Design and Agency: Critical Perspectives on Identities, Histories, and Practices 9781350063792, 9781350063822, 9781350063815

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Reassessing Design through Agency John Potvin
Part 1 Designing Identities
Introduction Marie-Ève Marchand
1 Period Décor and the Negotiation of Identity in the Home Marie-Ève Marchand
2 Designs on Modernity: Gertrud Loew’s Vienna Apartment and Situated Agency Sabine Wieber
3 Gifted Design: Imperial Benevolence in the Needlework of Mary Seton Watts Elaine Cheasley Paterson
4 Beyond the Couch: Anna Freud and the Analytic Environment Amélie Elizabeth Pelly
5 Multum in Parvo: Scale and Agency in the Thorne Miniature Rooms Erin J. Campbell
6 Listening for Design: Agency and History in a Philips Aachen-Super D 52 Michael Windover
7 Agency and Architecture in Medical Murals by Mary Filer and Marian Dale Scott Annmarie Adams
8 Dueling over Domes: Jeffrey Lindsay and Buckminster Fuller Cross Struts and Sprits in the US Patent Office Cammie McAtee
9 Desperately Seeking Sunlight: Le Corbusier’s Casa Curutchet and The Man Next Door Mark Taylor
Part 2 Systems and Institutions of Design
Introduction Marie-Ève Marchand
10 The Dry Goods Economist and the Role of Mass Media in the Creation of a Global Window Design Aesthetic at the End of the Nineteenth Century Anca I. Lasc
11 National Cash Register Company’s Boys’ Garden: Shaping Working-Class Childhoods and Future Workers, 1897–1913 Sara Nicole England
12 Women as Agents of Change in the Design of the Workplace Lynn Chalmers
13 Stand-In or Act-Out: Period Rooms as Spaces of Agency Änne Söll and Stefan Krämer
14 Agent Bruce Mau and the Audacity of Design Rachel Gotlieb
15 From Indian to Indigenous Agency: Opportunities and Challenges for Architectural Design David T. Fortin
16 Design History and Dyslexia Anne Massey
17 Textual Agency: Pitfalls and Potentials Jessica Hemmings
18 Design’s Performative Agency: Thoughts on New Directions for Materiality, Ontology, and Identity-Making Ece Canlı
Index

Citation preview

Design and Agency

ii

Design and Agency Critical Perspectives on Identities, Histories, and Practices Edited by John Potvin and Marie-Ève Marchand

BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2020 © Editorial content and introductions, John Potvin and Marie-Ève Marchand, 2020 © Individual chapters, their authors, 2020 John Potvin and Marie-Ève Marchand have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on p. xxii constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design by Louise Dugdale Cover image © Cédric Sportes for Modesdemploi, Chair HIH (Honey I’m Home). Collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, (Photo credits: MNBAQ, Patrick Altman) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-6379-2 ePDF: 978-1-3500-6381-5 ePub: 978-1-3500-6380-8 Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents List of Figures Notes on Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction: Reassessing Design through Agency  John Potvin

vii xv xxii 1

Part 1  Designing Identities

13

Introduction  Marie-Ève Marchand

13

1 Period Décor and the Negotiation of Identity in the Home  Marie-Ève Marchand

19

2 Designs on Modernity: Gertrud Loew’s Vienna Apartment and Situated Agency  Sabine Wieber

33

3 Gifted Design: Imperial Benevolence in the Needlework of Mary Seton Watts  Elaine Cheasley Paterson

49

4 Beyond the Couch: Anna Freud and the Analytic Environment  Amélie Elizabeth Pelly

69

5 Multum in Parvo: Scale and Agency in the Thorne Miniature Rooms  Erin J. Campbell

83

6 Listening for Design: Agency and History in a Philips Aachen-Super D 52 Michael Windover

97

7 Agency and Architecture in Medical Murals by Mary Filer and Marian Dale Scott  Annmarie Adams

111

8 Dueling over Domes: Jeffrey Lindsay and Buckminster Fuller Cross Struts and Sprits in the US Patent Office  Cammie McAtee

129

9 Desperately Seeking Sunlight: Le Corbusier’s Casa Curutchet and The Man Next Door  Mark Taylor

151

Part 2  Systems and Institutions of Design

163

Introduction  Marie-Ève Marchand

163

10 The Dry Goods Economist and the Role of Mass Media in the Creation of a Global Window Design Aesthetic at the End of the Nineteenth Century  Anca I. Lasc

169

11 National Cash Register Company’s Boys’ Garden: Shaping Working-Class Childhoods and Future Workers, 1897–1913  Sara Nicole England

183

12 Women as Agents of Change in the Design of the Workplace  Lynn Chalmers

199

13 Stand-In or Act-Out: Period Rooms as Spaces of Agency  Änne Söll and Stefan Krämer

213

14 Agent Bruce Mau and the Audacity of Design  Rachel Gotlieb

227

15 From Indian to Indigenous Agency: Opportunities and Challenges for Architectural Design  David T. Fortin

243

16 Design History and Dyslexia  Anne Massey

259

17 Textual Agency: Pitfalls and Potentials  Jessica Hemmings

273

18 Design’s Performative Agency: Thoughts on New Directions for Materiality, Ontology, and Identity-Making  Ece Canlı

287

Index

300

vi Contents

Figures I.1 Cédric Sportes for Modesdemploi, Chair HIH (Honey I’m Home), neoprene and painted pressed wood, 76 x 41 x 137 cm (carpet), 76 x 41 x 50 cm (chair). Collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, purchased with financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program (2006.231), © Modesdemploi. (Photo credits: MNBAQ, Patrick Altman)  2 1.1  Jules Allard and Sons (designers), William K. and Alva Vanderbilt’s drawing room at  660 Fifth Avenue, New York, c.  1882. (Public Domain, Source: Wikimedia Commons)  21 1.2  Griffith Thomas (architect), Astor Residence, Fifth Avenue and  34th Street (southwest corner), New York City, built in  1856. Glass plate negative by H. N. Tiemann & Co.,  1898, in H. N. Tiemann & Co. photograph collection, 1880–1916 (­ nyhs_PR129_b-04_112-01), New-York Historical Society. (©New-York Historical Society)  23 1.3 Caroline Astor’s drawing room, Fifth Avenue and 65th Street, New York City, c. 1895, photograph c. 1908. (Copyright holder unknown)  24 1.4  Charles Dana Gibson, The Social Push. Almost In.,  1906, halftone print, 41 x 28 cm. (Collection of the author)  27 2.1 Koloman Moser, Dining Room Terramare Apartment, Vienna,  1903, photograph, Dekorative Kunst XII (1904), p.  334. (© Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, 4 Art. 49-sk-12, urn: bsb00087521_00364)  37 2.2  Koloman Moser, Bedroom Terramare Apartment, Vienna,  1903, photograph, Dekorative Kunst XII (1904), p.  349. (© Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, 4 Art. 49-sk-12, urn: bsb00087521_00379)  38 2.3 Koloman Moser, Breakfast Room Terramare Apartment, Vienna, 1903, photograph, Dekorative Kunst XII (1904), p.  341. (© Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, 4 Art. 49-sk-12, urn: bsb00087521_00371)  39 2.4 Koloman Moser, Desk and Armchair, 1903, veneered in thuya wood and inlaid with satinwood/brass,  145.5 x  119.4  cm. (© Victoria and Albert Museum, London)  44

3.1 Mary Watts (née Mary Seton Fraser Tytler), Self-Portrait, watercolor, 1882. (© Watts Gallery Trust)  51 3.2 Exterior detail view of the unglazed terracotta frieze on the Watts Mortuary Chapel. Compton Potters’ Arts Guild, Surrey, England, 1904. In her book, The Word in the Pattern (1904), published to accompany the chapel and explain the broad cultural sources she drew on to create its designs, Mary Seton Watts lists all the people who worked on the building. (Photo credits: author’s photo)  52 3.3.1–2 Interior view of Royal Victoria College (2016) showing Our Lady of the Snows needlework banner in situ. Mother of pearl, moonstones, crystal, garnets, aquamarine, silk, and velvet painted and applied onto satin, embroidered with gold and silver thread. Collection of McGill University. (Photo credits: author’s photo)  53 3.4  “Empire Builders?” in Something Attempted, Something Done, Dr Barnardo’s Homes booklet, February 1913, National Archives, London, file HO144/1118/203442  55 4.1 View of Anna Freud’s consulting room at Berggasse  19, Vienna, Austria, in 1938. Photographed by Edmund Engelman. (Freud Museum, London)  75 4.2 View of Anna Freud’s consulting room at Berggasse  19, Vienna, Austria, in 1938. Photographed by Edmund Engelman. (Freud Museum, London)  76 4.3 View of Anna Freud’s consulting room at Berggasse  19, Vienna, Austria, in 1938. Photographed by Edmund Engelman. (Freud Museum, London)  76 5.1 Miniature of a French Salon of the Louis XVI Period (with shadow of a viewer), Thorne Miniature Rooms, Art Institute of Chicago. (Photo credits: Creative Commons/Giovanni-P, 2008)  84 5.2 Mrs. James Ward Thorne, French Salon of the Louis XIV Period, 1660–1700, c. 1937. Miniature Room, mixed media. Interior: 18 ¾ x 31 x 23 ¾ in. Gift of Mrs. James Ward Thorne, 1941. 1203. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA. (Photo credits: the Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource)  92 6.1  View of “Making Radio Space in  1930s Canada,” curated by Michael Windover and Anne MacLennan, February  27–May  7,  2017, Carleton University Art Gallery. (Photo credit: Peter Coffman)  98 6.2 Philips Aachen-Super D  52,  1937, Carleton University Collection. (Photo credits: Peter Coffman)  100 6.3 VE (Volksempfänger)  301,  1933. (Creative Commons Universal Public Domain Dedication)  102

viii Figures

7.1 Mary Filer’s The Advance of Neurology,  1954, captured the wonder of neurology. Oil on plaster wall, 96 x 254 cm. On display at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital. Visual Arts Collection, McGill University Library,  1989–031. (© Estate of the artist. Penfield Fonds, P142, Box 9, Folder A/N 9-1/3. Courtesy of Osler Library of the History of Medicine)  115 7.2 This aerial photo of the Montreal Neurological Institute shows the McConnell Wing of  1955 on the left. Penfield Fonds, P142—Series E (Events), Sub-series E/VN, Folder E/VN  1–1.4 (1933–4). See http://digital.library. mcgill.ca/penfieldfonds/fullrecord.php?ID=9656&d=1. (Courtesy of Osler Library of the History of Medicine)  116 7.3 The life-size scale of figures in Filer’s The Advance of Neurology made the mural seem like a continuation of the real room. Photograph by Basil Zarov. Published in Eric Hutton, “Penfield,” Maclean’s Magazine (February 18, 1956): 15  117 7.4 Mary Filer working on The Advance of Neurology, c.  1954, showing the patient unclothed. Penfield Fonds, P142, Box 430, Folder E/l-f (F). (Courtesy of Osler Library of the History of Medicine)  118 7.5 Mary Filer’s The Life of a Nurse,  1953, at Pennsylvania State University, served as a precedent for her Montreal mural. William Vernon Cone Fonds, P163, Sub-series A1, Box 2, File 42. (Courtesy of Osler Library of the History of Medicine)  119 7.6 Marian Dale Scott’s Endocrinology, 1942–3, was intended to inspire scientific research. Oil on plaster wall. 369 x 494 cm. Strathcona Anatomy Building, McGill University. Visual Arts Collection, McGill University Library 1986–025. (© Estate of the artist)  121 8.1  08C270 Weatherbreak (1949–50) on the cover of Architectural Forum, August  1951. Fuller Research Foundation Canadian Division, designer. (Unknown photographer)  130 8.2 Fuller Research Foundation Canadian Division office, 3438 McTavish Street, Montreal, c.  1950. Jeffrey Lindsay, photographer. (Fonds Jeffrey Lindsay, Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary. Courtesy of Jasmine Lindsay Forman)  132 8.3.1–6 Assembly of 08C270 Weatherbreak, Baie d’Urfé, Quebec, December 1950. Jeffrey Lindsay and unknown photographer. (Fonds Jeffrey Lindsay, Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary. Courtesy of Jasmine Lindsay Forman)  134–5

Figures ix

8.4.1–2 Tri-Services Pavilion (1954–5), Pacific National Exhibition, Vancouver,  BC, August 1955. Jeffrey Lindsay, structural designer. Geoffrey Massey, photographer  140 8.5.1–2 Tri-Services Pavilion (1954–5) on the covers of Bauwelt, December 1957, and  The Canadian Architect, March  1957. Jeffrey Lindsay, structural designer and photographer. (8.5.1 courtesy of Bauwelt [© graphics] and Jasmine Lindsay Forman [photograph]; 8.5.2 courtesy of Canadian Architect and Jasmine Lindsay Forman [photograph])  142 8.6  Portrait of Jeffrey Lindsay by Arthur Erickson, early  1970s. Fonds Jeffrey Lindsay, Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary. (Courtesy of the Erickson Estate Collection)  145 9.1 Opening split screen showing the wall opening from both sides. Credit: El hombre de al lado / The Man Next Door, directed by Mariono Cohn and Gastón Duprat, 2009  152 9.2 Leonardo in the rear courtyard locating the source of noise. Credit: El hombre de al lado / The Man Next Door, directed by Mariono Cohn and Gastón Duprat, 2009  155 9.3 Confrontation between Leonardo and Victor over the need for sunlight. Credit: El hombre de al lado / The Man Next Door, directed by Mariono Cohn and Gastón Duprat, 2009  159 10.1 Frank L. Carr Jr., Autumn Scene in Central Park, 1893, Window No. 1 Submitted for the Dry Goods Economist International Window-Dressing Contest (Dry Goods Economist Supplement, March 24, 1894), photogravure. (New York Public Library, public domain)  173 10.2 Frank L. Carr Jr., Japanese Handkerchief Display, 1893, Window No. 6. Submitted for the Dry Goods Economist International Window-Dressing Contest (Dry Goods Economist Supplement, March 24, 1894), photogravure. (New York Public Library, public domain)  174 10.3  Botany Worsted Mills, Advertisement Featuring Frank L. Carr Jr.’s Botany Dress Goods Exhibit, 1894, Window No. 4. Submitted for the Dry Goods Economist International Window-Dressing Contest (Dry Goods Economist, February 24, 1894), photogravure. (New York Public Library, public domain)  175 10.4 Frank L. Carr, Jr., The Reception of Princess Eulalie. Window executed for Wechsler Bros. & Co., Brooklyn, New York, reproduced in Frank L. Carr Jr., The Wide-Awake Window Dresser (New York: The Dry Goods Economist, 1894), photogravure. (Columbia University Libraries, public domain)  177

x Figures

11.1  Worker houses and gardens before landscaping. Photograph by Frances Benjamin Johnston, National Cash Register, Dayton, Ohio, c.  1896. Glass lantern slide. (Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, DC)  186 11.2  Worker houses and gardens after landscaping. Photograph by Frances Benjamin Johnston, National Cash Register, Dayton, Ohio, c.  1905. Handcolored glass lantern slide. (Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC)  187 11.3  Boys’ Garden. National Cash Register Company, c.  1907. (Photograph courtesy of Dayton Metro Library)  189 11.4 Boys’ Gardens Postcard, Dayton Postcard Collection. (Courtesy of Dayton Metro Library)  193 12.1 Mary Parker Follett. (University of Reading, Special Collections)  202 12.2 The Great Workroom, Johnson Wax Building, Racine. (Getty Images / ullstein bild dtl / contributor)  204 13.1 Mannequins in the Hotel de Boullongne wearing mid-eighteenth-century suits and dresses, exhibition view: Costumes: Period Rooms Re-Occupied in Style, November 27–December 22, 1963, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (© bpk / Metropolitan Museum of Art)  217 13.2  The Late Supper: The Memento, Room from the Hôtel de Crillon, Paris (c.  1777–80), exhibition view: Dangerous Liaisons. Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century, April 29–September 6, 2004, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (© bpk / Metropolitan Museum of Art)  218 13.3  The Broken Vase. A Consoling Merchant, The Sèvres Room, French (c. 1770), exhibition view: Dangerous Liaisons. Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century, April 29–September 6, 2004, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (© bpk / Metropolitan Museum of Art)  219 13.4  The Gentlemen’s Club, Dining Room from Lansdowne House, London (1766– 9), exhibition view: AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion, May 3–September 4, 2006, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (© bpk / Metropolitan Museum of Art)  220 13.5 Installation view, Moorish Room, Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play: Yinka Shonibare MBE, Brooklyn Museum, June 26–September 20, 2009. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, © Yinka Shonibare MBE, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019)  222

Figures xi

14.1 “Wealth and Politics,” Massive Change, Vancouver Art Gallery,  2003, photo by Robert Keziere. (Robert Keziere/Vancouver Art Gallery)  233 14.2 “Image Economies,” Massive Change, Vancouver Art Gallery,  2003, photo by Robert Keziere. (Robert Keziere/Vancouver Art Gallery)  234 14.3 Paolo Pellegrin, Prosperity for All exhibition at EDIT: Expo for Design, Innovation & Technology, Toronto,  2017. (Images courtesy of Design Exchange, Toronto)  236 14.4 Bruce Mau speaking, Prosperity for All exhibition at EDIT: Expo for Design, Innovation & Technology, Toronto, 2017. (Images courtesy of Design Exchange, Toronto)  237 14.5 “Air Pollution Has a Design Solution,” Prosperity for All exhibition at EDIT: Expo for Design, Innovation & Technology, Toronto, 2017. (Images courtesy of Design Exchange, Toronto)  238 15.1 R. M. Ogilvie and R. G. Orr, Plan of Indian Boarding School, 1919. Source: Library and Archives Canada/Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development fonds/Item # 302–311. (© Government of Canada. Reproduced with the permission of Library and Archives Canada [2018])  248 15.2  Colonial Machine. Drawing by Andrej Iwanski, Ryan Lewis, and Evan Taylor. Azrieli School of Architecture, Carleton University, 2016  251 15.3  Inuit Myth Machine. Drawing by Andrej Iwanski, Ryan Lewis, and Evan Taylor. Azrieli School of Architecture, Carleton University, 2016  251 16.1 An example of visual stress. (© British Dyslexia Association)  264 16.2  Rose-tinted spectacles, courtesy of Cerium Visual Technologies. (Image: author)  265 16.3 Examples of the Dyslexie font. (© Dyslexie)  265 17.1  Leonor Antunes, An Open House at the Aldo van Eyck’s Hubertushuis, Amsterdam, with If I Can’t Dance (December 10, 2016). (Image courtesy of Leonor Antunes & If I Can’t Dance)  274 17.2  Leonor Antunes, An Open House at the Aldo van Eyck’s Hubertushuis, Amsterdam, with If I Can’t Dance (December 10, 2016). (Image detail courtesy of Leonor Antunes & If I Can’t Dance)  274

xii Figures

Images also available in color (see plate section) I Cédric Sportes for Modesdemploi, Chair HIH (Honey I’m Home), neoprene and painted pressed wood, 76 x 41 x 137 cm (carpet), 76 x 41 x 50 cm (chair). Collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, purchased with financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program (2006.231), © Modesdemploi. (Photo credits: MNBAQ, Patrick Altman) 2 Koloman Moser, Desk and Armchair, 1903, veneered in thuya wood and inlaid with satinwood/brass,  145.5 x  119.4  cm. (© Victoria and Albert Museum, London) 3 A-B Interior view of Royal Victoria College (2016) showing Our Lady of the Snows needlework banner in situ. Mother of pearl, moonstones, crystal, garnets, aquamarine, silk, and velvet painted and applied onto satin, embroidered with gold and silver thread. Collection of McGill University. (Photo credits: author’s photo) 4 Mrs. James Ward Thorne, French Salon of the Louis XIV Period, 1660–1700, c. 1937. Miniature Room, mixed media. Interior: 18 ¾ x 31 x 23 ¾ in. Gift of Mrs. James Ward Thorne, 1941. 1203. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA. (Photo credits: the Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource) 5 View of “Making Radio Space in 1930s Canada,” curated by Michael Windover and Anne MacLennan, February  27–May  7,  2017, Carleton University Art Gallery. (Photo credit: Peter Coffman) 6 Marian Dale Scott’s Endocrinology, 1942–3, was intended to inspire scientific research. Oil on plaster wall.  369 x  494  cm. Strathcona Anatomy Building, McGill University. Visual Arts Collection, McGill University Library  1986–025. (© Estate of the artist) 7 A-B Tri-Services Pavilion (1954–5) on the covers of Bauwelt, December 1957, and The Canadian Architect, March 1957. Jeffrey Lindsay, structural designer and photographer. (7A Courtesy of Bauwelt [© graphics] and Jasmine Lindsay Forman [photograph];  7B Courtesy of Canadian Architect and Jasmine Lindsay Forman [photograph]) 8 Boys’ Gardens Postcard, Dayton Postcard Collection. (Courtesy of Dayton Metro Library) 9 Installation view, Moorish Room, Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play: Yinka Shonibare MBE, Brooklyn Museum, June 26–September 20, 2009. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, © Yinka Shonibare MBE, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019)

Figures xiii

10 “Wealth and Politics,” Massive Change, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2003, photo by Robert Keziere. (Robert Keziere/Vancouver Art Gallery) 11  Inuit Myth Machine. Drawing by Andrej Iwanski, Ryan Lewis, and Evan Taylor. Azrieli School of Architecture, Carleton University, 2016 Rose-tinted spectacles, courtesy of Cerium Visual Technologies. (Image: 12  author)

xiv Figures

Notes on Contributors Annmarie Adams, FRAIC, is jointly appointed in McGill University’s Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture and the Department of Social Studies of Medicine, where she serves as department chair. A native of London, Ontario, Adams graduated with Honors from McGill University in  1981. She then attended the University of California at Berkeley where she received her professional master’s in architecture in 1986 and PhD in 1992. She has taught at McGill University since 1990, serving as Director of the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies and subsequently as Director of the School of Architecture. Adams’s research focuses on the relationship of medicine and architecture. She is the author of three monographs: Architecture in the Family Way: Doctors, Houses, and Women, 1870–1900 (McGill-Queens University Press, 1996), Medicine by Design: The Architect and the Modern Hospital, 1893– 1943 (University of Minnesota Press,  2008), Designing Women: Gender and the Architectural Profession (University of Toronto Press,  2000), the last of which she co-wrote with sociologist Peta Tancred. Erin J. Campbell holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Toronto and is Professor of Early Modern European Art in the Department of Art History & Visual Studies, University of Victoria. She has won awards for research and teaching, including the William Nelson Prize for the best article published in Renaissance Quarterly and the Faculty of Fine Arts Award for Teaching Excellence. She has received significant support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Her research interests focus on the early modern domestic interior. Her publications appear in journals and essay collections, including the Journal of Art Historiography, Sixteenth Century Journal, Word & Image, Renaissance Quarterly, The Cultural Aesthetics of Eighteenth-Century Porcelain, and To Have and to Hold: Marriage in Premodern Europe  1200–1700. She is also editor and contributing author of Growing Old in Early Modern Europe: Cultural Representations (Ashgate, 2006) and co-editor and contributing author of The Early Modern Italian Domestic Interior: People, Objects, Domesticities (Ashgate,  2013). Her most recent book, Old Women and Art in the Early Modern Italian Domestic Interior, was published by Ashgate in  2015. Her current SSHRC-supported project is “Art and the Stages of Life in the Early Modern Italian Domestic Interior.” Ece Canlı is a design researcher and performance artist, born in Turkey and currently based in Portugal. She holds an MFA from Experience Design at Konstfack University

