but we happen to have all these old things at home. Victorian, you know."
That was the dilemma, wasn't it? Good people stuck in a conformity of taste. I would suspect that if the dear ladies had bought a television set it would have been encased, most appropriately; in a Victorian highboy – and the set would have brought in only a picture of Queen Victoria playing the pianoforte.
Interestingly, the designed objects of the '60s museum show are still in production but have become extremely expensive. Elevated to "art" by the museum circuit, they now show up primarily as symbols of good taste in the most sophisticated corporate offices.
In the late '60s, some five years after the objects show, the "alternative lifestyle" protest groups began to make their voices heard socially, politically and economically. Partly in protest to corporate industrialism, and partly because the young don't have much money, they bought their clothes and furnishings at thrift stores and junk shops.
The junk-shop findings for the new lifestyle influenced mass taste. Soon used Levis were an international fashion commodity, and recycled "Tiffany" coloredglass lamps found their way into general interior design. The surge toward "Retro," "Replay" and "Nostalgia" had begun. (A side note: Though the late '60s' alternative lifestyle represented an important force for change, I must admit to some sadness today when I see middle-aged "hippies" stuck in their beads-and-Iong-hair conformity of taste.)
During the mid-'70s turn to nostalgia, another factor appeared to affect the American taste scene: the overwhelming of the consumer-goods industries by imports from Japan and Europe. This trend in the American marketplace came upon us gradually, but it represents a significant change. The consumer can buy only what is available.
Play a bit of a game: Count the high technology objects surrounding you at home – the radios, television sets, video recorders, cameras and typewriters that were designed and manufactured overseas.
No wonder we have turned back to American nostalgia, toward a time when America was more sure of itself and of its production leadership. I expect that a replay of the past is a good thing, that through re-examination we can find new ways, but the "retro" attitude can have some strange results.
Friends of mine have found great pleasure in collecting old neon signs, and they have decorated their dining room with glowing tubes. "Eats," "Cafe," "Coffee Shop" and other bright legends provide the only illumination for dinner. I must observe that a salad under red neon's light and a steak lit by blue krypton's glow do not present themselves too favorably.
I realize that I have my own conformity of taste about dinner.