College of Arts, Crafts and Design (Sweden) and PhD from Design at University of Porto (Portugal). In her doctoral research, she investigated the relationship between queer theory, design practice and body politics through sartorial, discursive, and spatial reconfigurations. Setting decolonial queer feminist epistemologies as her main methodological framework, she undertook to find possible ways of interrupting biased material regimes afflicting subjugated bodies. Her current research, continuing in two parallel lines, aims to unfold the dynamics of somatechnological constitution of gender, sexuality, race, and other identity categories not only through sanitary products promoted with the discourse of humanitarian design in the Global South, but also through spatio-material segregation and punitive regimes in the Global North. She has published articles on a queer feminist history of design, binarism in design theory and practice, intersectionality and materiality of queer incarceration. She is a collaborating researcher at the Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture (ID+) and a founding member of the international research collective Decolonising Design Group (www.ececanli.com). Lynn Chalmers has taught graduate studios and contemporary issues in the Master of Interior Design program at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada; a program she led through its development phases. Her research addresses spatial culture and theory, and personal space and gender in the contemporary office. Dr Chalmers has acted as a moderator for studio work in the United States and Australia, and she is a reviewer for the Journal of Interior Design, IDEA Journal, and Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture. She is currently co-editing a special edition of the Journal of Interior Design with Ronn Daniel from Kent State University. Sara Nicole England is a researcher, writer, and arts organizer. She holds an MA in art history from Concordia University in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. Her contributions to this volume are part of her master’s thesis “Ideal Citizens, Better Workers: National Cash Register Company’s Garden Programmes and Factory Tourism (1897–1913),” which examines the NCR’s programming within the context of ­nineteenth-century exhibition histories and through class- and gender-based analysis. Her research addresses live exhibits, social histories of the built environment, and environmental perspectives in art and design since the nineteenth century. Sara’s writing has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Public Art Dialogue and other outlets including Espace art actuel and Invitation by Art Mûr. David T. Fortin is Associate Professor and current Director of the McEwen School of Architecture at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Born and raised in the Canadian Prairies, he is also a member of the Métis Nation of Ontario and the Associate Director of the Maamwizing Indigenous Research Institute. David is a registered architect in the province of Ontario and has published on topics related to Indigenous design, Métis architecture and design, and speculative architecture, including the relationship between science-fiction films and architectural thinking.

xvi Notes on Contributors

Since  2005 he has taught architectural design, history, and theory in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada. In  2018 David became the first Indigenous person in Canadian history to direct a school of architecture. Rachel Gotlieb holds a PhD in art history from Queen’s University and an MA in design history from the RCA/V&A. She serves on the faculty of Sheridan College Bachelor of Craft and Design. Gotlieb is also Adjunct Curator at the Gardiner Museum. She was previously the Gardiner’s Chief Curator and Interim Executive Director. She was the 2017 Theodore Randall International Chair in Art and Design at Alfred University. She was the founding curator of the Design Exchange in Toronto. Gotlieb has curated over twenty exhibitions and published extensively on the subject of design, craft, and ceramics. She is also author of Design in Canada (2001). Jessica Hemmings writes about textiles. She studied textile design at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with a BFA (Honors) in  1999 and comparative literature (Africa/Asia) at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, earning an MA (Distinction) in 2000. Her PhD, awarded by the University of Edinburgh in 2006, is published by kalliope paperbacks under the title Yvonne Vera: The Voice of Cloth (2008). In 2010 she edited a collection of essays titled In the Loop: Knitting Now published by Black Dog and in 2012 edited The Textile Reader (Berg) and wrote Warp & Weft (Bloomsbury). Her editorial and curatorial project, Cultural Threads, is a book about postcolonial thinking and contemporary textile practice (Bloomsbury, 2015) accompanied by a traveling exhibition, Migrations (2015–17). From 2012 to 2016 Jessica was Professor of Visual Culture and Head of the School of Visual Culture at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin. She is currently Professor of Crafts & Vice-Prefekt of Research at the Academy of Design & Crafts (HDK), University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Stefan Krämer is PhD candidate in the project “Period rooms. Between exhibition space and living room negotiating past and present” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, led by Änne Söll. He is currently working on his dissertation on contemporary strategies of rearranging the period room. Anca I. Lasc is Associate Professor in the History of Art and Design Department at Pratt Institute. Her work focuses on the invention and commercialization of the modern French interior and on the development of the professions of the interior designer and the window dresser in the nineteenth century. Her published work includes Designing the French Interior: The Modern Home and Mass Media (Bloomsbury, 2015, ­co-edited with Georgina Downey and Mark Taylor), Visualizing the Nineteenth-Century Home: Modern Art and the Decorative Impulse (Routledge, 2016), Architectures of Display: Department Stores and Modern Retail (Routledge,  2017, co-edited with Patricia Lara-Betancourt and Margaret Maile Petty) and the single-authored book, Interior Decorating in Nineteenth-Century France: The Visual Culture of a New Profession (Manchester University Press, 2018).

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Marie-Ève Marchand is Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History at Concordia University (Montreal) and teaches art history and museology as a sessional lecturer in the Province of Quebec (Canada). Her research focuses on the so-called decorative arts. She examines the epistemological issues arising from their collecting and display in both museums and domestic spaces during the long nineteenth century, with a special interest for their materiality and agency. After dedicating her doctoral dissertation to the study of period rooms (Université de Montréal,  2015), she is now working on a book project that probes the singular role played by French eighteenth-century material culture in US domestic interiors during the Gilded Age. Her recent publications include articles in Journal of Design History (2018), Musées (2017), Espace: Art actuel (2015), Esse: Art + Opinions (2015), RACAR (2014), as well as book chapters in edited volumes with Bononia University Press (2016) and Bloomsbury (under press). Anne Massey is Professor of Design and Culture at the University of Huddersfield. She was the founding co-editor of the academic journal Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture, now published by Taylor and Francis. Her books include Designing Liners: Interior Design Afloat (Routledge,  2006), Interior Design Since  1900 (Thames and Hudson, 2008), and Chair (Reaktion, 2011). She co-edited Hotel Lobbies and Lounges (Routledge, 2013), Biography, Identity and the Modern Interior (Ashgate, 2013), Pop Art and Design (Bloomsbury, 2017), and Design, History & Time (Bloomsbury, 2019). Massey also edited A Companion to Contemporary Design since  1945 (WileyBlackwell, 2019). She broadcasts, curates, and writes about the Independent Group, including The Independent Group: Modernism and Mass Culture in Britain, 1945–59 (Manchester University Press, 1996) and Out of the Ivory Tower: The Independent Group and Popular Culture (Manchester University Press,  2013). Building on the research for her book ICA 1946–68 (ICA, 2014) she has completed Dorothy Morland: Making ICA History (Liverpool University Press, 2020) with funding from the Henry Moore Foundation. Cammie McAtee is a Montreal-based architectural and design historian and curator. She holds a doctorate from Harvard University. She was for many years a curator at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, where she curated exhibitions on diverse subjects, including John Soane, architectural toys, twentieth-century urbanism, and the architecture of prisons. She was also the assistant curator and lead researcher for the exhibition and book Mies in America (CCA/Whitney, 2001). In 2017 McAtee curated the exhibition Montreal’s Geodesic Dreams (Centre de design, Université du Québec à Montréal). She is currently the lead researcher for the National Gallery of Canada’s exhibition and book project on the Canada Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. McAtee is the editor of Montreal’s Geodesic Dreams: Jeffrey Lindsay and the Fuller Research Foundation Canadian Division (2017); co-editor of The Politics of Furniture: Identity, Diplomacy and Persuasion in Post-War Interiors (with Fredie Floré,  2017); and the author of numerous articles, chapters, and catalog contributions on postwar furniture

xviii Notes on Contributors

design and architecture. Her work has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts; the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Elaine Cheasley Paterson is Associate Dean, Academic and Associate Professor of Craft Studies in the Department of Art History at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. Her research concerns women’s cultural philanthropy in early-twentieth-century British, Irish, and Canadian craft guilds of the home arts movement and for tracing a lineage from this historical material to the current resurgence in do-it-yourself maker culture and craftivist practices. Another significant stream of her research is centered around questions of skill, hybridity, and pedagogy within a contemporary craft milieu. Some of her publications include Sloppy Craft: Postdisciplinarity and the Crafts (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), with Susan Surette; “Crafting Empire: Intersections of Irish and Canadian Women’s History,” Journal of Canadian Art History (2014); co-editor with Gloria Hickey of a special issue of Cahiers métiers d’­ ­ art—Craft Journal on Craft and Social Development (2012); “Decoration and Desire in the Watts Chapel” in Gender and History (2005); “Crafting a National Identity” in The Irish Revival Reappraised (2004). Upcoming publication projects include her work ­co-editing a special issue on Identity, Craft, Marketing of the Journal of Canadian Art History (2019), co-editing Craft and Heritage: Intersections in Critical Studies and Practice (2019), and The Craft Studies Handbook for Bloomsbury Academic in 2020. Amélie Elizabeth Pelly holds an MA in art history from Concordia University, in Tiohtiá:ke/ Montreal, Quebec. She is the recipient of several research and travel awards. She completed her BFA in Studio Art with a minor in art history at Concordia University in 2016. She studied performance during her year at the Bezalel Academy of Fine Arts, in Jerusalem, Israel. Her research interests include interior design, space, and performance art. She employs theories on gender, sexuality, and feminism, as well as her performance art practice, to study material and visual cultures. She is motivated by a (not so) secret desire to re-imagine psychoanalysis as a methodology. Since 2017, Amélie is also the exhibition coordinator at Occurrence—espace d’art et d’essais contemporains, a Montreal-based artist-run center. There, she remains in touch with the contemporary art world, working with local and international exhibiting artists. John Potvin is Professor of Art History at Concordia University (Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal), where he teaches on the intersections of art, design, and fashion. The author of over forty essays, his work has been published in such leading journals as The Journal of Design History, Journal of Interior Design, Senses and Society, Genders, Home Cultures, Visual Culture in Britain, and Fashion Theory. He is the author of Material and Visual Cultures beyond Male Bonding (2008), Giorgio Armani: Empire

Notes on Contributors xix

of the Senses (2013), and Bachelors of a Different Sort: Queer Aesthetics, Material Culture and the Modern Interior in Britain (2014), winner of the Historians of British Art Book Prize. In addition to being editor of The Places and Spaces of Fashion (2009) and Oriental Interiors: Design, Identity, Space (2015) he is also co-editor of both Material Cultures, 1740–1920: The Meanings and Pleasures of Collecting (2009) and Fashion, Interior Design and the Contours of Modern Identity (2010). He is an associate editor of Journal of Design History and serves on the editorial and advisory boards of several international peer-reviewed journals. His current book projects include Deco Dandy: Designing Masculinity in 1920s Paris (Manchester University Press, 2020) and Gender and Interior Design: From Professionalization to Activism, 1869–2019. Änne Söll is Professor for Modern Art History at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. She has published on a wide range of subjects, specializing in men’s portraiture of the Weimar Republic and the history of the period room. Recently, she has co-edited a volume on the history of shine that will be published by Bloomsbury in 2020. Mark Taylor is Chair, Department of Architectural and Industrial Design and Professor of Architecture at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia. He has held several nationally competitive grants and currently holds an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant entitled Place and Parametricism: Provocations for the Rethinking of Design. His primary research focus is the history and theory of the modern architectural interior with an emphasis on cultural and social issues. Mark’s writing on the interior has been widely published including the edited volumes Intimus: Interior Design Theory Reader (co-edited with Julianna Preston  2006), Interior Design & Architecture: Critical & Primary Sources, 4 vols. (2013), Designing the French Interior: The Modern Home and Mass Media co-edited with Anca I. Lasc and Georgina Downey 2015), and Flow: Interiors, Landscapes and Architecture in the Era of Liquid Modernity (co-edited with Penny Sparke, Pat Brown, Patricia Lara-Betancourt, and Gini Lee,  2018). He has published in Architectural Design (AD), Interiors: Design Architecture Culture, IDEA Journal, Nexus Network Journal, and has book chapters in Diagrams of Architecture (2010), Performance Fashion and the Modern Interior (2011), Domestic Interiors (2012), and Architectures of Display (2017). Sabine Wieber is Lecturer in History of Art, Architecture, and Design at the University of Glasgow. Her research investigates the relationship between visual and material culture (including architecture and design) and psychiatry in fin-de-siècle Germany and the Habsburg Empire. In this context, she has focused on the representation of gender in relation to nervous disorders and identity construction. She has published extensively in the fields of design history and the medical humanities. She ­co-curated the critically acclaimed exhibition “Madness & Modernity: Kunst und Wahn in Wien um  1900” (Wien Museum  2010) and is currently completing a book manuscript

xx Notes on Contributors

on Jugendstil Women and the Making of Modern Design due to be published with Bloomsbury in 2020. Michael Windover is Associate Professor in the School for Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University where he teaches in the History and Theory of Architecture Program. He is cross-appointed to the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture at Carleton and is adjunct curator of design at the Ingenium: Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation. His research has explored the role of architecture and design in the production of publics through examinations of Art Deco as a popular design idiom and by investigating the intersections of design, space, and mass media, especially radio. He is author of Art Deco: A Mode of Mobility (Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2012) and co-editor with Bridget Elliott of The Routledge Companion to Art Deco (2019). He is also co-author with Anne MacLennan of Seeing, Selling, and Situating Radio in Canada, 1922–1956 (Dalhousie Architectural Press, 2017), which accompanied exhibitions on radio culture in Canada held at the Carleton University Art Gallery, MacOdrum Library, York University, and the Archives of Ontario in Toronto. His research has been published in The Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, Architectural History, RACAR, Buildings & Landscapes, and The Journal of Architecture.

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Acknowledgments The editors wish to extend a sincere and heartfelt thanks to all those who helped to make this volume possible. First and foremost, to all those who presented their papers at the Agency of Design/Design as Agency symposium held in Montreal in March  2018 and to the authors whose beautiful and insightful essays made for a stimulating and rewarding process. To our resourceful and tireless research assistants Gianna Mardakis and Amélie Elizabeth Pelly, our sincerest gratitude. The editors are especially thankful to the following institutional support that enabled the initial symposium that led to this book: The Liliane and David M. Stewart Program for Modern Design, Department of Design and Computational Arts, the Department of Art History, the Faculty of Fine Arts, Centre for the Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, Provost’s Office, and finally the Centre for Sensory Studies Fund Support at Concordia University. Finally, we would also like to thank all those individuals and institutions that allowed us to reproduce images from their collections. Marie-Ève Marchand thanks the Fonds de recherche du Québec—Société et culture for their financial support awarded through the postdoctoral fellowship program. She also thanks the Department of Art History at Concordia University where the fellowship was held and during which research and writing for this publication was done. John Potvin wishes to personally thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its continued financial support. Additionally, special thanks are owed to Dr. Dirk Gindt for his generosity, insights, and unwavering support.



Introduction: Reassessing Design through Agency John Potvin

In Chaise HIH (Honey I’m Home) from 2002, Montreal-based designer Cédric Sportes deploys the quotidian chair as a means to work through sociocultural issues, challenges, and stereotypes [Figure I.1]. First and foremost, as a piece of design, the chair acts as a physical commentary not only on North American consumption but also on notions of masculinity and macho culture, exemplified in American films from the 1950s and 1960s. For Sportes the chair materializes that ritualized and normalized quotidian moment when the (straight) patriarch comes home after a hard day at work, sits down in his chair (read: throne), and is served his drink and everything he requires to leave his public work life behind. Through a rather simple design object, the ideal divide marking out private from public and feminine from masculine is symbolically brought into question. The red neoprene fabric serves as a ­red-carpeted extension of the chair, symbolically rolled out every day when the man of the house returns from work. The chair and the slippers (which reinforce the ideal of masculine domestic comfort), for the designer, also represent the ambivalence and constant negotiation that exists between North American and French forces that form part of Quebec identity. According to the designer the French see Quebec existing squarely within North America, while Quebeckers, generally, see their identity in a more nuanced and complex way. For Sportes the designed object provides a vehicle to articulate these various intersections, tensions, and ideas. In short, it facilitated a unique form of intervention; stated otherwise, an expression of agency. The chair does not, cannot, exist without the human being who serves as the driving engine and raison d’être of the designed object (Laflamme 2016). While agency is a distinctly human attribute, the role played by design and material objects cannot be underestimated in the way agency is activated or thwarted. In addition to the gendered and cultural identities being worked out and articulated through Chaise HIH, Sportes provides a fitting entry point into the thematic framework of Design and Agency. Posed as a series of questions: What is the relationship between design and agency? What language, methods, and theories are best suited to explore the myriad dynamics at play between design and agency? How do the various types of agents of design activate, perform, and/or control design’s agency? This volume is not limited to or by these questions, but rather seeks to use them as a point of departure to explore the complex and ongoing relationship between design and agency. If agency is a human attribute, then we must concede we are already ­embedded in a set of power relations and a complex series of multivalent relationships. By

Figure I.1  Cédric Sportes for Modesdemploi, Chair HIH (Honey I’m Home), neoprene and painted pressed wood, 76 x 41 x 137 cm (carpet), 76 x 41 x 50 cm (chair). Collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, purchased with financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program (2006.231), © Modesdemploi. (Photo credits: MNBAQ, Patrick Altman)

heightening the importance of performativity, we can acknowledge and move away from anti-essentialist tendencies to open up an inquiry into the vast set of ­differences and unique cases that reflect not only different types of people activating their agency, but different forms of agency itself. Agency is not monolithic, unidimensional, or unidirectional, making it a rather tricky, slippery, and wide-ranging field for a ­ nalysis. This, as a result, affects or perhaps infects the seemingly disparate nature of the volume, which ambitiously showcases very different, unique, and ostensibly disconnected cases. Agency is not equally experienced or expressed precisely because it infers a degree of access and power. In her phenomenological investigations of queer and racialized identities, t­heorist Sara Ahmed argues that not everyone has equal access to power and agency. Access is usually determined by identities and bodies that are formed through gender, sexuality, class, and race. Minorities access design beyond the intentionality of the designer but more often than not on their own terms, terms often in opposition

2 Design and Agency

(consciously or not) of what was intended. Ahmed narrates the experience of philosopher Edmund Husserl sitting at his desk, the direction of his gaze, what exists behind him, which objects surround him in the space and on his desk. She contends that these various physical elements coupled with his background orient him, which in turn facilitates his access to power, privilege, and agency. That his wife prepares the meals and attends to the domestic chores, for example, enables his orientation along the straight and narrow path that enables his agency as philosopher. In an entirely different sort of experience, Ahmed also recounts a moment when philosopher Frantz Fanon seeks to pick up a pack of cigarettes on the table beside him, which leads to a self-conscious awareness of himself and his racialized identity. “Where phenomenology attends to the tactile, vestibular, kinaesthetic and visual character of embodied reality, Fanon asks us to think of the ‘historic-racial’ schema, which is ‘below it’. In other words, the racial and historical dimensions are beneath the surface of the body described by phenomenology, which becomes, by virtue of its own orientation, a way of thinking the body that has surface appeal” (Ahmed 2007: 153). Whiteness, on the other hand, orients “itself toward objects which are already ‘in place’” (Ahmed  2007:  153) that in turn facilitate Husserl’s agency, for example. Queers, for their part, Ahmed contends, possess an oblique gaze and orientation, navigating spaces and objects that are already in place for those who take heterosexuality as given. She uses the assemblage of family photographs in the family home that through their positioning and display privilege heterosexuality and “measure sociality in terms of the heterosexual gift. That these objects are on display, that they make visible a fantasy of a good life, depends on returning such a ­direction with a ‘yes,’ or even with gestures of love, or witnessing these objects as one’s own field of preferred intimacy” (Ahmed 2006: 559). In short, minorities negotiate objects and spaces differently from the norm precisely because of their relationship to agency, power, and the objects that populate and define their life worlds. In these various phenomenological and performative experiences and expressions of identity, Ahmed, however, neglects to acknowledge the role played by design in the objects themselves, the unique and symbiotic relationship between identity and designed, material objects, their uniqueness as much as their co-dependence. That is, she ignores the structures, networks, systems, and social life of design that enable these objects to make an appearance on his desk and in the room. This ecology of design has a direct impact on the way in which Husserl fashions his ­identity—as it does for everyone. Fanon does not recognize himself as black until that fateful moment of his interaction—or performance—with the object of the cigarette case upon which he feels—or senses—the hostile gaze of the white colonial presence. Glaringly absent from Ahmed’s discussion is not simply the role performed by designed objects and spaces, but the ways in which these objects make tangible the agency and conflicts of identity. The objects behind, in front of, and on his desk make manifest Husserl’s agency, his positionality (both literal and cultural), and his identity. While not painstaking in her description or detail, unwittingly Ahmed is engaged in a form of design analysis for without the (specific and meaningful) objects she lists Husserl’s identity is

Introduction: Reassessing Design through Agency 3

not made clear; in other words, his agency is obscured without her vivid description of the objects and the space he occupies. Ahmed’s central argument is that we orient and are oriented toward things and within spaces. What she neglects to come to terms with is that these are all products and results of design, and the agency that results from the various processes involved in the creation, dissemination, and use of these objects and spaces. Privilege necessarily provides access to design and in turn helps to shape that agency those objects enable. What Ahmed unwittingly describes is how Husserl’s identity is predicated, enhanced, and materialized by way of design. Together, despite being disparate, all the chapters in this volume expose the very thing Ahmed describes as constituent of Husserl’s agency as a writer and philosopher, in short his privilege. Unlike in the case of Husserl, however, most of the chapters show differing ways design helps to activate agency outside of, despite, or in deference to privilege, broadly understood here. What Ahmed and for their part our contributors describe are the mechanisms and outcomes of certain forms of orientation. In the case of Husserl, his privilege as a straight white man enables and enforces an orientation in space and toward specific objects along a straight and narrow path. For members of marginalized constituencies, however, their orientation is enacted differently. In its role as cultural critique, Sportes’s chair materializes an orientation of agency, one that ensures the comfort and happiness of and cultural norms performed by the patriarchal figure. Design makes things happen. Design forces us to become aware of our current state. One might dream of a bigger or better house activated through a perceived sense of lack, while another person might be made aware of their homelessness also through a material lack. The home as designed space renders identity conditional and situational. In the case of the home and its real and perceived lack, we might easily enough reduce this notion of lack to the current colloquial speak that marks the difference between “the haves” and “the have nots.” In many ways, this simplified binary reveals a metanarrative or meta-structure between agency and design. Yet we also know such essential binaries rarely reveal the complexity of relationships, nor do they account for alternative expressions of such relationships. In its own unique way, each chapter attempts to unpack and negotiate one or more dimensions of these complex relationships. What we certainly can deduce based on the chapters is that the relationship between design and agency is one of consciousness and awareness, whether it be through problem-solving facilitated by design thinking or the awareness of one’s identity as similarly evoked by Fanon’s cigarettes or Sportes’s chair. In his often-cited book, Art and Agency, art historian Alfred Gell suggests that “culture” is in fact not the correct frame within which to situate or contextualize art, since culture is itself an “abstraction” in contrast to “the dynamics of social interaction, which may indeed be conditioned by ‘culture’ but which is better seen as a real process, or dialectic, unfolding in time” (1998: 10). Rather, Gell elects to “place all the emphasis on agency, causation, result and transformation” (1998: 6 emphasis in original). For him, art and similarly design form part of a complex “system of action intended to change the world, rather than encode symbolic propositions

4 Design and Agency

about it.” Objects are not merely semiotic forms of “symbolic c ­ ­ommunication,” but shape an “‘action’-centered approach” that allows us to understand objects through their “practical mediatory role” (1998:  6). Gell has also argued for the way the “nexus of intentionalities” (1999: 204) forever binds objects and subjects together. For anthropologist Robert Rotenberg objects possess multiple simultaneous layers of meaning. He argues that they “enter into this exchange of meanings between people because their form contains implicit meanings that can only modify or augment the actor’s intentions. These messages can be semantic, that is differentiating one object from another; representational, that is, identifying the object with its maker or owner; or functional, that is, connecting the object with a practice of procedure. More often than not, objects communicate all three types of messages” (Rotenberg  2014:  36). For her part Janet Hoskins also maintains that “[m]aterial objects thus embody complex intentionalities and mediate social agency” (2017: 75). Intentionality (i.e., a conscious will to power and use of design) coupled with a notion of performativity that is crucial to agency itself exposes the ways in which humans use, interact with, and orient themselves within space and with design. Design—like performativity—is more often than not a product and facilitator of acts of repetition. Objects and spaces are used repeatedly, interacted with repeatedly even if they are one-off, unique objects or spaces. This has a direct impact on the performativity of identity; that is, for a performance to be effective it must be rehearsed to the point of having the appearance of always having been. If we return to Sportes’s chair, we can only understand the semiotic power of this designed object precisely through the suggestion of what performance of orientation the chair connotes. Its performative function is achieved through the repetitive act of the patriarch of the household coming home, and assuming his position (both literally and metaphorically) in the chair. Much like Husserl at his desk, the father is afforded a particular vantage point, an orientation, a sense privilege, in other words, a certain degree of agency. Identity is awarded and defined through myriad dynamics and forces, both conscious and unconscious, personal and social. Design renders identity itself, tangible, manifest, and material. It makes it live and grow. Design facilitates a consciousness of identity itself. Design is the very thing and thingness of identity, of human agency. For some scholars critical of the role played by objects, object-driven analysis has led to material fetishism to the determinate of human agency or the subjects of design. As art historian Christopher B. Steiner suggests, “In their zeal to explore the social identity of material culture, many authors have attributed too much power to the ‘things’ themselves, and in so doing have diminished the significance of human agency and the role of individuals and systems that construct and imbue material goods with value, significance and meanings. Thus, commodity fetishism has been inscribed at the object of the model rather than its subject. In other words, objects are infinitely malleable to the shifting and contested meanings constructed for them through human agency” (Steiner  2001:  201). “All social agency, Gell argued, is realized through the medium of objects. Humans realize their intentions, and thus

Introduction: Reassessing Design through Agency 5

exercise agency, through the medium of artifacts as ‘secondary agents’ which distribute their agency in the causal milieu” (Tanner and Osborne 2007: 2). While not without its challenges and limitations, Gell’s emphasis on the agentic power of objects forms a basic theoretical undercurrent for the chapters assembled in this volume. While the debate on the agency of objects has led to compelling and divergent points of view, so too has the role of the subject and its relationship to design engendered important new pathways of inquiry. In their essay, “Risk as a Window to Agency,” design historians Nancy H. Blossom and John C. Turpin make an important case for inserting risk into a discussion of the agency of design (in all its myriad facets, whether it be personal, social, economic, etc.). This is especially pertinent given how risk in turn exposes how agency is a critical facet of the highly public nature of design, and its potential for shame, humiliation, ruination, or social attack. Through carefully selected case studies Blossom and Turpin assert that “individual agency […] demonstrates degrees of self-will, self-preservation, and self-presentation” (2008: 2). Indeed, risk then forms part of a much larger discussion around agency that also takes into consideration the importance of self-will, self-fashioning, and self-presentation, or in other words the facts of identity. The question is not simply who has access to agency through design, but also who has a “right” to this access. All chapters share in common a covert or overt critique of access to agency and design’s role in this while purposefully moving away from the designer-as-genius trope that remains prevalent in many parts of design studies and design history. Agency, after all, is crucial to the experience and expression of empowerment whether by consumers, users, or designers, which in some way is under scrutiny in all of the chapters assembled here. We might also think about the ways in which agency not only implies risk, but also suggests a concern for individual free will, activism, or interventionism as much as larger social forces that collide with, deter, enable, and reinforce individual ambitions, needs, pleasures, and desires. Beyond the individual, then, a sustained examination of agency and design must certainly also take into consideration institutional representatives that stand in for, on behalf of professionals, students, citizens, users, creators, sellers, or consumers, to list only a few. Not exhaustive by any means, the eighteen chapters that comprise Design and Agency set out to explore very different currents of power, culture, purpose, and ambition. However, at the core of these intersections and what binds these chapters neatly together is a concern for how design is an agent of and for action, how a person(s), institution(s), or object(s) exert power, and a will to change a perceived or real state or condition through design. With this in mind, we explore where, how, and when design and agency come together to forge new and unique practices, objects, spatial relations, identifications, orientations, communities, and identities. In addition to exploring design’s potential, the volume also interrogates, in some cases, its lack, limitations, and/or pitfalls. Whether seen in the historical cases or in the more recent lines of questioning, what we witness in the richness of the volume’s examples are the ways design can be mobilized or transformed toward personal, agentic ends. Following off from these

6 Design and Agency

lines of investigation, the chapters call attention to ways of thinking about how agents create, represent, construct, teach, organize, display, promote, express, write about, use, misuse, and even perhaps abuse design, while also investigating the distinctive contribution of design in the construction of identities and subjectivities. Taking this one step further, design and material objects are those things that are all too often taken for granted, misplaced, and even degraded in discussions of gender, sexuality, class, and race; in other words, how these are performed, experienced, expressed, understood, and written about. Design, therefore, in its various material and ideational manifestations, informs people’s perceptions, orientations, and experiences of the physical world, thus asserting its own agency as a social, aesthetic, cultural, political, and/or economic force. The chapters are here organized around two overarching thematic frames: (1) Designing Identities and (2) Systems and Institutions of Design. These thematic frames reflect the most important and current research interests of scholars and students and help to organize the material in a useful and user-friendly way. The two parts, without exception, attend to real-life, lived-in, performed, and/or actuated situations, circumstances, histories, and theories. It is therefore crucial to recognize that the authors are not necessarily dealing with agency as an abstract idea(l), but rather are attending to the complexity of actual and lived experiences and expressions whether it be by designers, institutions, products, objects, amongst myriad other examples. Accordingly, the actualization of agency in and through design is a fundamentally central thread that binds all the chapters. The variety of approaches and case studies allow us to provide a broad, rich, and yet as deep a study as possible on the complexities of design’s agentic horizon of possibility. Both parts share a common goal: to reveal the complexities of intersections, interactions, negotiations, competitions, and/or collaborations between various types of agents within the landscape of design. In their special issue of the journal Design Philosophy Papers, Anne-Marie Willis and Karin Jaschke assert that “design history has no future unless it engages the future” (2009: n.p.). By this they suggest that we think about design history’s future which is both and at once “how it has been written, its values, what it has engaged with and with what it now needs to engage” (2009: n.p.). Design and Agency aims to move beyond local specificity to engage in broader concerns for how design provides for the possibility of growth, change, knowledge sharing, and community building on a global scale well beyond economic imperatives. All forms of material practices were ripe for interrogation when we began this process. Here, then, as a result, it must be noted, that we have purposefully allowed for a rather open-ended definition of design, perhaps much to the consternation of traditionalists, to include in our discussion interior decoration and architecture, industrial production and hand-made craft, the decorative arts and other forms of material practices that give shape to our ­physical world as seen through a multiplicity of media, whether in text, film, graphic art, photography, exhibition display, and within numerous organizational systems such as health, medicine, museums, pedagogy, and the workplace.

Introduction: Reassessing Design through Agency 7

Who has access to the power of design, the agency of design? How is it activated? Where might it fail? Humans access design as producers, users, or transformers of designed objects and spaces. By virtue of these different and at times divergent roles, the relationship of human agency as it intersects with design is different and varied. Can we conclude, however, that one type of experience and expression is more powerful or valuable? How do we measure the impact of such interaction? How do we measure the mobilization of design and its human agency? For some, these might be rather easy to answer, but as many of our chapters evoke, this is not always so readily apparent, quantifiable, or has even yet to occur. Each chapter attempts to outline and interrogate what investments, stakes, and limitations various stakeholders experience and express through their interaction with design. The necessarily interdisciplinary nature of the volume has meant that the relationships between design and agency take on divergent and disparate forms. As a whole, the volume demonstrates this variety and the depth and complexity of these relationships by exploring the agency of designers and institutions (McAtee; Gotlieb; Chalmers; England; and Campbell), the agency of communication/semiotics (Adams; Cheasley Paterson; Lasc; and Windover), the agency of authorship and design as narration (Taylor; Söll and Krämer; Hemmings; Massey; and Fortin), and finally agency of social performance and performativity (Marie-Eve; Pelly; Wieber; and Canli). More recently, design history and design studies have grown to become wildly popular subjects within the scholarly landscape and among a voracious lay public as evidenced by increased numbers of glossy coffee table books, Instagram accounts, and blogs. What makes design so compelling is how it encompasses an interest in and concern for interior space, the built environment, objects, craft, fashion, graphics, and even the digital, to say nothing of how it brings a concern for the environment, sustainability, health, gender, sexuality, race, culture, class, consumption, society, and politics to the foreground. Through this necessarily interdisciplinary lens, by addressing the impact of agents of design—whether as designers, decorators, entrepreneurs, curators, pedagogues, historians, collectors or professional organizations, museums, educational institutions, and material objects and physical spaces themselves—the chapters purposefully avoid the heroization typical of a tenacious, modernist approach, and turn their gaze to the local to explore how people, places, and things challenge the function of design as much as the social, economic, and political context in which it operates. The aim, as a result, is to avoid a continued modernist understanding of design and its history that remains largely premised on avant-garde movements, biographies of so-called star designers, and fetishization of specific types of design objects. If, however, we think of a historical figure like the American Henry Dreyfuss, for example, we see a figure positioned “uncomfortably, between the prevailing model of designer as economic stimulant to a consumer economy and the less popular conception of designer as professional with an ethical duty” (Hall 2009: n.p.). Through the American designer Peter A. Hall shows how he was “a conflicted figure […] operating within the machinations and negotiations of a society making itself durable, as an actor in a network of power relations” (2009: n.p.).

8 Design and Agency

It might be rather easy for us to simply ask if the designer-creator is merely an alibi of/for capitalism, especially given design’s clear industrial links. However, while design should be seen as imbedded within economic systems, it would be prudent to also pay witness to how design has been and can be harnessed as a locus for critique and as a critical practice, one that is neither neutral nor indifferent, despite claims of universal reach. After all, anthropologist Arjun Appadurai has evocatively shown how objects enjoy various social lives that in turn allow them to “move in and out of the commodity state” (1986: 13) which in turn “justifies the conceit that commodities, like persons, have social lives” (1986: 3). As Igor Kopytoff contends, “[w]e have similar biographical expectations of things […]. But there are other events in the biography of objects that convey more subtle meanings […]. Biographies of things can render salient what might otherwise remain obscure” (Kopytoff 1986: 67). While not all the objects and spaces analyzed and narrativized in this volume can strictly be classified as commodities per se, “an anthropological problem is that this formal truth does not illuminate the concrete, historical circulation of things. For that we have to follow the things themselves, for their meanings are inscribed in their forms, their uses, their trajectories […] from a methodological point of view it is the things-in-motion that illuminate their human and social context” (Appadurai 1986: 5). Following off of Appadurai’s influential, groundbreaking work, human-made objects travel through both time and space, acquiring and shedding layers of meaning, purpose, and yes even agency. For its part the Actor-Network-Theory has provided a necessary frame within which to examine “how actors and organisations mobilize, juxtapose and hold together the bits and pieces out of which they are composed; how they are sometimes able to prevent those bits and pieces from following their own inclinations and making of; and how they manage, as a result, to conceal for a time the process of translation itself and so turn a network from a heterogeneous set of bits and pieces each with its own inclinations, into something that passes as a punctualized actor” (Law 1992: n. p.). As it concerns design, agency remains, however, a rather untapped framework of critical inquiry. According to design historian Clive Dilnot, “[t]he task of history, however, is that of explanation and the assignment of agency. And here we enter a problem—we might even say the central problem for the history and understanding of design today—for how do we assess the level of agency of design in relation to the formation and operation of the contemporary world? I know of no-one who has yet formulated this problem in a satisfactory way, either in history or in theory. This is as true of critical as it is of conventional, design history” (2013: 334). Collectively the chapters assembled here explore, inquire, and contest the ways people, places, and things perform as agents of design as much as the systems, networks and webs of values, purposes, and meanings that the agency of design enables. In order to do so, we might also invoke design theorist Tony Fry who has claimed the political for design history and design studies, asserting that “design has to become a politics. For design to become politicized, it has to directly confront politics” (2011: 7). In order for this to occur it must be developed and situated “as a particular political practice in its own right” (Fry 2011: 11–12).

Introduction: Reassessing Design through Agency 9

In large part this volume is the result of an initial symposium held at Concordia University in March  2018 at which we assembled a diverse group of scholars with varied backgrounds. The volume has moved beyond the specificity of the event and one of the, albeit unwitting, objectives of this volume has become the notion that our agency as editors has been to promote, assert, and strengthen the position of Canada and Canadian scholarship within the fields of design history and design studies. While chapters in this volume pertain to important and compelling Canadian subject matter, we want to claim a greater presence for Canadian scholars in the study of design and its histories. Design studies and design history have been dominated by the important, pioneering work of British scholars too numerous to cite here. However, with recent calls to de-center overarching narratives and decolonize the discipline, we hope, even if only slightly, we have helped to open up the field a bit further while fully cognizant of our own limitations and gaps and the work that remains to be done. Design and Agency represents the work of some of the most innovative, emerging scholars as well as internationally recognized and well-established scholars and curators from Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, and the United States. Using design (people, spaces, and objects) as a mode of investigation, the volume crosses disciplinary and field boundaries that encompass, but are not limited to, medicine, history, design studies, anthropology, art history, craft history, museological and curatorial studies, architecture, gender, race and sexuality studies, interior design, architecture, film, cultural studies, business and industrial development from the end of nineteenth century to current-day practices. In short, design and allied material practices form an integral and driving force within the economic and sociocultural arenas as much as it infects the national and the political only made possible through its own systems, meanings, and languages as it moves across the public and the private, the collective and the personal. As such, design and its myriad agents cannot be seen outside the prism of value which agency elicits. What this relationship looks like, what form this agency takes, what language we might use to describe it, however, is what this volume attempts to begin to interrogate and flesh out.

Bibliography Ahmed, S. (2006), “Orientations: Towards a Queer Phenomenology,” GLQ, 12 (4): 543–74. Ahmed, S. (2007), “A Phenomenology of Whiteness,” Feminist Theory, 8 (2): 149–68. Appadurai, A., ed. (1986), “Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value,” in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, 3–63, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blossom, N. H. and J. C. Turpin (2008), “Risk as a Window to Agency: A Case Study of Three Decorators,” Journal of Interior Design, 34 (1): 1–13. Dilnot, C. (2013), “Review of ‘The Question of Agency in the Understanding of Design Design Philosophy Papers: Collection Five, Design History Futures? A. M Willis and K. Jaschke (eds), Design Philosophy Papers: Team D/E/S 2009. 94pp., paper, $24 AUD. ISBN: 9780975849859’,” Journal of Design History, 26 (3) (September): 331–7.

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Fry, T. (2011), Design as Politics, Oxford: Berg Publishing. Gell, A. (1998), Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gell, A. (1999), E. Hirsh, ed., The Art of Anthropology: Essays and Diagrams, London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Hall, P. A. (2009), “True Cost Button-Pushing: Re-Writing Industrial Design in America,” Design Philosophy Papers, 7 (2): n.p. Hoskins, J. (2017), “Agency, Biography and Objects,” in C. Y. Tilley et al. (eds), The Handbook of Material Culture, 74–83, London, Thousand Oaks, CA, and New Delhi: Sage. Kopytoff, I. (1986), “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process,” in A. Appadurai (ed.), Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, 64–94, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Laflamme, M. (2016), Un artiste, une œuvre: Cédric Sportes, MNBAQ film, Available online: https://vimeo.com/183038122 (Accessed February 2, 2019). Law, J. (1992), “Notes on the Theory of the Actor Network: Ordering, Strategy and Heterogeneity,” published by the Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YN, Available online: http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/papers/ Law-Notes-on-ANT.pdf (Accessed November 18, 2010). Rotenberg, R. (2014), “Material Agency in the Urban Material Culture Initiative,” Museum Anthropology, 37 (1): 36–45. Steiner, C. (2001), “Rights of Passage: On the Liminal Identity of Art in the Border Zone,” in F. Myers (ed.), The Empire of Things: Regimes of Value and Material Culture, 207–31, Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Tanner, J. and R. Osborne. (2007), Art’s Agency and Art History, London: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Willis, A. M. and K. Jaschke, eds (2009), “Editorial: ‘Design History Futures?’,” Design Philosophy Papers, 7 (2): n.p.

Introduction: Reassessing Design through Agency 11

12

Part 1  Designing Identities

Introduction Marie-Ève Marchand

In her book, Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity (2009), Christine M. Korsgaard argues that “an action is a movement attributable to an agent as its author, and that means that whenever you choose an action—whenever you take control of your own movements—you are constituting yourself as the author of that action, and so you are deciding who to be” (xi). In other words, as she further explains, “your identity is in a quite literal way constituted by your choices and actions” (19). Korsgaard’s convincing philosophical considerations give but a mere glimpse of the complexity of the reciprocal relationship between the performance of agency, which can be either explicit or tacit, and the construction of both individual and collective identities. For instance, making a choice is not always a conscious process, can be a matter of compromise or be in contradiction with one’s beliefs and values; while taking control encompasses a variety of strategies that range from the use of violence to seeming passivity. In each of these situations, the apparent importance of agency and the extent to which it is exerted might not be the same but it always remains a critical part of the equation. The terms of the relationship between agency and identity are further obfuscated when design is added to the equation. Whether it is understood from an immaterial (as in the conceptualization phase of an object) or from a material (as in the actual object) perspective, design is a pervasive part of daily life and is imbued with agency in all its aspects. As such, it calls for a specific rethinking of how subjects and objects interact in a way that echoes some of the theoretical premises advocated by the proponents of the “material turn.” In other words, recognizing the agency of design prompts questions not about “whether things are” but about “what work they perform—question[s], in fact, not about things themselves but about the ­subject-object relation in particular temporal and spatial contexts” (Brown 2001: 7). It is with that in mind that we ask: How are identities expressed through design and,

in return, what is the contribution of designed objects to the formation of identities? How does the agency of design manifest itself and how does it impact human lives? And, from a more theoretical perspective, how does the notion of agency shed new light on the ways in which people relate to their designed environment? The nine authors brought together in the first part of this volume probe the relationships between design, agency, and identity from a wide variety of perspectives thereby offering a heterogeneous picture that may appear destabilizing at first sight. However, despite the diversity of their approaches, many explore what Erin J. Campbell describes in Chapter  5 as the “mutually-constituting and enmeshed agencies of people and things.” The examination of this enmeshment proves to be a common thread that allows the authors to unravel, each in their own way, some of the tensions that repeatedly emerge when design, agency, and identity are brought together. The intricate dialectics between material and human, exclusion and inclusion, subversion and compliance are among the recurring themes that are being addressed here. On the one hand, these themes foster a nuanced understanding of the notion of identity which is assessed in all its aspects and complexities. On the other, they lay the foundation upon which further problematization of the reciprocal relationship that binds subjects and objects together with their context is made possible. The cases examined by the authors are presented chronologically and cover a time span that goes from the late nineteenth century to the present. The fields of design addressed in this part include craft, the domestic interior and its furnishing, industrial design, and architecture. For the most part, they are explored through questions of authorship, gender, and the agency of women as makers, consumers, and users of design. This is done in a way that opens up new avenues to (re)consider the traditional narratives and historiography of design. Our investigation into how identities are designed begins in the last decades of the nineteenth century in New York City. In “Period Décor and the Negotiation of Identity in the Home,” Marie-Ève Marchand looks at the use of French ­eighteenth-century décors in the United States during the so-called Gilded Age (roughly between the late 1860s and the late 1890s). In the course of this period, newly rich and members of the traditional New-York elite turned to period décor and, in particular, to the “Louis” styles and their numerous revivals to decorate their large entertainment rooms, such as the recently introduced ballrooms, as well as more intimate spaces like boudoirs and bedrooms. Marchand argues that, more than a mere demonstration of wealth, these décors were part of an intricate network in which the agency of both owners and objects combined to support the construction, negotiation, and performance of identities. As she demonstrates, the newly emerging field of interior design provided domestic settings conducive to the increased ritualization of social protocols that marked this period during which upward social mobility was as sudden and spectacular as social decline. A similar relationship between home décor and the construction of identity is observed on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean by Sabine Wieber in “Designs

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on Modernity: Gertrud Loew’s Vienna Apartment and Situated Agency.” In the early 1900s, the young and newlywed Gertrud Loew commissioned the progressive designer Koloman Moser to transform “a historicist […] apartment into a modern Gesamtkunstwerk fit for a fashionable young couple.” Yet, as Wieber explains, the way this wealthy, cultured, and assimilated Jewish woman saw modernity was also vehemently criticized by detractors who stigmatized such designs on modernity by (dis)qualifying them as “le goût juif.” In examining how Loew engaged with modernist design to shape at once both her social status and domestic environment, Wieber importantly shifts the traditional focus of design historians from (male) producers onto (female) consumers and the artifacts they chose to surround themselves with. Building upon the concept of “situated agency,” she contributes to expand our understanding of the complex interrelations between the agency of human beings and the agency of artifacts in both the domestic and social spheres. In “Gifted Design: Imperial Benevolence in the Needlework of Mary Seton Watts,” Elaine Cheasley Paterson offers an invigorating analysis of the needlework banner Our Lady of the Snows (1906), a type of object still too often marginalized as both craft and women’s production. Made by the Scottish designer Mary Seton Watts, this banner hangs in the warden’s hallway in McGill University’s Royal Victoria College, Montreal, to which it was given in  1907 when Canada was still a British colony. Drawing from cultural history, biography, and family oral history, Cheasley Paterson examines the multiple sources of agency summoned by this object including hers, as a researcher who, through her family background, is personally concerned by the social welfare initiatives underlying the commissioning of this banner; Seton Watts’s, as a woman designer who combined craft, education, and philanthropic endeavors; and the banner’s, as a tool for shaping better citizens from a British imperial perspective. Going beyond the historical significance of this banner, she explores how it intersects with concerns for education, migration, and society in a way that contributes to anchor its relevance in the current moment, especially regarding children’s well-being in Canada and around the globe. The connection between design, women, and children is also addressed by Amélie Elizabeth Pelly in “Beyond the Couch: Anna Freud and the Analytic Environment,” but from a very different perspective. While archive photographs showing Dr. Sigmund Freud’s Viennese study will look familiar to many, the adjacent spaces in which Anna Freud, his daughter, performed her pioneering work in the field of child psychoanalysis are far less well known. Pelly examines the design of the ensemble formed by the waiting room, bedroom, and consulting room where she both lived and received her children analysands. She pays minute attention to the content, organization, and uses of the space by Anna to demonstrate how, as a woman lay-psychoanalyst, she simultaneously subverted and used to her own advantage the bourgeois stereotypes of the time whereby the feminine gender, the domestic sphere, and motherhood were inseparable. Probing deeper into the interrelationship between design and agency, Pelly also takes into consideration the multiple meanings of Anna’s knitting during her meetings with her patients and

Designing Identities 15

in her personal life. Her insightful work reveals the multilayered role of design in Anna Freud’s redefinition of psychoanalytic techniques and environment. For her part, Erin J. Campbell explores the reciprocal relationship between objects—and more specifically interiors—and subjects by taking us into the fantasy world of the miniature interior. In her chapter “Multum in parvo: Scale and Agency in the Thorne Miniature Rooms,” she focuses on the sixty-eight miniature rooms on display at the Art Institute of Chicago. Put together during the first half of the twentieth century under the close supervision of Narcissa Niblack Thorne, they have been and still are among the most sought-after objects of the collections. Yet, as Campbell clearly demonstrates, while these shrunk interiors—some of which were inspired by actual historical interiors—recall doll’s houses, they are not mere child’s play. As she examines what kind of agents of design the miniature rooms are and how they perform their agency, Campbell reveals the issues arising from their deceitful seductiveness, their power of exclusion, as well as the social hierarchies they convey. Campbell wisely approaches the Thorne miniature rooms as a collection and shows that, as they transcend the limits of the daily experience of time and space, they have the power to manipulate and transform those who look at them. The ways in which the interactions between the designed object and its users impact the experience of time and place are also at issue in Michael Windover’s chapter, “Listening for Design: Agency and History in a Philips Aachen-Super D 52.” The starting point of this chapter is the recent gift of a 1937 Philips Aachen-Super D 52 radio to Carleton University. Offered by Sylvia and Leo Strawczynski, the radio was bought in Germany in 1948 by Sylvia’s parents who were then living in the BergenBelsen displaced persons camp. The significance of Windover’s analysis lies in the fact that he broadens our perspectives on agency by examining the various “design ecologies” in which this radio is involved, while showing how this object transforms and triggers several narratives over time, including those about design history. As the life of this radio and lives of the Strawczynskis and Weinbergs (Sylvia’s parents) get intertwined, Windover shows that the conjunction of object and subject biographies, sociopolitical context, and history offers compelling avenues to think about the numerous degrees of agency in design and about the foundations of their interrelations. In “Agency, Art, and Architecture in Medical Murals by Mary Filer and Marian Dale Scott,” Annemarie Adams examines the intricate and multilayered interrelations between human and material agency. To do so, she looks into the production of two medical murals: Mary Filer’s The Advance of Neurology (1954), painted in a conference room in the Montreal Neurological Institute; and Marian Dale Scott’s Endocrinology (1942–3), painted in McGill University’s Histology Department. As she probes how heroic medicine is represented and forms part of the architectural design of the interior, Adams pays particular attention to the content of both murals, but also to the circumstances of their creation, to the spaces for which they were specifically made, and to their significance in the career of Filer and Dale Scott. Among other things, she demonstrates how these murals actively fostered the viewers’ engagement with medical research and how, through their making, two women artists

16 Design and Agency

asserted themselves as active subjects navigating male-dominated environments. Adams’s chapter reveals various loci of agency as well as some of the multiple ways in which agency can be expressed in room design. Almost anyone living in Montreal and, more broadly speaking, in the Province of Quebec will recognize the geodesic dome that served as the pavilion of the United States for Expo ’67 and that has since become an international symbol of this event and the city that hosted it. However, far less people know who designed it and even fewer are aware of the hidden side of the development of this type of structure. In “Duelling Over Domes: Jeffrey Lindsay and Buckminster Fuller Cross Struts and Sprits in the US Patent Office,” Cammie McAtee deploys the notion of agency to shed new light on a crucial part of the history of geodesics. Weatherbreak, made in 1950 and described by McAtee as “the first large-span, self-supporting geodesic dome constructed according to Buckminster Fuller’s theories” but which realization was made possible only thanks to the work and financial contribution of Jeffrey Lindsay, is at the core of her chapter. By addressing the sensitive issue of intellectual property in the world of design, and in geodesic design in particular, McAtee reveals how challenging, and at time ruthless, risky, and hurtful, it can be for a designer to assert his or her agency. However, McAtee’s analysis goes beyond the conflicts that divided Fuller and Lindsay to present a reflection on the opportunities offered by the world of geodesic design to negotiate the limitations of professional categorization and allow for fluidity in the definition of one’s identity and expression of agency. In the closing chapter of this first part “Desperately Seeking Sunlight: Le Corbusier’s Casa Curutchet and The Man Next Door” Mark Taylor shifts focus away from the traditional locus of agency, the designer—in this instance the iconic modernist ­architect Le Corbusier—to consider the agency of the people interacting with his creation, Casa Curutchet (La Plata, Argentina), as well as the agency of the building itself. This is done through the lens of the 2009 Argentina drama, The Man Next Door, that recounts the quarrel between the industrial designer Leonardo, who lives in Casa Curutchet, and his neighbor Victor. The latter pierces a wall to install a window that will let the sunlight in his dark apartment and, as a consequence, gets a direct view into Victor’s home. In his text, Taylor skillfully navigates between traditional historiography concerning Casa Curutchet and works of fiction to reveal the agency of the house itself and, in particular, of the wall Victor breaches and of the very hole he makes. In so doing, Taylor reconsiders the strained relation between the architect’s intentions and the actual effects of modernist architecture on the people living into it, while offering an innovative analysis of what he describes as “the larger fear of the transgression of the architectural edge.”

Bibliography Brown, B. (2001), “Thing Theory,” Critical Inquiry, 28 (1): 1–22. Korsgaard, C. M. (2009), Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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18

1

Period Décor and the Negotiation of Identity in the Home Marie-Ève Marchand

In New York in the winter of 1854, Ann E. Cottenet and her husband, William Colford Schermerhorn, gave a grand costume ball. Six hundred guests were invited to appear dressed in Louis XV court attire, and the servants wore the livery of Versailles for this event that took place in the Schermerhorn’s ancestral mansion furnished by a professional decorator in the style of Louis XV (McAllister 1890: 15; Van Rensselaer 1924: 183; Morris 1996: 17–19; Craven 2009: 40).1 To entertain at home in such a sumptuous manner seems to have been unusual on the part of New York traditional high society prior to the Civil War of 1861–5 (Craven 2009: 41). Yet this costly and luxurious social gathering foreshadowed the growing magnificence of social events to be held in private houses during the second half of the century. It is also an example of both the craze for French eighteenth-century décor and the theatricality that would characterize social relationships in the American domestic sphere during the last decades of the century. The interest of wealthy Americans of the Gilded Age in opulent houses furnished with period décor is well known, as is the extravagance of their social life within these interiors, especially toward the end of the nineteenth century. However, their consumption of antique décor and furniture is often considered a mere demonstration of wealth and social standing, a simplistic perception that does not leave much room for the acknowledgment of personal agency. In order to deepen our understanding of the connection between the social role of antique material culture and the construction of one’s identity, I propose to look at the intricacies of the relationships between these individuals, their domestic environment, and the increased ritualization of social intercourses during this period. The notion of agency offers an engaging angle from which to undertake this analysis. Understood as the capacity to perform, successfully or not, toward the achievement of a particular outcome, agency is intimately related to identity, its construction and expression. While the agency of human beings is widely recognized, the fact that unanimated objects significantly impact the networks of relationships of which they are part is increasingly acknowledged thanks to the work of Alfred Gell (1998), Bruno  This research was made possible by a postdoctoral grant from the Fonds de recherche du Québec—Société et culture.

Latour (2000), Bill Brown (2004), and Caroline van Eck (2015), to name but a few. In the context of this chapter, the notion of agency will allow me to take into consideration the reciprocity between, on the one hand, the strategies of self-assertion through interior décor on the part of the subject and, on the other hand, the specific contribution of the object to the expression of one’s subjectivity and the construction of his or her identity. More specifically, I will explore how, by means of their respective agency, owners and objects contributed together to the formation of an intricate network of values and meanings through which identities were constructed and performed. In the first section, I address the significance of period décor in the home, focusing on French eighteenth-century-inspired environments, and examine how these surrounds resonated with the agency of their owners. Second, I look at the contribution of the décor to the articulation of social performance in the context of the increasing dramatization of social relationships that occurred after the Civil War. Ultimately, this chapter contributes to unraveling the relationship between the use of French ­eighteenth-century material culture and the transformation of polite rituals in New York during the second half of the nineteenth century.

French Historical Décor in the United States A great variety of historical styles found their way into New York’s wealthiest houses during the second half of the nineteenth century. However, as demonstrated by art historian and curator Charlotte Vignon in her study of the Duveen Brothers’ art trade, French eighteenth-century décor referring to Louis XIV, XV, and XVI were remarkably popular, especially from the 1880s (2010: 287–8). Prominent art dealers—who were often acting as interior decorators, such as Joseph Duveen himself—as well as emerging interior decorators greatly contributed to their promotion and dissemination among the wealthy. The importance of the “Louis styles” was also acknowledged in decoration books, whether they were praised for illustrating “the most refined taste the world has known since the decline of the arts in Italy” (Wharton and Codman 1897: 4), or dismissed as having “had an influence out of proportion to their merit” (Parsons 1915: 128). It is commonly agreed that eighteenth-century French products, including food, fashion, art objects, and architecture, contributed to constructing and asserting the status and cultural identity of their owners, notably by materializing a form of ­filiation— however fictitious and fantasized—with the European aristocracy. Unsurprisingly, they were particularly popular among the nouveaux riches who were trying to construct, publicize, and legitimize a new social position that rested upon yet transcended their recent fortune. This was the case of William Kissam Vanderbilt (1849–1920) and his wife Alva, born Erskine Smith (1853–1933), who were among the wealthiest Americans of their time. Although William Kissam was part of the third generation of Vanderbilts,2 his inherited fortune was considered rather new and his belonging to the traditional elite circles was not a given. Prior to the 1880s, the Vanderbilts were scorned by powerful individuals such as Caroline Astor (1830–1908) who had been

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acting as the ruling authority on the city’s long-established elite since the mid-1870s, although the Astor vs. Vanderbilt rivalry seems to have been exaggerated retrospectively (Homberger 2002: 152; 271–2). Domestic architecture was one of William Kissam and Alva’s strategies to visually and materially establish their status, notably with their Fifth Avenue château completed in 1882 by the architect Richard Morris Hunt (1827–95). While various styles were used depending on the room, a Second Empire version of French eighteenth-century décor adorned a large drawing room designed to receive guests [Figure 1.1]. In the latter, rococo paneling and Louis XV-style furniture, such as the bergères and writing table, were combined with typically Victorian objects including a padded armchair upholstered with nineteenth-century fabric and fringe, lamps, and indoor palm trees, to say nothing of the animal skin rugs on the floor. Such an ensemble needs to be seen as a manifestation of the Vanderbilts’ agency insofar as, by choosing furniture (including original pieces with royal provenance3 and high-end reproductions) evoking lavish French eighteenth-century interiors in this specific room, they gave themselves the means to match their social ambitions. Indeed, as Maureen E. Montgomery explains, as a “‘ceremonial apartment’ […] used for formal rites of social observance,” the drawing room “contained the most impressive furnishings of the house, those designed to impress upon visitors the wealth and social standing of its owners” (Montgomery 1998: 75).

Figure 1.1  Jules Allard and Sons (designers), William K. and Alva Vanderbilt’s drawing room at 660 Fifth Avenue, New York, c. 1882. (Public Domain, Source: Wikimedia Commons)

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Furthermore, as it can be perceived in the room’s moderate eclecticism, the use of period décor was not a matter of servile imitation. As such, it should be understood as part of a process of appropriation in the course of which networks of agencies between subjects and objects are created. For instance, in addition to promoting the Vanderbilts’ financial and cultural capital, this drawing room also established their authority as trendsetters. While Bruno Pons notes that the Vanderbilt family became closely associated with the development of French-inspired interiors in the United States (1995:  98–9), other authors further argue that this drawing room in particular was the first of its kind and that French eighteenth-century-style rooms pioneered by the Vanderbilts became admired and influent models in interior design (Burns 2007: 3–4; Miller 2015: 353). This suggests a reciprocal relationship whereby the agency of the objects supported the construction and expression of their owners’ identity while, in return, the Vanderbilts’ own individuality was imprinted on their possessions. Time seems to have strengthened this imprint as this approach to ­eighteenth-century décor was even dubbed “Alva Vanderbilt’s French revival movement” by historian James T. Maher (1975: 279), her agency superseding Jules Allard’s, the decorator and art dealer in charge of this room (Foreman and Stimson 1991: 39; Burns 2007: 23). At first sight, the use of French luxurious furniture by people such as the Vanderbilts seems to parallel the strategy adopted by French eighteenth-century nouveaux riches who emulated the consumption habits of the social class they wanted to integrate (e.g., Craven 2009: 186). The American situation is, however, distinct. First, it should be noted that these successful entrepreneurs, businessmen and their wives were consuming foreign objects dating from or referring to the previous century, while their French counterparts were buying Paris latest novelties. The expression of their respective agency was therefore articulated around a relationship to time, tradition, and geography that was fundamentally different and that certainly authorized—or at least supported the claim for—the establishment of an American cultural specificity. Second, unlike French aristocrats who spent lavishly on houses, furniture, and decorative objects, members of New York’s traditional elite circles, often designated as the Knickerbockers, did not necessarily enjoy a luxurious lifestyle. Their status depended first on genealogy, something that the nouveaux riches could not buy. Knickerbockers’ ancestors could be traced back to the first Dutch settlers and, although they were undeniably wealthy, their fortunes were usually of lesser importance than those of the newly rich (Craven 2009: 13). Moreover, their puritan legacy often made them reluctant to what Thorstein Veblen has termed “conspicuous consumption” (1899). This way of consuming encouraged an excessive accumulation of goods that symbolically established one’s standing by displaying, among other things, his or her pecuniary ability to afford more than what he or she could possibly consume. In other words, by choosing to appropriate luxurious objects from previous centuries and foreign countries, the aspiring elite did not imitate the Knickerbockers but rather challenged conventions and championed new terms upon which to express identity and assert social prominence.

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This being said, it would be simplistic to think that the use of French material culture was the prerogative of the nouveaux riches. Early exceptions apply—as in the case of the Schermerhorn’s ball noted in introduction—and, by the end of the century, French eighteenth-century décor seems to have been widespread even in the homes of the fiercest opponents of new money. The French-style château completed by Richard Morris Hunt in 1896 for the leading figure of the old guard Caroline Astor is a case in point. Until that year, Astor had been living in the Fifth Avenue and  34th Street traditional brownstone house she had commissioned forty years earlier [Figure 1.2]. Often built in row and admittedly upscale but modest and somewhat drab compared to the nouveaux riches’ mansions and châteaux, brownstone houses were emblematic of New York oldest elite homes. Born Schermerhorn, Astor had both a flawless Knickerbocker pedigree and the financial resources of one of the first largest American fortunes which, although dating from the first half of the nineteenth century, was not regarded as new money anymore (Homberger 2002: 242; Craven  2009:  209–10). Her choice of a brownstone house in the year following her marriage with William Backhouse Astor Jr. (1829–92) in 1853 was a calculated one that fostered the ideas of tradition, continuity, and homogeneity proper to her maiden name. Yet, not only was her 1896 residence in stark contrast with her former Victorian home, but it was a perfect example of what was usually regarded as the nouveaux riches’ distasteful extravagance by traditional society.

Figure 1.2  Griffith Thomas (architect), Astor Residence, Fifth Avenue and 34th Street (southwest corner), New York City, built in 1856. Glass plate negative by H. N. Tiemann & Co., 1898, in H. N. Tiemann & Co. photograph collection, 1880–1916 (­nyhs_PR129_b-04_112-01), New-York Historical Society. (©New-York Historical Society)

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In her new residence, Caroline Astor received her guests in various rooms, including two small rococo reception rooms and a large Louis XV-style salon (Craven 2009: 212; 216–18; Miller 2015: 354). In a photograph of the latter taken after her death, Astor’s full-length portrait by Carolus-Duran (1890, today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art) is displayed in a corner of the room [Figure 1.3]. The presence of this portrait, nearby which she used to stand when greeting her guests, seems to perpetuate both her presence in this house and her powerful status as a cornerstone of New York’s social life. As she appears to be monitoring this reception room, her authoritarian agency imbues a space which “style” had been part of the design strategy put forward by Alva Vanderbilt in the early  1880s precisely to challenge Astor’s social authority. Moreover, despite the fact that Caroline Astor was already well versed in French culture for she had been educated in France, maintained an apartment in Paris, and probably had French-inspired décor in her former house although on a lesser scale,4 her commission for an “even grander French chateau” than the Vanderbilts’ 1882 castle had retrospectively been interpreted as part of an “effort to reassert her social standing” (Albrecht and Falino 2013: 18–19; 22). More research is needed to accurately index when, in which houses, and on what scale French eighteenth-century décor was used. Nevertheless, the fact that both

Figure 1.3  Caroline Astor’s drawing room, Fifth Avenue and 65th Street, New York City, c. 1895, photograph c. 1908. (Copyright holder unknown)

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members of the traditional elite and nouveaux riches ended up choosing the kind of conspicuous architecture and sumptuous décor promoted by the latter in their effort to challenge the prominence of breeding over wealth probably contributed to neutralize one of the threats to the social authority of the long-established circles. I would argue that, ultimately, the shared interest in French décor by owners of both old and new money can be considered as part of an attempt to consolidate the identity of a class whose members, as several authors have already noted, were coming from increasingly diversified backgrounds—including place of birth and source of w ­ ealth— as the century progressed (Jaher 1973: 268–9; Montgomery 1998: 39; Albrecht and Falino 2013: 18–19). Historian Sven Beckert explains that the consumption of goods by wealthy Americans during the Gilded Age “helped strengthen shared identities and simultaneously displayed them to a larger public” (2001:  42). In this context, I believe that the exertion of agency through the use of French eighteenth-century décor in the home would have contributed to keep a semblance of class exclusivity insofar as such environments evoked a lifestyle that was purportedly driven by a quest for pleasure, that is a lack of work that characterized owners of old money, while being highly codified. My argument echoes the ideas developed by Montgomery regarding the growing emphasis put on social rituals and etiquette during the last decades of the century. Montgomery has shown that as the “prevailing methods of social placing used by New York’s elite proved inadequate with the increase in geographic and social mobility,” more complicated ones were instituted “in order to preserve its power and status.” These methods were subject to a certain flexibility “to prevent the elite’s complete and utter displacement by those with superior financial resources” (Montgomery 1998: 39). Similarly, in our case, the shared favor granted to elaborate French décor can be interpreted as part of a common venture to deepen the gap between the very rich and the “others” at a time when the ever more permeable social fabric of New York’s elite was faced with fragmentation. More importantly however, insofar as the domestic interior served as a stage where individuals (and more generally an entire class) enacted the codified rituals that ensured one’s social status, the surrounding décor played a crucial role in supporting if not prompting such performances.

Interior Décor and the Theatricality of Social Performance The wealthy nineteenth-century home compares to the theater stage in multiple ways. Karen Halttunen has shown that, according to what she calls the “laws of polite social geography,” the parlor was a “stage upon which the genteel performance was enacted” (1982: 102). This means that while one could behave more casually in the stairway or the dressing room, the rules of polite behavior were clearly established in the areas that were considered more public, that is dedicated to the reception of guests. Accordingly, the host or hostess and his or her guests can be considered as characters whose performance was minutely scripted. Etiquette books gave instructions regarding when and how one gets into a house, presents his card, and makes

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his way to the parlor; how one waits for the hostess to make her entrance; reacts to the presence of other guests or leaves the room, to list only a few examples. The décor, and especially the “props,” were instrumental to the performance of social intercourses and to the construction of their narrative. In her Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, Florence Hartley notes that a hostess should “have books and pictures on the centre table, and scattered about [her] parlors” as “these trifles are excellent pastime [for one’s guests], and serve as subjects for conversation” (1873:  78). In return, Hartley advises guests to sit “quietly” on a seat and rise only “to meet [the hostess] as she enters the room,” for “to walk about the parlor, examining the ornaments and pictures, is ill-bred,” to say nothing of handling anything that was not on the center table (1873: 82; 287). But, more importantly, just as a theater set tends to be in harmony with the action of the play, a room’s décor dictated the manners and even the mindset to be adopted. For instance, art historian Wayne Craven explains that with their “fussy splendor,” formal rooms called for the rules of polite conversation whereas the more casual ambiance of the billiard room allowed men to take off their dinner jacket, smoke cigars, and talk business (2009: 182). While this correlation echoes the neoclassical unities of action, time, and space based on Aristotle’s Poetics, it also enlightens the agency of the décor. The power of the décor to intervene and impact the room’s occupants is acknowledged by the anonymous author of an 1883 advice book on decoration who explains that “the walls constitute a background—an atmosphere, so to speak, of tone or color, from which the occupants are never free, and which must exercise, not a mere sentimental, but a positive influence upon their nervous organism” (Anon 1883: 1). More than a decade earlier, in her 1871 novel Pink and White Tyranny, Harriet Beecher Stowe had applied this logic specifically to French décor. In reference to a “Louis Quatorze dining-room,” a “Louis Quinze salon,” and a “Pompadour boudoir,” she claims that with “the style of that past era seemed to come its maxims and morals, as artistically indicated for its completeness” (1871: 138). The idea of an artistic completeness is crucial here. To live up to his or her décor, one had to comply with the implicit requirements dictated by its design and, as one modulated his or her behavior in response to the décor, the individual and the domestic environment were brought together into a harmonious whole.5 The parallel between the home and the theater also works on a more abstract level insofar as the social hierarchies promoted in the best rooms of the wealthy were similar to the terms of social inclusion and exclusion found in the Italian theater. The theater historian Jean-Jacques Roubine underlines that one of the defining features of the Italian theater was the hierarchies it created among the viewers. The stage being designed with an ideal point of view in mind, not every place offered the same degree of visual and acoustic quality. Individuals attending a play would recognize themselves as belonging to a certain social class according to the emplacement of their seat. The closer they got to the ideal, or central, point of view, the higher they were in the social hierarchy (Roubine 1980: 87).

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Likewise, in the houses of the elite, a social hierarchy was created among those who had access to the best places. This was the case, for instance, of the few privileged women who, as the story goes, received the distinct honor of sharing the dais on which stood Caroline Astor’s divan known as “the Throne” during her annual ball (Morris 1996: 251). Yet, considering that not everyone was granted access inside the theater in the first place, I would like to expand the boundaries of the comparison between the home and the Italian theater to include the hierarchies created between those who were granted access into the most socially prominent houses by being invited to balls and parties, and those who remained outside of these social circles. In a caricature entitled The Social Push. Almost in [Figure 1.4], Charles Dana Gibson depicts a woman who seems prepared to do anything to (literally) break the wall preventing her from getting inside the coveted social circle where a ball is held. The fact that she is herself handling the pickaxe, that she is working to access the world of the happy few, is perhaps a reminder of the source of her wealth (work, rather than inheritance) and therefore the very reason of her social exclusion. Moreover, the fact that she, rather than her husband, is doing the hard work is revealing of the complex expression of women’s agency within these socio-domestic circles. The sometimes overtly ambitious expression of personal agency by new wealthy women such as Alva Vanderbilt, whose efforts in climbing the social ladder went hand in hand with the commissioning of houses and the consumption of material goods, clashed with the seeming passivity of women of the old guard who exerted their agency by maintaining, rather than challenging, traditions. Indeed, the women Gibson depicts in the ballroom, such as the one seated on a chair, perhaps waiting for a man to invite her to dance, or the one standing further on the right,

Figure 1.4  Charles Dana Gibson, The Social Push. Almost In., 1906, halftone print, 41 × 28 cm. (Collection of the author)

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patiently listening to her male counterpart, are not denied any form of agency. These women are shown exercising their power as the custodians of the conventional social practices that secured their place at the top of the social hierarchy. As Montgomery underlines, during the second half of the nineteenth century, “women functioned as society’s gatekeepers through regulating the access of newcomers” into an arena where social life was increasingly ritualized (1998: 41). Both closure and ritualization are found in Gibson’s engraving as women are turning their back on the ungainly social climber on the left while gracefully attending a remarkably complex event: the ball. The grand ball was one of the most elaborate social rituals to take place within New York’s wealthiest homes during the second half of the nineteenth century.6 It became so important socially that both the event and the ballroom had to be nothing less than brilliant for one to secure or, even more perilous, gain his or her place within society. According to the numerous pages dedicated to balls in etiquette manuals, hosts and guests left nothing to chance on these occasions. From the moment one got through the door—and even before as people would dress in harmony with the background in which they were to execute their social performance7—the narrative of the evening was carefully planned. Part of this narrative was led by the quadrilles, a thoroughly rehearsed dance executed by a small group of dancers and described by Eric Homberger as a “symbolic assertion of aristocratic values” (2002:  123). In the case of costumed balls, one or more quadrilles would dress to impersonate characters relevant to the theme of the evening. In her  1896 etiquette book, Maud C. Cooke gives the example of a group of Watteau shepherds and shepherdesses and advises that a dress rehearsal would “ascertain the most satisfactory method of grouping the characters in each set” (1896:  260). While balls were not always costumed, the reference to Watteau’s paintings highlights the calculated simplicity of the dance and exacerbates its theatricality by revealing the efforts required to ensure the harmony between the social performance and the décor framing it. In any case, the social expertise demonstrated by the dancers would be further enhanced by a properly designed setting and vice versa. The complexity and increased lavishness of the grand ball involved a display of wealth and social standing that, according to Sven Beckert, “were new forms of self-representation in public” (2001:  42). Beckert explains that during the second half of the nineteenth century, “well-to-do New Yorkers displayed their confidence by presenting themselves in a self-consciously theatrical manner to the public” (2001: 42–3). Through “new ways of dressing and new kinds of manner,” men and women turned their back on the culture of sentimentality prevailing before the Civil War (2001: 43). According to the principles of sentimentality, appearances and polite behavior were thought to be the “visible outwards signs of inner moral qualities” (Halttunen 1982: 40). In this context, the genteel performance, as defined by Halttunen, was “a system of polite conduct that demanded a flawless self-discipline practiced within an apparently

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easy, natural, sincere manner” (1982:  93). Paradoxically, this form of sincerity could be achieved only by denying the theatricality of the social performance: to appear sincere, polite conduct had to be deliberate and restrained. However, by the mid-century, the status of social rituals changed. Self-display and social formalism became more acceptable and the theatricality of the social performance was an appropriate way to communicate class position (Halttunen 1982: 153). As Halttunen explains, one’s claim to gentility was no longer appraised according to his or her “transparent sincerity,” but rather according to “the skillfulness of his or her avowedly theatrical performance of gentility” (1982: 189). As seen with the example of the grand ball, the home, its décor, and content, were instrumental in framing and supporting such performances that constituted manifestation of agencies. In this context, I would further argue that the growing interest in French eighteenth-century décor was coherent with the shift from “transparent sincerity” to “theatricality.” In the United States in the 1840s, the European aristocratic society of the previous century was decried as artificial (Anon. 1843: 285).8 Yet, as shown by Halttunen, after the Civil War, not only was artificiality not condemned anymore, but it was increasingly valued as social expertise for men and women alike.9 The new acknowledgment of theatricality by nineteenth-century New Yorkers would have been consistent with the use of décors and furniture that referred to or were once part of social performances that, as demonstrated by Mimi Hellman, were both highly codified and crucial for the construction of one’s identity and status (1999: 423–4).

Identity between the Front and Backstage While it can be argued that the use of period décor in general contributed to the construction of one’s identity, décors inspired by French eighteenth-century designs brought, as shown in this chapter, an additional layer of signification to the social rituals that took place in New York’s wealthiest homes during the last decades of the nineteenth century. In so doing, they played an active role in an intricate network in which the agency of the objects and the agency of their owners engaged in reciprocal relationships that supported the construction and performance of the self. To conclude my argument, I want to raise the fact that French décor was not only used in the “public areas” of the home where social performances were enacted but also in the more private rooms, such as the bedroom and the boudoir, where more casual behaviors were accepted.10 As noted by Charlotte Vignon, the concern for unity of style gained importance in late nineteenth century. Not only did single rooms become less eclectic, but the décor of the entire house became more uniform. Joseph Duveen was a prominent advocate of this search for homogeneity that Vignon interprets as a growing preoccupation with “historical authenticity” (2010: 591). Yet, I suggest that this strategy should also be seen as being part of an attempt to stabilize one’s identity. By allowing for more fluidity between what can be understood as the front and backstage areas of the

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house, a homogeneous décor would have served as a constant reminder of one’s status (or desired status) and of the social performance commanded by it. In other words, the individual was steeped in a cohesive environment that would contribute toward a more convincing integration of the desired identity by consistently informing its performance and by giving him or her a sense of his or her own agency. Furthermore, the home as a theater stage with décor and props contributes to the construction of the identity of its inhabitants in the same way that does the collection which, as demonstrated by Susan Pearce, allows one to present himself or herself as he or she would like to be seen through the selection of the objects (1995: 32). Accordingly, a cohesive décor could help in consolidating a homogeneous image of one’s identity, rather than acknowledging its diversity or its fragmentation. At a time when New York upper class became increasingly fragmented and upward social mobility more important, if not more spectacular and unsettling, stylistic continuity in interior design might be interpreted as a way to both strengthen individual identity and bind it more firmly to class identity for, as Homberger remarks, “‘society’ was as much a process as an institution” (2002: 27).

Notes 1 There is contradictory information regarding the exact date of this event and some authors suggest that the ball occurred in the winter of 1860–1 or in 1867 (e.g., Ellet 1867: 452). However, most primary sources date it in 1854 and, when no date is specified, all locate it in the couple’s old mansion they inhabited until 1859, hence the date chosen here. 2 Although the Vanderbilts’ lineage can be traced back to the seventeenth-century Dutch settlers, the family’s fortune was made by Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877), William Kissam’s grandfather, who became rich roughly during the decade preceding the Civil War and was excluded from the already long-established Knickerbocker society. 3 This is the case of the drop-front secretary made by Jean Henri Riesener for Queen Marie-Antoinette in 1783 (today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art). Charles J. Burns even argues that the style of the room was chosen to fit this piece of furniture (2007: 23). 4 See, for instance, a family portrait by Lucius Rossi (c. 1878, location unknown) in which the Astors are depicted in a loosely Louis-XIV-inspired room. 5 In Stowe’s view, such rooms dictated a strongly criticized “aristocratic contempt” toward the working class. 6 Before the Civil War, grand balls were generally held in public venues (e.g., the restaurant Delmonico’s, the Academy of Music). As balls held in private homes became more frequent, ballrooms dedicated solely for that purpose, and usually used once a year, were introduced in newly built houses. 7 In her novel The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton writes: “The company, in obedience to the decorative instinct which calls for fine clothes in fine surroundings, had dressed rather with an eye to Mrs. Bry’s background than to herself” (1905: 212). 8 The anonymous author addresses the issue of extravagant fashion set forth by the court and which, according to him, was always meant to conceal a body deformity.

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9 Each in their own ways, both men and women could be artificial and cross the line between “true gentility” and “false etiquette.” See, as an example, Halttunen’s description of “confidence men” and “painted women” (1982: xiv–xv). 10 I am not referring to the backstage used by domestics and which decoration differed in a way that marked social hierarchies within the household (see Montgomery 1998: 65; 82).

Bibliography Albrecht, D. and J. Falino (2013), “An Aristocracy of Wealth,” in D. Albrecht and J. Falino (eds), Gilded New York. Design, Fashion, and Society, 11–48, New York: Museum of the City of New York; The Monacelli Press. Anon (1843), “Editor’s Table,” in Godey’s Lady’s Book, Vol. XXVII, July to December, 285–6, Philadelphia, PA: Louis A. Godey, Publisher’s Hall. Anon (1883), How to Furnish, Build and Decorate. Consisting of Elevations and Plans for Houses, Barns, and Every Description of Outbuilding, Accompanied with Clear and Concise Instructions; also, a Complete Treatise on House Furnishing and Decoration, New York: Published by The Co-operative Building Plan Association. Beckert, S. (2001), The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850–1896, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, B., ed. (2004), Thing, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Burns, C. J. (2007), “From Medici to Bourbon: The Formulation of Taste and the Evolution of a Vanderbilt Style,” Research Reports and Scholarly Papers, The Preservation Society of Newport County, paper presented at the University of London’s Courtauld Institute of Art, 2007, Available online: http://www.newportmansions.org/documents/learn/research%20 papers/americas-%20medici.pdf (Accessed November 10, 2018). Craven, W. (2009), Gilded Mansions. Grand Architecture and High Society, New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Cooke, M. C. (1896), Social Etiquette or Manners and Customs of Polite Society, London, Ontario: McDermid & Logan. Ellet, E. (1867), The Queens of American Society, New York: C. Scribner and Company. Foreman, J. and R. P. Stimson (1991), The Vanderbilts and the Gilded Age: Architectural Aspirations 1879–1901, New York: St. Martin’s Press. Gell, A. (1998), Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Halttunen, K. (1982), Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830–1870, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. Hartley, F. (1873), The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness, Boston, MA: DeWolfe, Fiske & Co. Hellman, M. (1999), “Furniture, Sociability, and the Work of Leisure in Eighteenth-Century France,” Eighteenth-Century Studies, 32 (4): 415–46. Homberger, E. (2002), Mrs. Astor’s New York. Money and Social Power in a Gilded Age, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. Jaher, F. C. (1973), “Style and Status: High Society in Late Nineteenth-Century New York,” in F. C. Jaher (ed.), The Rich, the Well Born, and the Powerful. Elites and Upper Classes in History, 258–84, Urbana, Chicago, and London: University of Illinois Press. Latour, B. (2000), “The Berlin Key or How to Do Words with Things,” in P. Graves-Brown (ed.), Matter, Materiality, and Modern Culture, 10–21, London and New York: Routledge.

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Maher, J. T. (1975), The Twilight of Splendor, Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company. McAllister, W. (1890), Society as I Have Found It, New York: Cassell Publishing Company. Miller, P. F. (2015), “Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, Arbiter Elegantiarum, and Her Gothic Salon at Newport, Rhode Island,” Journal of the History of Collections, 27 (3): 347–62. Montgomery, M. E. (1998), Displaying Women. Spectacles of Leisure in Edith Wharton’s New York, London and New York: Routledge. Morris, L. R. (1996), Incredible New York: High Life and Low Life from 1850 to 1950, New York: Syracuse University Press. Parsons, F. A. (1915), Interior Decoration: Its Principles and Practice, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company. Pearce, S. M. (1995), On Collecting. An Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition, London and New York: Routledge. Pons, B. (1995), Grands décors français 1650–1800: reconstitués en Angleterre, aux ÉtatsUnis, en Amérique du sud et en France, Dijon: Éditions Faton. Roubine, J. J. (1980), Théâtre et mise en scène 1880–1980, Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Stowe, H. B. (1871), Pink and White Tyranny, A Society Novel, Boston, MA: Roberts Brothers. Thorstein, V. (1899), The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, New York: Macmillan. Van Eck, C. (2015), Art, Agency and Living Presence: From the Animated Image to the Excessive Object, Munich and Leiden: Walter De Gruyter and Leiden University Press. Van Rensselaer, M. K. (1924), The Social Ladder, New York: Holt & Co. Vignon, C. (2010), “Londres—New York—Paris. Le commerce d’objets d’art de Duveen Frères entre 1880 et 1940,” Doctoral diss., Paris: Université Paris IV-Sorbonne. Wharton, E. (1905), The House of Mirth, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Wharton, E. and O. Codman (1897), The Decoration of Houses, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

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2

Designs on Modernity: Gertrud Loew’s Vienna Apartment and Situated Agency Sabine Wieber

On June 24, 2015, Gustav Klimt’s 1902 portrait of Gertrud Loew sold at Sotheby’s for £24.8 million (Sotheby’s 2015). The sale concluded a protracted restitution case between Loew’s heirs and the private Klimt Foundation in Vienna. The painting was originally commissioned by Gertrud’s father Dr. Anton Loew (1847–1907), a prominent physician of Jewish descent and owner of Vienna’s premier therapeutic space, the Sanatorium Loew.1 Klimt painted the nineteen-year-old Gertrud as a beautiful young woman of gentle, almost dreamy, disposition and attired in fashionable reform dress.2 Klimt’s portrait generated much critical acclaim when it was first exhibited at the 18th Secession Exhibition in 1903. The leading progressive critic Ludwig Hevesi, for example, praised the work for its “most diaphanous lyricism of which the painter’s palette is capable” (Natter 2012: 583). This chapter uses Klimt’s portrait as a point of entry into the fascinating life of Gertrud Loew. The Loews were early supporters of Viennese modernism and their daughter was well versed in using art and design to foster her social aspirations as a doyenne of Vienna’s elite culture. Upon her marriage to Johann Eisler von Terramare in 1903, Gertrud Loew commissioned Koloman Moser to refurbish their marital home. This chapter explores this specific interior to shed light on how women and more specifically, Jewish women of the grand bourgeoisie, engaged with design culture to shape their Lebenswelt or everyday world. The space and its stakeholders—designer, patron, users—demand a more careful examination that takes into account the role of material objects in the historical experience of a particular class of modern women who activated design to become taste-makers of their day. Historians need to shift their gendered focus on (male) designers to (female) consumers, and to the objects themselves. As part of this recalibration, this chapter opens with a brief consideration of the fascinating analytical coupling between design and agency that engendered this collection of chapters. After a brief introduction of Gertrud Loew as a prominent Jewish supporter of modern art and patron of the Wiener Werkstätte (1903–32), the chapter offers a comprehensive analysis of the Gertrud Loew’s apartment as a complex space that fostered Loew’s social ambitions but ultimately resisted its complete appropriation as a gambit for cultural superiority. This volume’s theme of Design and Agency offers a judicious critical framework through which to reexamine this modern interior. Its editors propose agency as a

multi-directional and polyvalent force, which inadvertently complicates the distinction between actors and agents. Ivan Karp suggests that actors are confined by rules that tend to reinforce structure, while agents operate across a more nebulous territory (Karp 1986). Agents therefore have more scope to affect their environment. The Oxford Dictionary defines agency as “a thing or person that acts to produce a particular result.” From this follows that “agency is a socio-culturally mediated capacity to act” (Hoskins  2013:  74). Scholars interested in material culture explore the role of objects in this process. The social world’s Dinglichkeit (Heidegger 1927), or material dimension, currently drives many debates in the social sciences (Wagner and Rübel  2002; Daston  2004, and Geritsen and Riello  2015). Objects are made, circulated, and consumed because they act upon the world. From this follows that culture is embedded in the physical environment (Grassby 2005). This premise allows historians to think about the relationship between agency and design (as a material practice) in new ways: historical agents act with and through objects. In this context, Bruno Latour’s “Actor Network Theory” levels any distinction between human and non-human actors. Latour stresses that objects bring-into-being the very networks within which social interactions take place (Latour 2005). But “Actor Network Theory” does not sufficiently account for subjectivity and human motivation. Yet, historians of material culture argue that objects are invaluable as “a repository of knowledge about how people organised their circumstances and understood themselves” (Applegate and Potter 2018: 76). If objects are “repositories of knowledge” then historians must pay attention to their formal properties as p ­ rincipal conduits of meaning. But form in-and-of-itself only becomes meaningful when placed within sociopolitical context. Christopher Tilly makes this point: “Meaning is created out of situated, contextualised social action which is in a continuous dialectical relationship with generative rule-based structures forming both a medium for and an outcome of action” (2001:  260). This offers new insights into the ways in which progressive women like Gertrud Loew deployed modern design culture to secure their place in Vienna’s strictly patrolled second society. But “making history through objects” (Ulrich et al. 2015) is further complicated by the fact that their materiality complicates, and indeed destabilizes, historical subjectivity-formation as a one-way street from inanimate object to human actor. It might be more productive to describe this dynamic as a “dance of agency” between humans and artifacts (Pickering 2010). The idea of a dynamic interplay between materiality and subjectivity presupposes that historical agency is a situated process. The idea of “situated agency” offers a response to poststructuralism’s assertion that subjectivity is entirely constructed by cultural, economic, and sociopolitical forces. Scholars who propose subjects as “situated agents” acknowledge the constitutive relationship between conduct and context, but they leave room for a ­self-conscious response or creative intervention. Michel de Certeau comes to mind here. He famously postulated jaywalking as a tactical subversion of urban control and regulation (1980: 98). Taking her cue from de Certeau, Naomi Choi defines situated agency in relation to political governance as follows:

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Individuals are never merely the passive supports of prescribed roles or social processes; nor can human actions be explained solely in causal, functional, or mechanical terms. Social actors must be understood, at least in part, as intentional subjects acting in response to an understood situation and whose actions must also be seen in terms of a symbolic or meaningful character for the agents themselves. (2007: 873)

Choi traces the relationship between human behavior and social practice, but she neglects to account for the material world that locates these negotiations and drives them. Here, design historians have an important contribution to make because they are interested in the physical parameters of the notoriously elusive mechanisms of (historical) subjectivity-formation. Arjun Appadurai made a convincing case that objects (in his case, commodity culture) create social relationships and constitute identity (1988).

Gertrud “Gerta” Loew (1883–1964) and Vienna’s Cultural Elite Klimt painted Gertrud Loew’s portrait when she was about to marry and leave her family home. For most young women of her day, this entailed a seamless transition from her father’s guardianship to that of her husband. Feminist historians have long argued that nineteenth-century industrialization, and its ideological separation of home from work, spawned a rhetoric of separate spheres that increasingly confined women to the domestic realm (Wallach Scott 1988).3 Gertrud Loew does not easily fit into this paradigm. She grew up in an acculturated Jewish household that embraced liberal values and encouraged their daughter’s intellectual abilities. Even Klimt could not obfuscate Gertrud Loew’s confidence and his hitherto successful formula of painting fashionable “femme fragiles” was met with a degree of resistance (Wieber 2009). Gertrud Loew holds the viewer’s gaze and refuses to be completely objectified. After all, she was a well-educated young woman with cultural capital of her own; she was engaged to one of Vienna’s most eligible bachelors; and she anticipated the opportunity to run her own household. The latter included hosting members of central Europe’s cultural and political elite on a regular basis and acting as a consummate salonnière. Gertrud “Gerta” Franziska Sophie Loew was born on November  16,  1883, as the only daughter of Sophie Ungerer and Anton Loew. Her parents were assimilated Jews and Gertrud was baptized Roman Catholic at birth. Anton Loew owned Lower Austria’s premier therapeutic clinic in Vienna’s ninth district (Mariannengasse 20).4 The Sanatorium Loew treated members from Vienna’s sociocultural elites, such as Gustav Klimt, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Gustav Mahler, who died there in 1911. Historians Alan Janik and Hans Veigl described such clinics as “a place where the well-to-do frequently went to spend their waning days. Private hospitals were part of the elegant lifestyle of the patrician class at the time. They too were a part of a life of fashionable luxury” (1998: 153). The Loews comfortably moved among these fashionable elites. Anton Loew was an avid supporter and collector of modern art, who bequeathed

Gertrud Loew’s Vienna Apartment and Situated Agency 35

his collection to Gertrud in 1907.5 Gertrud Loew married the wealthy entrepreneur Johann Arthur “Hans” Eisler von Terramare (1878–1938) in  1903. The Eisler von Terramare family owned the Habsburg Empire’s first commercial canning factory, the k.u.k. Militär-Konserven-Fabrik Eisler & Co (1873) and made their fortune from an exclusive contract with the Habsburg Empire’s military (Sandgruber 2013: 333). Gertrud Loew brought her family’s cultural prominence into the marriage and Eisler von Terramare injected considerable disposable income—on paper, they were a perfect match. The couple rented an apartment in the historicist Ölzelt Palais on Schottenring (Schottengasse 10), which was on Vienna’s fashionable Ring Street. Together, they embarked on a mission of firmly securing their position in Vienna’s so-called second society. This social stratum was somewhat nebulous in composition. One contemporary observer described its members as “wealthy and very fashionable, and said to be amusing […]. It consists of bankers, artists, merchants, architects, engineers, actors, employés [sic], and officers, with their families” (Paget 1905: 796).6 Financial and marital alliances among members were common and many shared Jewish roots. Unfortunately, the couple divorced shortly after the death of their two-yearold daughter in  1905 (Lilie  2003:  358). Gertrud married the Hungarian industrialist Elemér Baruch von Felsövanyi (1882–1923) later that year and became the CEO and main shareholder of the Sanatorium Loew when her father died in 1907.7 She lost everything after Austria’s annexation into Nazi Germany in 1938 (Anschluss); her sanatorium was closed that year and she was forced to flee Vienna in 1939, leaving behind her significant art and design collections.8 Gertrud Felsövanyi never returned to her native city and died in California in 1964. Gertrud Loew’s marriage to Hans Eisler von Terramare was short-lived but it left a material and visual trace of enormous importance to design history because she commissioned Koloman Moser (1868–1918) to refurbish her future marital home. Moser was one of Vienna’s most progressive designers of the day and co-founder of the Wiener Werkstätte (1903–32). Gertrud Loew enlisted Moser as her principal interior decorator and he designed all fittings and furnishings.9 This was Moser’s first major project and he commenced work in 1902, which was before the formal inception of the Wiener Werkstätte on May 12, 1903.10 He completed the Eisler von Terramare apartment in September  1903 and employed craftsmen of the Wiener Werkstätte to produce many of his designs for lamps, chandeliers, metal work, silver objects, frames, vases, etc. These contents are now dispersed across private and public collections, or lost. But design historians have access to an invaluable archival resource in the shape of a richly illustrated article published in 1904 by the renowned Viennese critic Berta Zuckerkandl (1864–1945). Her essay in the prominent German applied arts journal Dekorative Kunst introduced readers to Koloman Moser and included thirty-four black-and-white photographs of his recently completed Eisler von Terramare apartment (Zuckerkandl 1904: 329–57). Zuckerkandl was a staunch supporter of the Vienna Secession and of the Wiener Werkstätte. She was the daughter of the Jewish liberal newspaper magnate Moritz

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Szeps (1835–1902) and married to the Hungarian anatomist Emil Zuckerkandl (whose brother Viktor owned the famous Sanatorium Purkersdorf, the Wiener Werkstätte’s first major commission). Berta Zuckerkandl and Gertrud Loew moved in the same social circles and both shaped Viennese modernism: Zuckerkandl as a prolific journalist and prescient art critic and Loew as a progressive patron and salonnière. Zuckerkandl’s article on Moser embedded the Eisler von Terramare’s Vienna apartment into a larger argument on the importance of a modern style. The accompanying photographs played a key role in Zuckerkandl’s advocacy of Moser as a truly modern designer because they enabled readers to witness how Moser “translated his mental conceptualisation into concrete form” (Zuckerkandl  1904:  232). The photographs were taken across the entire apartment and included servant quarters and kitchen, semi-public rooms (dining room, breakfast room, reception area, and hallway) as well as some of the apartment’s more intimate spaces such as the boudoir, office, and marital bedroom [Figures 2.1 and 2.2]. Zuckerkandl located Moser’s design scheme within the parameters of the Wiener Werkstätte’s work program that called for outstanding craftsmanship, high-quality materials, functionality, and the integration of each design element into an aesthetically

Figure 2.1  Koloman Moser, Dining Room Terramare Apartment, Vienna, 1903, photograph, Dekorative Kunst XII (1904), p. 334. (© Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, 4 Art. 49-sk-12, urn: bsb00087521_00364)

Gertrud Loew’s Vienna Apartment and Situated Agency 37

Figure 2.2  Koloman Moser, Bedroom Terramare Apartment, Vienna, 1903, photograph, Dekorative Kunst XII (1904), p. 349. (© Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, 4 Art. 49-sk-12, urn: bsb00087521_00379)

unified arrangement (Hoffmann 1904/05: 268). Zuckerkandl promoted Moser as one of Vienna’s most promising young Raumkünstler (spatial artists) because, in her view, he successfully realized the Wiener Werkstätte’s core design principle of a Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk (Zuckerkandl  1904:  331). Her detailed description of the breakfast room, for example, leaves no doubt that modern design was Moser’s calling [Figure 2.3]: The impression of the small breakfast- and writing room is one of peace and quiet. The furniture is made of Thuya wood with lemonwood and brass inlays in the shape of small figures that lend a beautiful Havana sheen. In addition, the yellow velvet chair covers, the mother-of-pearl grey silk wallcoverings and the striped, white -gold stencilling above, convey a most elegant colour effect. The intarsia shows a repeat of a chalice-like pattern, which is also used on the ­lighting-fixtures and carpets. The construction of the lady’s bureau, which is

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Figure 2.3  Koloman Moser, Breakfast Room Terramare Apartment, Vienna, 1903, photograph, Dekorative Kunst XII (1904), p. 341. (© Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, 4 Art. 49-sk-12, urn: bsb00087521_00371)

equipped on the inside with all kinds of compartments and doors, is excellent because it accommodates a chair that can be pushed into the closed bureau and thus creates a completely smooth surface. (Zuckerkandl 1904: 336)

Moser’s interior for Gertrud Loew’s first marital home occupies an important place in the history of the Wiener Werkstätte. It was not only discussed at length in Zuckerkandl’s essay but it also featured prominently in the Wiener Werkstätte’s portfolio map that was typically shown to prospective clients. Design historians Paul Asenbaum and Ernst Ploil recently suggested that the Wiener Werkstätte rejected conventional advertising strategies in lieu of “specially-produced photographs of the interior décor of its newly opened premises comprising an office and showroom” (Witt-Dörring and Stagg  2017:  549). The beautifully staged photographs in Zuckerkandl’s essay functioned along the same lines. They targeted the journal’s upwardly mobile readerships as potential clients for the Wiener Werkstätte. Yet, despite its extraordinary reception as a truly modern

Gertrud Loew’s Vienna Apartment and Situated Agency 39

Gesamtkunstwerk, Moser’s interior has virtually disappeared from critical accounts of the Wiener Werkstätte. Design historians tend to privilege Josef Hoffmann’s emerging geometric style as a nod toward modernism over Koloman Moser’s sinuous lines and luxurious surfaces that are wrongly seen as vestiges of Vienna’s opulent Secession Style. These binaries are deeply entrenched in central European design history and are only gradually being reexamined.11

Modern Design, Cultural Aspiration, and Unwieldy Objects The remainder of this chapter now explores the complex exchanges between agency and design within the physical and ideological parameters of Gertrud Loew’s modern interior. As previously mentioned, the Loew family moved among Vienna’s elite cultural circles. Following into her father’s footsteps, Gertrud commissioned one of the imminent founders of the Wiener Werkstätte to turn a historicist Ring Street apartment into a modern Gesamtkunstwerk fit for a fashionable young couple. Gertrud Loew had recently been painted by the Habsburg Empire’s most coveted portraitist, Gustav Klimt, and she was a rising star on Vienna’s illustrious cultural–political horizon. But a lot was at stake for the twenty-year-old Gertrud Loew. This commission marked her transition from a carefully protected daughter to head of her own household and custodian of modern culture. Despite her young age, Gertrud Loew beautifully mastered the challenge. She first aligned herself with one of the most fashionable and progressive designers in town and then publicized this alliance in one of central Europe’s leading applied art journals. Zuckerkandl did not name the residents of Moser’s “Apartment for a Young Couple” at the center of her essay. But Gustav Klimt also rarely identified his sitters and guessing their identities when first exhibited formed part of the work’s cultural capital (Bonyhady 2011: 15). Those who mattered and those who moved in the right social circles knew. Gertrud Loew used Koloman Moser’s custom-designed interior to reconfigure her class and gender i­dentities during a crucial moment in her life. She thus consciously and carefully deployed design as agency. But she also acted as an agent of modern design by providing Moser with his first major commission and firmly inscribing the young designer into Viennese modernism. Janis Staggs recently proposed in an essay on modern jewelry: Women who wore Werkstätte jewellery were seen as independent and progressive thinkers and were instantly identified as sympathetic to the firms’ high-minded cause … [The pieces] intended to capture the unique and individual character of its wearer, as expressed through the artistic vision of the designer. The patrons of these works demonstrated their alliance with the firm’s philosophy through their avid acquisition of these avant-garde designs. (2008: 26; 46)

These sociocultural associations hold true for Gertrud Loew. She already wore a fashionable reform dress in Klimt’s 1902 portrait and would have been a ­regular customer of the Flöge Sisters’ Modesalon on Vienna’s chic Mariahilferstrasse, which opened

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in 1904 with interiors by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser. She would have accessorized her outfits with Wiener Werkstätte jewelry and cut a very modish figure. In her public performance of ideal femininity and fashionability, Gertrud Loew enacted prevailing gender roles that governed early-twentieth-century society. And she declared her support of modern design through the built environment. This was not without risk for an assimilated Jewish woman in the conservative surroundings of early-twentieth-century Vienna and “demonstrates degrees of self-will, ­self-preservation, and self-presentation” on Loew’s part (Blossom and Turpin 2008: 2).12 Loew’s self-will and self-presentation obviously manifested in her savvy commissioning of one of Vienna’s leading designers for her modern interior. The idea of self-preservation, however, warrants a brief explanation because it worked on two levels. First, Loew used her family’s considerable cultural capital (e.g., the Klimt portrait) to forge a robust shield against Vienna’s rising anti-Semitism. In this context, her modern interior functioned as both refuge from and reprisal of a ­ nti-Liberalism. Second, Loew’s direct interaction with Koloman Moser and the soon-to-be founded Wiener Werkstätte enabled her to push against the confines of fin-de-siècle patriarchy that tried to pigeonhole her into the confines of a dutiful wife and mother. As her biography evidences, Gertrud Loew was a modern woman who would soon take over her father’s business affairs and indeed divorce her first husband. Gertrud Loew, now Eisler von Terramare, held regular soirées in her newly designed home. These events played a vital role in securing her place within the ranks of Vienna’s second society. The city’s strict social calendar was dictated by women of an older generation and Gertrud Loew deployed her Wiener Werkstätte interior to claim a place among this social elite. But she also signaled her allegiance to a younger generation of designers and their patrons. As previously mentioned, she brought considerable cultural capital into her marriage, but she could not fall back on her family’s reputation alone. Gertrud Loew required a more pro-active strategy to realize her social ambitions. If culture occupies the space between experience and expectation, or in this instance between experience and ambition, then Gertrud Loew’s salon in a purpose-designed Wiener Werkstätte setting was irrefutably implicated in the complex process of modern identity formation. A discussion of Vienna’s vibrant salon culture exceeds the parameter of this chapter, but this social practice offered an important emancipatory space for women like Gertrud Loew, who were highly cultured, wealthy, and more often than not, assimilated Jews. Hannah Arendt described Jewish salons in Berlin as “sites for individuals who had learned to project themselves through conversation” (Arendt  1974:  45). Salons provided important opportunities for social interaction and imbued women with agency, maybe even generating a “women’s culture” (Heyden-Rynsch  1992). This social practice was always tied to a distinct physical environment and Moser’s decorative scheme fixed Gertrud Loew’s salon in time and space. The physical environment situated Loew’s agency. Gertrud Loew thus drew on well-established conventions of salon culture to cement the couple’s position within Vienna’s second society. In the process, she strategically deployed her

Gertrud Loew’s Vienna Apartment and Situated Agency 41

Moser-designed spaces to signal the newlyweds’ support of the city’s progressive cultural circles. Loew claimed authority as a producer of intellectual and material culture. Her interior’s modern design language was of utter importance here because style represents “an important means whereby social groups project their constructed identities and stake their claims in the world” (Powers  1995:  384). Gertrud Loew commissioned Koloman Moser’s decorative schemes to signal her superior aesthetic judgment. Pierre Bourdieu long argued that taste marks class (1979). But Elana Shapira recently pointed out that good taste played an even more significant role in the complex processes of Jewish identification in fin-de-siècle Vienna. She skillfully argued that Jewish patrons “formed a new cultural program that embedded the Jewish micro-narrative firmly in the macro-narrative of European history, so that Jews … would become part of the fundament of Viennese high culture” (2016:  5). Gertrud Loew shaped this “cultural narrative” of modern art, architecture, and design by first commissioning Moser and then showcasing her modern interiors in text and image (Zuckerkandl’s essay) as well as practice (salon culture). In the process, she divorced herself from well-established salonnières such as Josephine von Wertheimstein (1820–94) or Yella Oppenheimer (1854–1943) whose interiors were firmly anchored in the Ring Street’s predominant historicism. In their bid for cultural supremacy, advocates of modern art and design vehemently rejected historicism as an outmoded style associated with Vienna’s old aristocracy. Vienna’s Gertrud Loew declared her allegiance to a new generation of young acculturated Jewish salonnières such as Lili Waerndorfer (1876–1952), Eugenia Primavesi (1874–62), and Serena Lederer (1867–1943), all active supporters of Viennese modernism in art, architecture, and design. Moser’s furniture and decorative objects, however, did not simply function as markers of Loew’s class and gender identities. As discussed above, they were active agents in and of themselves (Latour 1992). Taking her cue from anthropology, Alison Clarke emphasizes that “objects may transcend the desire to control them […] their very materiality may act to create unintentional consequences” (Clarke 2002: 148). Gertrud Loew used salon culture and, to a certain extent, Zuckerkandl’s essay in Dekorative Kunst to embed the objects and spatial settings of her modern interior within the specific politics of liberalism, capitalism, Jewish acculturation, and gender equality. Sadly, the material objects in question could also embody more sinister expressions of anti-Semitism and misogyny. This chapter closes with an example of how the material properties of Loew’s deliberate aesthetic choices could be appropriated by different factions within Vienna’s high culture to launch a virulent critique of, what they called, “le goût juif” (Jewish taste). The eminent architect and critic Adolf Loos (1870–1933) occupied center stage in these theatrics.

Anti-semitism and the Politics of Style Loos embarked on his public crusade against the Secession and its elite patrons in his acerbic essay “Poor Little Rich Man” published on April  28,  1900, in the

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Neues Wiener Tagblatt. He attacked the Secession’s principle cultural platform of the Gesamtkunstwerk as a portentous fad that wreaked havoc with contemporary architecture and design. Loos told the story of a rich man who had everything money could buy. He lived happily with his wife and children in a modern home. But one day, he decided that art was missing from their lives and he commissioned an “interior architect” to redecorate every single room: The rich man was overjoyed. Overjoyed he went through the new rooms. Art everywhere he looked. Art in everything and anything. When he turned a door handle, he grabbed hold of art, when he sank into a chair, he sank into art, when he buried his tired bones under the pillows, he burrowed into art, his feet sank in art when he walked across the carpet. He indulged himself with outrageous fervour in art. Since his plates were artistically decorated, he cut his boeuf à l’oignon with still more energy. People praised and were envious of him. The Art periodicals glorified his name as one of the foremost patrons of the arts. His rooms were used as public examples, studied, described, explained. (Loos [1900] 2003: 18)

However, the family was soon embroiled in a nightmare because they were not allowed to add, move, or take anything away from the architect’s master vision. The story culminates in the “poor little rich man’s realisation that he would never experience happiness again and might as well learn to ‘walk about with one’s own corpse’” (Loos 2003: 21). Loos’s essay displays its author’s famous wit and sharp tongue. He did not sugarcoat his criticism of the Secession. Today, readers know that Loos honed his argument for the ultimate assault on the Wiener Werkstätte and their clientele, which was to come through in his iconic tract “Ornament and Crime” (1908, delivered as a lecture in Berlin 1910). “Poor Little Rich Man” was written two years before Gustav Klimt painted Gertrud Loew and three years before she commissioned Koloman Moser’s to design her marital home. But the essay was undoubtedly leveled against the likes of Gertrud Loew—wealthy, acculturated Jews who supported a vision of modern living that did not align with Loos aspirations. Loos’s critique imbued the very objects used by Gertrud Loew to declare her modernity with negative stereotypes of commerce (art market), effeminacy, fickle fashion, and “le goût juif.” Moreover, Loos’s essay tapped into an increasingly regressive political landscape that witnessed the populist Christian Social Party’s win of the majority seats in Vienna’s Gemeinderat (municipal council) in  1895 and confirmed the party’s openly anti-Semitic leader Karl Lueger as mayor [1897].13 This created a sociopolitical landscape that bred an aggressive type of anti-Semitism and destabilized Jewish claims to modern culture as their calling card into Vienna’s second society. Gertrud Loew’s carefully projected modernity was under threat. As discussed above, objects enact their own agencies and their meaning is never stable. Loos’s scathing attack of the Secession and its patrons reveals that the very same objects used by Gertrud Loew to cement her position as one of Vienna’s taste-makers enacted very different identities and narratives for Loos and his supporters. It could

Gertrud Loew’s Vienna Apartment and Situated Agency 43

be argued Loos simply read Moser’s modern furniture and decorative objects through a different ideological lens. Social history and its focus on context are one of design history’s mainstays but material culture studies open up exciting new critical vistas. This anthology asks readers to consider the “authority of objects” (Betts 2004) but objects can be quite unwieldly and Jean Baudrillard, for example, believes them “to be more clever, more cynical, more ingenious than the subject, which it awaits at every turn” (1999: 259). Baudrillard’s characteristic skepticism opens up fruitful ways in which to separate agency from intentionality, but it also runs the risk of relativism. Design historians have the disciplinary tools to avoid this postmodern conundrum because they (should) launch their critical analysis with an investigation of the material and formal properties of the objects in the first instance. Many of the magnificent pieces of furniture and decorative objects from Gertrud Loew’s marital home were lost in the maelstrom of history. When the couple divorced in 1905, the household was divided and Moser’s unified interiors dismantled. Two world wars further obfuscated the provenance of individual objects. But some key pieces survived and are now housed in museums and private collections across the world. Moser’s writing desk for Gertrud Loew, for example, is now in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum [Figure 2.4]. As described in Zuckerkandl’s

Figure 2.4  Koloman Moser, Desk and Armchair, 1903, veneered in thuya wood and inlaid with satinwood/brass, 145.5 x 119.4 cm. (©Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

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quote earlier in this chapter, the desk was veneered with Thuya wood and inlaid with satinwood and brass. Thuya is a rare conifer found primarily in Morocco’s Atlas mountain range. The tree’s root produces a sought-after burl wood but requires expert carpentry skills. Moser commissioned the Hungarian-born carpenter Caspar Hrazdil to make Loew’s desk (Pichler 2007: 178). Thuya wood’s natural color ranges from orange to reddish brown and Moser complimented its warm tones by specifying brass fixtures and brass inlay for his eight stylized female figures. A geometric pattern of satinwood veneer plays with positive and negative space. The desk rests on metal feet and once opened reveals a mahogany interior with oak-lined drawers. Furniture historian Christopher Wilk rightly sees the desk as combining “the elegance of early nineteenth-century Biedermeier furniture with modern simplicity and geometry” (1996: 194). But the desk’s most enigmatic features are evoked through its chair: when pushed into the desk, it completely disappears into its surface design. Moser described the progress of his first major commission in a letter to his future wife Editha Mautner von Markhof as “both a torture and a joy. Slowly you see the things taking shape which you have planned on paper, and then you find good things and bad things” (Pichler 2007: 178). Moser clearly referred to the interstitial space between design and execution, but his observation of “things taking shape” gains poignancy when put into the prism of agency. The writing desk only comes into its full being when its formal properties are explored through the agency of Gertrud Loew’s body—opening the desk, pulling out the chair, molding her body into the chair, etc. Robert Rotenberg turns to quantum physics to encapsulate these fascinating interactions between agency, materiality, and form: “Like a particle and a wave in quantum physics, the object and its agency coexist in the same moment but are apprehended at different moment. When the object is observed, its agency disappears, and when the agency is observed, the object disappears” (2014: 38). Loos tried to convince readers that life could not happen in a stylistically unified interior because a Gesamtkunstwerk deadened the space; objects in aesthetic harmony kill life. Loos had a point. Moser’s interior for Gertrud Loew’s marital home featured in Zuckerkandl’s essay is devoid of people and staged like a series of showrooms. The photographs are like a “memento mori” in Roland Barthes’s sense of the word: they fix the spaces and objects as real, as having been there, but they lack any kind of human activity (Barthes 1980). There is no sense of the life performed in these interiors. But when design historians closely engage with the material properties of Gertrud Loew’s writing desk, for example, the room comes to life. One has to simply imagine Gertrud Loew opening the door; walking into room accompanied by the rustling of her dress; pulling out her desk chair; smoothing the gossamer fabrics of her skirt before sitting down; reaching out to pull open an oak-lined drawer of her desk; collecting a sheet of paper; dipping her pen into ink; pausing; leaning slightly forward to begin writing her correspondence. Projecting lived experience into Zuckerkandl’s photographs reanimates the supposedly desolate interior. And it reminds us that design culture cannot not be seen outside the prism of agency.

Gertrud Loew’s Vienna Apartment and Situated Agency 45

Notes 1 The painting stayed in the family until 1941 when the Austrian film maker, known Nazi, and self-proclaimed illegitimate son of Klimt, Gustav Ucicky, acquired the work without legal title (Kennedy 2015). The Ucickys stowed Klimt’s portrait away in their Vienna apartment for decades. It only resurfaced when Ucicky’s widow deeded the portrait to the Klimt Foundation in  2013. It immediately attracted public attention as well as an ownership claim from Gertrud Loew’s heirs. The proceeds from the Sotheby’s sale were divided between the Loew heirs and the Foundation. 2 Art historians consider this painting as a key work in Klimt’s oeuvre because it opened up new directions for portraiture in terms of format and visual language (Weidinger 2007). 3 The so-called “separate spheres model” has come under increasing pressure from gender historians who reject the limitations it puts on women’s actual historical experiences (e.g., Davidson 1998). 4 Sanatorium culture played an important social and medical role in fin-de-siècle society, which witnessed a drastic increase in nervous disorders (Topp 1997; Wieber 2011). 5 Anton Loew’s collection included important paintings, such as Ferdinand Hodler’s Der Auserwählte (1893–94) and Gustav Klimt’s Judith I (1901). By 1907, Gertrud was a serious patron of art and design herself. 6 This social construct was also known as Vienna’s money-nobility (Geldadel) or Ring Street society (referring to their residences along this prestigious boulevard). 7 Klimt historians commonly refer to her as Gerta Felsövanyi, but I maintain her maiden name throughout this chapter to underline her agency as a progressive patron in her own right. 8 Gertrud Felsövayni first left for Berlin on April 23, 1939, and then emigrated to California. Her son Anthony Felsövanyi (1914–2013) spent decades trying to get key art works from his mother’s collection restituted but he sadly died shortly before his claim to Klimt’s portrait was successfully resolved. 9 Planning permission for minor alterations on the bel étage was approved by Vienna’s Baupolizei (building authority) on November 21, 1902 (Pichler 2007: 187). 10 The Wiener Werkstätte was founded in 1903 by the architect Josef Hoffman, the designer Koloman Moser, and the financier Fritz Waerndorfer. A discussion of the ethos and history of the Wiener Werkstätte exceeds the parameters of this chapter but a recent exhibition at the Neue Galerie in New York generated a comprehensive c ­ atalogue with excellent scholarly essays and state-of-the art photographs (Witt-Dörring and Staggs 2017). 11 Even Christian Witt-Döring, undoubtedly one of the most prominent historians of the Wiener Werkstätte, most recently argued that “Moser’s design for the Eisler apartment still corresponded to very traditional ways of displaying status when it came to its colours, the atmospheric values of its materials, and the arrangement of its furniture in the room” (Witt-Döring and Stagg 2017: 221). 12 I thank the editors of this volume for bringing this fascinating essay to my attention. 13 Lueger was first elected as mayor of Vienna in 1895 but Emperor Franz Joseph refused to confirm him in office. He did this on three more occasions but his hand was eventually forced by a personal intercession of Pope Leo XIII and Lueger became Vienna’s mayor in 1897 and stayed in office until March 10, 1910.

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Bibliography Appadurai, A. (1988), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Applegate, C. and P. Potter (2018), “Cultural History: Where It Has Been and Where It Is Going,” Central European History, 51 (1): 75–82. Arendt, H. (1974), Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewish Woman, trans. R. and C. Winston, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Barthes, R. (1980), Camera Lucida, New York: Hill & Wang. Baudrillard, J. (1999), Fatal Strategies, trans. P. Beitchman and W. G. J. Niesluchowski, London: Pluto. Betts, P. (2004), The Authority of Everyday Objects, Berkeley: University of California Press. Bonyhady, T. (2011), Good Street Living, Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. De Certeau, M. (1980), “Walking in the City,” in Practice of Everyday Life, 91–110, Berkeley: University of California Press. Choi, N. (2007), “Situated Agency,” in M. Bevir (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Governance, 873, London: Sage. Clarke, A. (2002), “Taste Wars and Design Dilemmas: Aesthetic Practice in the Home,” in C. Painter (ed.), Contemporary Art and the Home, 131–51, Oxford: Berg. Daston, L., ed. (2004), Things That Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science, New York: Zone Books. Davidson, C. (1998), “Preface: No More Separate Spheres!,” American Literature, 70 (3): 443–63. Geritsen, A. and G. Riello (2015), Writing Material Culture History, London: Bloomsbury. Grassby, R. (2005), “Material Culture and Cultural History,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 35 (4): 591–603. Heidegger, M. (1927), Sein und Zeit, Halle: Max Niemeyer. Heyden-Rynsch, V. (1992), Europäische Salons: Höhepunkte einer versunkenen weiblichen Kultur, Munich: Artemis & Winkler. Hoffmann, J. (1904/05), “Arbeitsprogramm der Wiener Werkstätte,” Hohe Warte, 1: 268. Hoskins, J. (2013), “Agency, Biography, and Objects,” in C. Tiller and K. Webb (eds), Handbook of Material Culture: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, 74–84, London: Sage. Janik, A. and H. Veigl (1998), Wittgenstein in Vienna: A Biographical Excursion through the City and Its History, Vienna: Springer Verlag. Karp, I. (1986), “Agency and Social Theory: A Review of Anthony Giddens,” American Ethnologist, 13 (1): 131–7. Kennedy M. (2015), “Gustav Klimt Painting with Sad History to Be Auctioned by Sotheby’s,” the Guardian. Available online: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jun/04/ klimt-painting-with-sad-history-to-be-auctioned-at-sotherbys (Accessed April 6, 2018). Latour, B. (2005), Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lillie, S. (2003), Was Einmal War, Vienna: Czernin Verlag. Loos, A. (2003), “Poor Little Rich Man,” in A. Sarnitz (ed.), Adolf Loos, 1870–1933: Architect, Cultural Critic, Dandy, 18–21, Cologne: Taschen Verlag. Natter, T. (2012), Gustav Klimt: The Complete Paintings, Cologne: Taschen Verlag. Paget, W. (1905), “Vanishing Vienna: A Retrospect,” The Living Age, 246 (3194): 796.

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Pichler, G. (2007), “Kolo Moser’s ‘Apartment for a Young Couple’—Gerta and Dr. Hans Eisler von Terramare,” in S. Tetter (ed.), Koloman Moser 1868–1918, 191–208, Vienna/ Munich: Prestel Verlag. Pickering, A. (2010), “Material Culture and the Dance of Agency,” in D. Hicks and M. Beaudry (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, 191–209, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Powers, M. J. (1995), “‘Art and History’ Exploring the Counterchange Condition,” The Art Bulletin, 77 (September): 382–7. Rotenberg, R. (2014), “Material Agency in the Urban Material Culture Initiative,” Museum Anthropology, 37 (1): 36–45. Sandgruber, R. (2013), Traumzeit für Millionäre: die 929 reichsten Wienerinnen und Wiener im Jahr 1910, Vienna: Styria Premium. Shapira, E. (2016), Style and Seduction: Jewish Patrons, Architecture, and Design in Fin-deSiècle Vienna, Waltham: Brandeis University Press. Sotheby’s (2015), “Lot 26: Gustav Klimt, Bildnis Gertrud Loew,” Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale, June 24. Available online: http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ ecatalogue/2015/impressionist-modern-art-evening-sale-l15006/lot.26.html (accessed July 4, 2018). Staggs, J. (2008), Wiener Werkstätte Jewelry, Berlin: Hatje Cantz. Tilly, C. (2001), “Ethnography and Material Culture,” in P. Atkinson et al. (eds), Handbook of Ethnography, 258–72, London: Sage. Topp, L. (1997), “An Architecture for Modern Nerves: Josef Hoffmann’s Purkersdorf Sanatorium,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 56 (4): 414–37. Turpin, J. and N. Blossom (2008), “Risk as a Window to Agency: A Case Study of Three Decorators,” Journal of Interior Design, 34 (1): 1–13. Ulrich, L., I. Gaskell, S. Schechner and S. A. Carter (2015), Tangible Things: Making History through Objects, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wagner, M. and D. Rübel (2002), Material in Kunst und Alltag, Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Wallach Scott, J. (2008), Gender and the Politics of History, New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. Weidinger, A. (2007), Gustav Klimt, Munich and London: Prestel. Wieber, S. (2009), “The Allure of Nerves: Class, Gender and Neurasthenia in Gustav Klimt’s Society Portraits,” in G. Blackshaw and L. Topp (eds), Madness and Modernity: Mental Illness and the Visual Arts in Vienna 1900, 118–35, Farnham: Lund Humphries. Wieber, S. (2011), “Sculpting the Sanatorium: Nervous Bodies and Femmes Fragiles in Vienna 1900,” Women in German Yearbook, 27: 58–86. Wilk, C. (1996), Western Furniture: 1350 to the Present Day, London: Victoria and Albert Museum. Witt-Döring C. and J. Staggs (2017), Wiener Werkstätte 1903–1932: The Luxury of Beauty, New York: Prestel. Zuckerkandl, B. (1904), “Koloman Moser,” Dekorative Kunst: Illustrierte Zeitschrift für Angewandte Kunst, 12: 329–56.

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3

Gifted Design: Imperial Benevolence in the Needlework of Mary Seton Watts Elaine Cheasley Paterson

The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us … and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations. – James Baldwin (1985)

The histories I carry within me were called forth as I stood in front of Our Lady of the Snows (1906), an exquisite needlework banner by Scottish designer Mary Seton Watts now hanging in McGill University, Montréal. This encounter has shaped my approach to research and to the history of this banner in particular as it intersects with my family history. Should Mary Seton Watts (1849–1938) be considered an agent of design whose needlework banner’s agency is activated when it is gifted to Canada? This designer’s own aspirations from the imperial center, as well as those of government ­decision-makers, philanthropists, and educational institutions, may be understood as “stitched” into the banner Our Lady of the Snows. Consideration of this needlework in situ reveals a constellation of concerns: for craft skill and education as paths to citizenship, for social reform in an imperial context, for child separation as social welfare, for land settlement through agriculture, among others. My approach to this topic, when presented in the context of the Agents of Design/Design as Agency symposium from which this book emerges, was characterized by a listener as a call to action. This was an astute observation, one that continues to shape my approach to this research—part cultural history, part biography, part family oral history. The way these histories might be mobilized to effect change in the current moment is at the center of this discussion of a needlework banner. Our Lady of the Snows was commissioned by Lord Grey, then Governor General of Canada (1904–11), and given to McGill University’s Royal Victoria College in 1907. It was one of more than twelve banners commissioned by Grey from British needlewomen and designers as gifts for educational institutions across Canada (Salahub 2006: 98–101).1 Our Lady of the Snows currently hangs at the Royal Victoria College in the “wardens hallway,” a thruway for students on their way to and from this

residence and easily accessible to all. This chapter emerges from the intersection of two stories: how I came to be standing in front of this needlework banner in Montréal and how standing in front of this banner in the “wardens hallway” of the Royal Victoria College in one of Canada’s most elite universities led to a line of research tied to my own family’s history of education, migration, and settlement. Sharing two personal narratives—one my own, the other my grandfather’s as recounted to me by my father and passed on to my own children—at the outset is meant as an engagement with (and accountability for) my own agency directing this research. Cultural historian Carolyn Steedman claims biographies are written in response to the political and social climate in which biographers find themselves (1990: 5–6). Thus, this chapter begins with a brief account of how I came to write it, to account for my own “self” or subjectivity in the writing process. I have known of these Lord Grey banners, and the one in Montréal in particular, for years but they have remained peripheral to my work, until now. By mapping the making of this banner from its inception within Mary Seton Watts’s creative practice and voluntary social reform work, my goal is to lend new meaning and continued relevance to the banner by pointing to broader concerns for citizenship, education, and settlement shared between center and periphery of empire, and embedded within Our Lady of the Snows.

Encountering Mary Seton Watts My journey with Mary Seton Watts began in the late  1990s, while researching the handmade, Arts and Crafts, Donegal carpets of the Scottish textile manufacturers Alexander Morton & Company. I came upon the catalogue for the 1903 Liberty exhibition “Founding a National Industry: Irish Carpet Exhibition,” in which the designer of a Donegal carpet called “The Pelican” was listed as “Mrs GF Watts.”2 This breach of the usual anonymity accorded to Morton designers and to Liberty exhibitors piqued my curiosity, and I was off to find out more about this woman who had negotiated her own agency into the archival record. The nascent feminist scholar in me could not resist the lure of this sudden naming of a woman artist [Figure 3.1]. This research brought me to Compton, Surrey (UK), in time to see the first exhibition about this creative woman—Unsung Heroine of the Art Nouveau (1998) at the Watts Gallery. It was at this exhibition that I first encountered Mary Seton Watts’s needlework banner Our Lady of the Snows (Gould  1998).3 This large-scale textile project for Canada was captivating, an unexpected highlight of the exhibition, but one that had to be set aside as I completed a history of the terracotta work of the Compton Potters’ Arts Guild (CPAG)—a craft guild founded in 1904 as a branch of the philanthropic Home Arts and Industries Association (HAIA). The Guild came out of the clay-modeling classes for rural artisans and local children Watts ran in her home in rural Surrey. The classes were set up in order to produce the architectural terracotta and interior gesso paneling of the Watts Mortuary Chapel she had built in Compton, Surrey (1898) (Paterson 2005: 714–36) [Figure 3.2].

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Figure 3.1  Mary Watts (née Mary Seton Fraser Tytler), Self-Portrait, watercolor, 1882. (© Watts Gallery Trust)

My initial interest in Mary Seton Watts’s textile design work for Morton & Company soon spread to her social work in east London, then to her Guild and a public commission to build and decorate Compton’s mortuary chapel. In 2014, I once again traveled to the archive, gallery, and chapel. By then the mother of three young ­children, my research had turned to more local archives and to craft guilds formed along HAIA lines in Montréal, Canada, with the aim of exploring transnational networks of home arts reformers (Paterson 2013: 243–68).4 From this new perspective, I turned my attention to researching Mary Seton Watts’s earlier voluntary social work with the HAIA to set it within the larger scope of imperial philanthropy. When considered through the lens of her earlier social settlement work and with the HAIA Council in East London, her later design for two banners, and Our Lady of the Snows in particular, may be understood through a philanthropic, humanitarian ethos which underpinned the concept of a “benevolent” empire at this time.

Gifted Design: Mary Seton Watts 51

Figure 3.2  Exterior detail view of the unglazed terracotta frieze on the Watts Mortuary Chapel. Compton Potters’ Arts Guild, Surrey, England, 1904. In her book, The Word in the Pattern (1904), published to accompany the chapel and explain the broad cultural sources she drew on to create its designs, Mary Seton Watts lists all the people who worked on the building. (Photo credits: author’s photo)

Our Lady of the Snows [Figure 3.3] was one of two large silk banners designed and worked by Watts, as part of a series given by Grey to educational institutions across Canada; most others depicted a St George theme, as requested by Grey for the “principal training Schools and Institutes” in Canada (Grey  1906). Mary Seton Watts’s banner was presented by Grey on behalf of Queen Alexandra to McGill University’s prestigious Royal Victoria College for women in Montréal. The location of this banner is important for the ways it shaped my research focus and points to the banner’s agency. Standing in the “wardens hallway” where Our Lady of the Snows hangs directly across from a series of vitrines documenting the women wardens

52 Design and Agency

Figure 3.3.1–2  Interior view of Royal Victoria College (2016) showing Our Lady of the Snows needlework banner in situ. Mother of pearl, moonstones, crystal, garnets, aquamarine, silk, and velvet painted and applied onto satin, embroidered with gold and silver thread. Collection of McGill University. (Photo credits: author’s photo)

Gifted Design: Mary Seton Watts 53

of the Royal Victoria College since its opening in  1899 led to questions about the educational institution to which it was gifted. The experience echoes anthropologist Tim Ingold’s claim that active engagement with a thing in a space can reframe an investigation (2013: 83).5 This location suggests a partial history of professional and educational opportunities for women in Canada. Encountering the needlework banner sent from England in this space generated further reflection on education, migration, and the social concerns underpinning this gift by Governor General Lord Grey, and on the use of needlework banners made by middle-class British women designed to consolidate empire.

Making and Migration In Burden or Benefit?: Imperial Benevolence and Its Legacies, Australian scholars Helen Gilbert and Chris Tifflin explain how “benevolence … is never simple, and its complications multiply exponentially when the case is not that of the individual within a contained culture, but rather that of an organisation or nation acting across cultures” (2008: 4). Given this, the ways in which the philanthropic social work of London’s east end might be understood as part of the same imperial project as the silk banners for schools across Canada is suggested by Lord Grey himself when he explains in a letter to his aunt, Lady Wantage: “if these banners, hanging like silent sermons on the walls of the colleges, make their message felt … and convert one Hooligan out of 10,000 into a Hero, and one Scalawag out of 10,000 into a Saviour, they will more than justify their cost and all the heart and labour put into their design and execution” (1906).6 Exploring both the “heart and labour” put into the banner Our Lady of the Snows suggests what the message might be for the recipient educational institution, its scholars, as well as the “Scalawags” and “Hooligans” it sought to convert within the context of a northern dominion of imperial Britain. In this case, the “Scalawags” I am interested in are the British child migrants (also known as “British Home Children” in Canada) who also made the journey from center to periphery of empire at this time as part of another social settlement scheme, the child migration movement. My grandfather, Clifford Henry Cheasley, traveled to Canada as a ten-year-old British child migrant sent by Dr Barnardo’s Homes on the Dominion steamship in February 1909 after his mother gave him into care in November 1908 [Figure 3.4]. His two younger brothers were also migrated to Canada this way between  1909 and 1910, each of the three boys (aged 10, 8, and 6) arrived from urban London to a different farm in Canada.7 The tale of this migration was repeated often within my family and suggested that education and skills were offered in exchange for farm work and ultimately a better life in Canada. My grandfather was a skilled carpenter and beekeeper as well as having completed his high school education after his release from indenture on the farm, followed by a Bachelor and Master’s degree in Economics from McGill University in Montréal.8 This part of my family oral history came to mind as I stood in front of the needlework banner Our Lady of the Snows, dedicated to the “children of Canada” and designed to “convert Scalawags” perhaps

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Figure  3.4  “Empire Builders?” in Something Attempted, Something Done, Dr Barnardo’s Homes booklet, February 1913, National Archives, London, file HO144/1118/203442.

ones like my grandfather. The British “child savers” movement with these child migration schemes emerged from the same context as the HAIA craft guild and banner gift of Mary Seton Watts. These histories intertwined at my encounter with this banner in the Royal Victoria College in Montréal to offer a rich terrain for further research. The voluntary social reform ethos that traveled with the British child migrants is also expressed in the gift of the silken embroidered banner hanging in McGill University. By drawing these together I want to begin to consider how this past may be used to draw attention to ongoing challenges facing Canadians today, particularly its child-citizens whose agency is limited and precarious. Our Lady of the Snows (approx. 8.5 x 4 feet) includes an angelic needleworked figure, with elaborate goldwork and delicate appliqué of pearl, crystal, garnet, and aquamarine. The complex and subtle textural effects of the banner are enhanced by its intricate design, delicate appliqué, and needlework.9 The seraph motif of the

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central figure worked in silk and velvet applied to a satin ground, embroidered with gold and silver thread is arguably her signature motif across many media—­notably, on the interior gesso panels and exterior terracotta frieze of the Watts Mortuary Chapel, worked by artisans in her HAIA initiative the Compton Potters’ Art Guild [Figure 3.2]. Although she worked collaboratively in almost every aspect of her creative life, the seraph motif may be understood as a marker of her agency as a designer, community organizer, and social activist as well as her privileged position as a woman of means and the wife of a respected artist with considerable cultural capital. Mary Seton Watts’s personal investment in the banner is clear, as she writes: “I am beginning my banner—this new banner to be given by the Queen to the children of Canada, I want to put everything into it, that can possibly be thought out—A full rounded aspiration to give to the children there” (Watts 1906). Yet this “thinking out” of Canada reflected her perception of this country as a northern dominion of imperial Britain and reproduced the “great white North” of Kipling’s poem, an inspiration for the banner cited in her diary of 1906. Both the poet and Mary Seton Watts’s expansive nationalism meant love of one’s country included an enthusiastic affection for the entire British Empire, what historians have called “Greater Britain.”10 This formulation of empire marks a shift toward what Gilbert and Tifflin refer to as a humane or benevolent notion of empire: “a conception that acts not for itself but for the controlled, and a notion of dominance that is not oppressive but libertarian” (Gilbert et al. 2008: 6–7). Benevolence in this context encompasses philanthropy as well as forms of public, municipal, and humanitarian responsibility and action across Greater Britain. As Grey explained, these banners were most beneficial for “making an impression upon the mind of the rising generation” (Grey  1906). An agent of history, Our Lady of the Snows sparked connection to social welfare initiatives involving education and settlement of Canada, at an elite educational institution and in the form of indentured child labor in exchange for education. Historian Sarah Richardson contends women played a significant role within transnational manifestations of cultural philanthropy, education, and social welfare as these were deployed throughout the “commonwealth” as humanitarian efforts in support of the idea of a “benevolent empire” of Greater Britain. Our Lady of the Snows when viewed in this light points to how philanthropy and benevolence were expressions of women’s agency and should be understood, as Richardson claims, as more than a strategy for middle-class women like Mary Seton Watts to participate in public affairs but rather one of the ways they shaped these affairs too (2008: 91).11 Of particular interest when reflecting on women’s agency is the context for women’s higher education at the Royal Victoria College, where Our Lady of the Snows has been hanging for over a century in the hope of inspiring and reminding its viewers, Grey’s “rising generations,” of their duties as citizens of empire. The origin of the Royal Victoria College can be traced back to the Montréal Ladies’ Educational Association which offered its members university-level lectures in various subjects between  1881 and  1884. The first degrees granted to women at McGill were conferred in 1888. McGill University’s Royal Victoria College was a purpose-built

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women’s residential college opened in 1899, paid for by Lord Strathcona as a gift to the university. Architectural historians have suggested this College was built to segregate these women students within the university setting, gendering these institutional spaces (Miller 1998). Yet the Assembly Hall in the women’s building, where Our Lady of the Snows was first hung, kept a steady flow of visitors streaming into the college for it was the largest gathering space at the university. The hall regularly served as the site of the university’s most ceremonious occasions, including Convocation, at which point the Royal Victoria College became the center of the university. The warden of the college at the time the banner was given was Ethel Hurlbatt (1906–29) although there was an acting warden, Susan Cameron, in 1906–7 when the ceremony took place.12 The history of these wardens is on display directly across the hall from where the banner now hangs in what is referred to as the “wardens hallway.” Hanging within this complex site of women’s university education in ­Canada— conjuring images of femininity and social class in its intricate needlework and precious materials as well as location—Our Lady of the Snows, in its title and design, offers a political stance taken to the settler colonial society to which it was gifted. I look to its designer’s earlier philanthropy as an active social worker in London’s east end to fully understand how this stance is layered within this exquisite banner. Watts’s work in the 1880s included teaching clay-modeling evening classes to “shoeblacks” (mainly young boys shining shoes on the city’s streets) at Toynbee Hall (opened in  1884), among the first university settlements to offer education and social welfare services in the poor Whitechapel district, and her work as a member of the HAIA Council headquartered there. Both Toynbee Hall settlement and the central council of the HAIA were part of an explosion of voluntary social welfare initiatives in the 1880s emanating from London’s east end, intended to benefit poor working families, and whose reach extended across the empire. Initiated in 1884 by Irish-born Eglantyne (Tye) Jebb, the primary purpose of the HAIA was to cast a network of organized philanthropic craft and design education throughout the country to sustain economic development in rural areas. Likewise, founded by reformers Henrietta and Samuel Barnett with the goal of facilitating “close relationships between settlement workers and neigbourhood residents” (Meacham 1987), Toynbee Hall created a vast urban educational network of lectures, classes, clubs, organizations, and projects. As a voluntary social worker in east London, Watts met HAIA founder Jebb and within two years of starting her work in Whitechapel at Toynbee Hall she had been unanimously elected to the HAIA Council headquartered there (by 1886) and asked to serve on its design committee. Through her work with both Toynbee Hall and the HAIA Council, Watts gained an understanding of the finances involved in running a craft workshop, acted as a judge for the annual HAIA exhibitions at the Royal Albert Hall, and received a broad exposure to current design innovations and theories, as well as developments in approaches to social welfare. In Feminism and Voluntary Action, Canadian scholar Linda Mahood explains how within this context, a generation of women discovered that voluntary work and

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social action could be a way of expressing profound personal convictions, talent, and intelligence, and of embracing charity and politics as methods of social criticism and social reform (2009: 34).13 The evening craft classes run by Mary Seton Watts in Whitechapel and later in Compton to prepare for the work on the Chapel or at her pottery guild offered alternative educational routes for those unable to easily access the education system and labor market. Children were frequently the targets of these supplementary educational opportunities (Knott 2014: 7–32). Historian Lydia Murdoch notes a general shift occurred in the 1870s and 1880s as the rising number of public and private residential institutions for children increasingly aimed to provide youths with training as skilled artisans. Work had more than economic worth; it inculcated the values that would lead children to become “depauperised” individuals, “disciplined into orderly citizens and useful servants” (Murdoch 2006: 123–9).14

Crafting the “good life” The social reform circles Mary Seton Watts worked within held education, particularly artisanal, as central to the success of their voluntary social welfare projects with London’s working poor. By offering skilled training to poor youths, these reformers “strove to recapture a preindustrial ideal of self-sufficiency, craftsmanship, and social harmony” (Murdoch 2006: 123–30) in line with many of the design and labor reforms sought by advocates of the HAIA, the Arts and Crafts Movement, and Garden City initiatives. Similarly, education was instrumental to other voluntary settlement initiatives concerned for the children of poor families, specifically the “child saving” movement happening at this time in and around Whitechapel and which included British child migration programs to the colonies. One of the most well-known Victorian philanthropists and “child savers,” Irish-born Dr. Thomas Barnardo (1845–1905), offered the promise of “the good life” (advocated most famously by William Morris), to the children of London’s working poor through education, skill training, and emigration to the idyllic settings of rural Canada. The child migration movement of which Barnardo was a part (there were many other sending agencies) was at its height in Canada at the time Lord Grey’s banners were given to the nation.15 Migration and settlement in Canada were viewed by many as initially holding out the promise of a better life through education and agrarian labor for Britain’s “waifs and strays,” the children of those same working poor offered reskilling at settlements like Toynbee Hall by voluntary social workers, perhaps even Mary Seton Watts. Barnardo contributed to the movement of child-saving between  1867 and his death in  1905 by founding his “Homes” for destitute children and establishing a mass child migration scheme of his own during the  1880s, and which continued long after his death. British children under the care of Barnardo were perceived as being “saved” from the destitution of the industrialized cities of Britain. The aim of the emigration scheme was often presented as an opportunity for poor children to become “productive” and “valuable” citizens in Canada (Koven 2004: 90).16

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An excerpt from an  1888 interview with Thomas Barnardo offers details of the training and residential setup of the Stepney Home in east London: Admission to the destitute is immediate and without the payment or promise of a money gift, without the influence or intervention of patronage … Destitution, homelessness, or, in the case of girls, grave moral peril, constitutes the sole condition of eligibility, and such cases are admissible at once. … The industrial training of all young inmates is looked upon as a matter of the very first importance, every boy and girl, in addition to the rudiments of a plain general education, being taught a useful trade or fitted for domestic service. … The dormitories are the perfection of comfort, cleanliness, and neatness. Each room will accommodate about eighty boys, and every dormitory has its separate matron, who is responsible for its good order. … In the different workshops the lads are taught carpentry, engineering, brush-making, shoe-making, and tailoring. … There are two large school-rooms under the charge of certificated masters and subject to the regular Government inspection. (The Evening News 1888)

Under child migration schemes enacted by the UK an estimated  100,000 British children were brought to Canada from  1869 until the late  1930s, indentured to work as domestic servants and farm laborers in exchange for room and board as well as education to fourteen years old (Lynch  2016:  31).17 Some were orphans (approx. 2 percent), some were poor—many came from families who saw no other option. Many believed that these children would have a better chance for a healthy, moral life in rural Canada, where families welcomed them as a source of cheap farm labor and domestic help. At least at the beginning of the program, the Canadian government subsidized the cost of transporting children from Britain. For each child boarded out, Barnardo’s paid the Canadian family $5  a  month toward the child’s keep to the age of ten. The boarding fees were meant to free the children from large labor obligations and bought them time from the household for the attendance of school. The children worked as indentured laborers until they came of age (eighteen years old). Some were treated well; others were seen as “little workers”; many were abused. The children were supposed to go to school, but this often depended on the farmer’s needs, regardless of the contract of indenture with the child (Parr 1994: 85). The deliberate separation of children from their parents or extended families, advocated by sending organizations like Barnardo’s as social welfare, was not a new idea in the Canadian context by this time (Harvey 2013: 123).18 British child-sending agencies had come under severe scrutiny after the scathing  1875 Doyle Report prepared for the British government. Beyond a short hiatus of the programs, there was little questioning of the benefits of removing children from home and family in the UK. There was no added support offered to the private voluntary agencies in running the programs, as recommended by the Doyle Report: through more careful and vigorous vetting of Canadian farm families, improved facilities for the children in the receiving homes, and follow up visits to the children. The Canadian government responded to the Doyle Report by undertaking its own inquiry which exonerated the child migration schemes of any criticism even though

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it had been unable to trace 31 percent of the children placed by the earliest sending agencies.19 Indeed, according to American historian Ellen Boucher, child migration schemes like that of Barnardo’s and other reformers were presented as a vision of mutual development: of needy children made whole and the settler empire fulfilled. Underscoring British child emigration was an emphasis on the settler empire as a redemptive space for these child-citizens.20 The children’s agency within these initiatives remained precarious, limited, and vulnerable yet in some cases the contract of indenture was used by children to assert their rights. The concept of the child-citizen also emerged in the social reform work of HAIA founder Eglantyne Jebb’s daughter (also Eglantyne) who later founded the Save the Children Fund (1918). In 1924, the HAIA founder’s daughter drew up a simple declaration of children’s rights that was adopted by the League of Nations. It was five paragraphs long and listed the duties adults owed to children. By 1959, the United Nations (following the dissolution of the League) adopted a Declaration of the Rights of the Child which was detailed in ten principles and added to the 1924 declaration by including education and work. In 1989, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) which differed from these two previous declarations by treating children as the subject of rights, rather than object of concern. The CRC provides a framework for the aspirations that exist today for children’s well-being around the world (Morrison 2012: 335–7).21 The intergenerational activist lineage of the Jebb women was woven into the cultural and social work of both the HAIA and later the Save the Children Fund and both ultimately led to this global work on the rights of the child. The social reform work of these women frames the larger picture of agency, benevolence, and imperial philanthropy set out in this chapter and, importantly, draws this history into the present by begging the question: How well are children in Canada and globally faring within the CRC? The causes for children’s suffering today are not ahistorical and, indeed, these British child migrants (or British Home Children) are a powerful historical example. In the Global History of Childhood, Heidi Morrison contends that an understanding of what leads to situations of injustice in children’s lives is critical for fostering a culture of children’s rights, that this contextual awareness dissuades the onlooker from blaming disadvantaged and marginalized children for their own plight and affords them agency. Morrison points to the way recognizing similarities across time and place cultivates a sense of shared humanity (2012: 333–4).22 These Victorian schemes operated through a humanitarian ethos which remains a powerful source of motivation and legitimation for charitable and development work. Scholar Gordon Lynch claims the enduring influence of this n ­ ineteenth-century humanitarian ethos “can be detected in the ways that some organizations involved in child migration work negotiate this legacy, where time is used to exonerate past practice (as ‘of its time’) without demanding an assessment of present ones” (Lynch 2016: 119). Both social welfare scholars and Victorian-era historians caution that a similar humanitarian impulse drives much current development work through NGOs worldwide and that, while such philanthropic schemes may have done

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good work for many individual children, there remain deeper structural problems that continue to produce new generations of “child waifs” whose agency remains unrecognized. Thus, to examine the Our Lady of the Snows banner as linked to this network of reform is not only of historical interest in terms of Canada’s relationship with Britain, of exchange between center and periphery of empire, but also for the insights that doing so may reveal about the current inequities of education, social or development work in Canada. While both the UK and Australian governments have formally apologized for their role in child migration programs, Canada has yet to issue a similar apology to the surviving child migrants and their descendants (roughly 10 percent of the population). Such an apology would be meaningful for drawing attention to the vulnerability of children when their full citizenship is not recognized. Social worker Thomas Waldock points out it could also serve as a prelude to action to enhance the status of marginalized children in Canada and elsewhere through a renewed commitment by Canada to the UN Convention (CRC), incorporating its principles and rights more fully into legislation and practice. This would constitute a substantial legacy for the British Home Children (Waldock 2012: 69–75).23 The purportedly benevolent movement of thousands of children from metropole to periphery of empire reveals much about the parallel movement of philanthropic social and educational ideals espoused by the social workers and “child savers” of London’s east end to colonial dominions. Mary Seton Watts’s philanthropy, when viewed through this transnational lens, is a productive point of entry from which to explore educational opportunities available in Canada, to the women of the Royal Victoria College, Mary Seton Watts’s “children of Canada,” and Lord Grey’s “Scalawags.” It may also offer insight into the ways education was, as Grey believed, instrumental in developing imperial subjects, “the children of Canada” to whom Mary Seton Watts dedicated her banner Our Lady of the Snows.

Acknowledgments This chapter emerges from a paper presented at the Agents of Design—Design as Agency symposium at Concordia University, Montréal. I am particularly grateful to the feedback and subsequent research material sent to me by Dr Annmarie Adams (including the term “wardens hallway”) and for the astute and affirming response to this work by Molly-Claire Gillett. The research for this chapter was funded by grants from the Fonds de recherche du Québec—Société et culture (FRQSC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Notes 1 By  2006, Canadian craft historian Jennifer Salahub had identified and traced twelve banners in Canada to Grey’s project, though the exact number of banners remains

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unknown. For more on the banner project and the St George theme of most of the others, see Common, R. (November 1981: 5–7) and Lovekin, L. A. M. (c. 1910: 12–13). 2 The Pelican was featured in two Liberty’s exhibitions at the Grafton Gallery in  1903: “Founding a National Industry” and “Modern Celtic Art.” See Paterson, E. C. (1999). 3 The centerpiece of this catalogue was the “art nouveau” Watts Mortuary Chapel designed and decorated by Mary Seton Watts and leading to the founding of her Compton Potters’ Arts Guild. Mary Seton Watts’s work in terracotta and gesso, her Compton Potters’ Arts Guild, and her relationship with her husband, the Victorian painter G. F. Watts, featured prominently in the exhibition. In this context, it was surprising to find the large needlework banner, Our Lady of the Snows. It had been shipped to Compton courtesy of Air Canada and McGill University whereas the second banner The Spirit of the Flowers of the Nations was not permitted to travel due to concern (for humidity and other conservation issues at the Watts Gallery) raised by its home institution, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. My thanks to Richard Jefferies for sharing this information with me at the time of my visit to this exhibition. 4 I was very fortunate to bring my family with me on this return trip to Compton and to show my three children the place I had spent so much time working on the history of the Guild and its founder Mary Seton Watts. My current research is also trying to piece together some of the history of those people who worked at the Guild, most of whom are named by Watts in her book The Word in the Pattern (London: William H. Ward & Co., 1904). 5 Tim Ingold also claims that spaces are performed and that this reframing may lead us to new questions not yet considered. My thanks to Molly-Claire Gillett for bringing this to my attention. 6 Letter from Lord Grey to Lady Wantage, 1906, National Library of Scotland. My thanks to Janice Helland for sharing this material with me. 7 Two younger sisters in care remained at a Barnardo’s girls home outside London until 1915 when they sailed together as part of a Barnardo’s party to Canada. The children were listed as “child apprentice” or “farm labour” on the ship records. The youngest of the six siblings sailed to Montréal with their mother in 1910 at two years old (Shipping records and oral history accounts by C. Stephen Cheasley. Barnardo’s family file). 8 He received his high school equivalency from evening classes at Sir George Williams College—a workingmen’s institute in Montréal. The history of Sir George Williams College started as the Young Men’s Christian Association (1851), inaugurating evening courses in vocational and general education in 1873. This system was known as the Educational Program and later, the Montreal Y.M.C.A. Schools. In  1926, the Montreal Y.M.C.A. Schools changed its name to Sir George Williams College in honor of the founder of the Y.M.C.A. (London, England, 1844). Sir George Williams College was intended to expand formal education opportunities for both young men and women employed in Montréal. It became Concordia University upon merging with Loyola College in 1974 (“Stories from the Records Management Archives, Concordia University”). 9 In her diary of  1902, Mary Seton Watts mentions “doing her needlework” suggesting she might have worked on the two banners herself, although her skill as a needleworker

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would have been renowned had she stitched both of the banners herself in such a short time (less than 4 years). What is more likely is that these banners were made by a group of women, perhaps those of the Royal School of Art Needlework (1872) whose founders were known to Mary Seton Watts. The banners’ size, varied materials and techniques, their complex design, and quick completion make it unlikely she worked the pieces alone. 10 The idea of a “commonwealth” of Greater Britain and terms such as its “civilising mission,” at work within many social reform initiatives, imply a shift, according to Gilbert and Tifflin, to a more humane empire, one where the naturalization of child removal was construed as a humanitarian effort (2008: 4). An early account of Lord Grey’s life in Canada explained how his “imperial idealism” had led to the commission of this “series of silken banners,” of which Our Lady of the Snows was among the first to be completed, designed to “hang in colleges and schools of the country, proclaiming the mission of the British Empire” (Begbie, H. 1917). 11 Women of note for this chapter: Henrietta Barnett (co-founder of Toynbee Hall settlement) and her sister the housing reformer Octavia Hill, HAIA founder Eglantyne (Tye) Jebb and her daughters Eglantyne (Save the Children founder) and Louisa (active in HAIA Council), social welfare reformers Maria Rye and Annie MacPherson who founded children’s charities in the UK and initiated migration programs to the colonies for young women and then children from 1869 on. 12 In 2010, the RVC became co-ed with the exception of the west wing, the building where the banner hangs (McGill University Archives: Royal Victoria College RG 42). See also, Roscoe, Muriel V. (1964) and Gillett, M. (1981). 13 In Slumming, Sexual and Social Politics in Victorian London (2004), Seth Koven cites a survey undertaken in 1893 by Louisa Hubbard and Angela Burdett-Coutts that estimated about 500,000 women were “continuously and semi-professionally employed in philanthropy.” Additionally, 20,000 supported themselves as “paid officials” in charitable societies. These figures do not include the  20,000 nurses,  5,000 women in religious orders, and 200,000 members of the Mother’s Unions, which did a considerable amount of charity work and over 10,000 women who collected money for missionary societies. 14 Murdoch explains the Education Act and the creation of the London School Board, both in 1870, meant general educational requirements (among them the mandatory school leaving age of fourteen) increased for all English children. 15 As part of the wider discourse about achieving the “good life” as imagined by late-nineteenth-century cultural and social reformers, the “child saving” movement’s migration programs gained considerable traction at this time among upper class and aristocratic donors, many of whom also supported the social and cultural reforms of the HAIA, the Toynbee Hall, and other settlements. For instance, at the highest levels of philanthropic patronage, Queen Alexandra was a royal patron of the HAIA and Barnardo’s, among many other charitable organizations. Mary Seton Watts’s banner was given on the Queen’s behalf and is sometimes referred to as “the Queen’s banner.” Queen Alexandra was also pictured sending British child migrants off on a ship to Canada and quoted as admonishing the children to “be good.” Earl Grey is listed as a vice president

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of Barnardo’s in the  1906–7 Annual Reports, while prominent home arts advocates including the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland and Lord and Lady Aberdeen are listed as Barnardo’s trustees and Chairs in the 1895–6 Annual Reports (Barnardo’s Archive, Plaistow, London). 16 See also Boucher, E. (2014:  27); and Barnardo’s site: http://www.barnardos.org.uk (Accessed July 25, 2018). 17 Social reformer Maria Rye sailing with her first party of around seventy girls, all twelve years or younger, to Canada from Liverpool in  1869 marks the emergence of UK child migration schemes as a major form of organized welfare intervention (Lynch, G. [2016]). Recent studies on British Home Children or child migrants, including Lynch, Uprooted by Roy Parker, Empire’s Children by Ellen Boucher, build importantly on the earlier work of Joy Parr’s economic analysis in Labouring Children (1994), genealogist Marjorie Kohli’s The Golden Bridge (2003), and newsman Kenneth Bagnell’s The Little Immigrants (1980). 18 The “naturalisation of child removal” seeped into discourses of child rescue and subsequent institutional practices of child welfare throughout empire. See Swain, S. (2014). 19 Report available at Library and Archives Canada “British Home Children, 1869–1932.” The  1879 Davin Report about the efficacy of Industrial Residential Schools for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children, established in Canada as part of the aggressive assimilationist policies of the government, similarly recommended the removal of children from home and family to schools which were far away from the lands on which the children’s families lived in order to fulfill its educational mandate of assimilating the children into settler colonial culture. By the time the Davin Report was released, the idea of separating children from their parents as an effective education—and ­assimilation— strategy had already taken root. The last federally run residential school, Gordon Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, closed in 1996 (Where Are the Children? Healing the Legacy of the Residential Schools). 20 The response to British child migration schemes was mixed in Canada with the negative reports often generated or supported by Dr C. K. Clarke (1857–1924), one of Canada’s most prominent psychiatrists. Along with members of the fledgling eugenics movement, Clarke believed that the proportion of “mental defectives” was higher in the immigrant population than in the Canadian population and by 1919 campaigned to restrict immigration. He gave public talks specifically about the supposed degeneracy of British child migrants and their propensity for criminal behavior. In March 1895, the Windsor Record claimed: “It is doubtful if this dumping of the scrapings of waifdom upon us can be allowed to continue at its present rate. Prison statistics indicate that a percentage of this moral refuse, the offspring of rudimentary men and women in many instances finds its level which is in the criminal class and in the ranks of prostitution” (Bagnell 1980: 71). See also Parker (2008: 151–88). 21 The wide acceptance of the CRC (with the exception of Somalia and the United States) can give the misleading impression that children’s rights are universally recognized. According to the standards set by the CRC, quality education remains an elusive goal for millions of children.

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22 The majority of the world’s children live in poverty—including many in Canada where running water, electricity, and standard education are not a given for every child. The essays in the Global History of Childhood reflect on how to use the past to articulate solutions to problems facing children today (Morrison 2012: 333–4). 23 This idea of how an apology might “do good” is laid out by Thomas Waldock in “Apologize for Goodness Sake! Canada’s ‘Home Children’ and Our History of Discrimination against Marginalised Children.” In Australia, following inquiries, commissions, testimony, and apologies, there has been funding for national history projects to be developed collaboratively among historians, archivists, museum curators working alongside care leavers and sharing their expertise. Shurlee Swain explains that “what is emerging is a ‘contrapuntal history’ which allows for a range of differing and sometimes contradictory views to be represented in a narrative which is not trapped within either the older, more positive, or the newer, overwhelmingly negative, collective memory of out-of-home care” (2016: 150).

Bibliography Bagnell, K. (1980), The Little Immigrants: The Orphans Who Came to Canada, Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. Baldwin, J. (1985), The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948–1985, New York: St. Martin’s Press, as quoted on “Perspectives on History.” Available online: h ­ ttps:// www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/summer-2016/ james-baldwin-on-history (accessed October 1, 2017). Barnardos. “Former Barnardos Children.” Available online: http://www.barnardos.org.uk/ what_we_do/our_history/working_with_former_barnardos_children/child_migration/ childmigration_response.htm (accessed October 1, 2017). Begbie, H. (1917), Albert, Fourth Earl Grey: A Last Word, London: Hodder & Stoughton. Boucher, E. (2014), Empire’s Children: Child Emigration, Welfare, and the Decline of the British World, 1869–1967, New York: Cambridge University Press. British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa. Available online: http://www.bifhsgo. ca/cpage.php?pt=10 (accessed October 8, 2017). Common, R. (November 1981), “The Missing Banners of Lord Grey,” Embroidery Canada: 5–7. Gilbert, H. and C. Tifflin (2008), Burden or Benefit?: Imperial Benevolence and Its Legacies, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gillett, M. (1981), We Walked Very Warily, Montréal: Eden Press Women’s Publications. Grey, A. H. G. Letter of 13 March 1906 from Governor General Grey to Lord Mountstephen (President of the Canadian Pacific Railway), Governor General Grey Papers, National Archives of Canada. Gould, V. F. (1998), Unsung Heroine of the Art Nouveau: Mary Seton Watts (1849– 1938) [Exhibition catalogue], Exhibited at the Watts Gallery, Surrey, UK: Lund Humphries. Harvey, E. A. (2013), “‘Layered Networks’: Imperial Philanthropy in Birmingham and Sydney, 1860–1914,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 41 (1): 120–42.

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The Evening News (1888), “Homes for the Homeless—A Chat with Dr. Barnardo: A Peep at the Stepney Home,” Evening News—London, September 25. Available online: https://www.casebook.org/press_reports/evening_news/18880925.html (accessed October 8, 2017). Ingold, T. (2013), Making: Anthropology, Archeology, Art and Architecture, New York: Routledge. Knott, S. (2014), “Working Class, Middle Class, Upper Class, Evening Class: Supplementary Education and Craft Instruction, 1889–1939,” The Journal of Modern Craft, 7 (1): 7–32. Kohli, M. (2003), The Golden Bridge: Young Immigrants to Canada: 1833–1939, Toronto: Natural Heritage Books. Koven, S. (2004), Slumming, Sexual and Social Politics in Victorian London, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Letter from Lord Grey to Lady Wantage, 1906, National Library of Scotland. MS. 12425. NLS, 54–60, March 9, 1906. Library and Archives Canada. “British Home Children, 1869–1932,” records. Available online: https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/immigration/immigration-records/ home-children-1869-1930/Pages/home-children.aspx (accessed July 20, 2017). Lovekin, L. A. M. (c. 1910), “To Adorn Our College Halls,” Canadian Life and Resources: 12–13. Lynch, G. (2016), Remembering Child Migration: Faith, Nation-Building and the Wounds of Charity, London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Mahood, L. (2009), Feminism and Voluntary Action: Eglantyne Jebb and Save the Children, 1876–1928, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. McGill University Archives, Royal Victoria College, RG 42. Available online: http://www. archives.mcgill.ca/resources/guide/vol1/rg42.htm. Meacham, S. (1987), Toynbee Hall and Social Reform 1880–1914: The Search for Community, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Miller, D. (1998), The Big Ladies “Hotel”: Gender, Residence, and Middle-Class Montréal: A Contextual Analysis of the Royal Victoria College, 1899–1931, MArch diss., McGill University. Morrison, H., ed. (2012), The Global History of Childhood, New York: Routledge. Murdoch, L. (2006), Imagined Orphans: Poor Families, Child Welfare and Contested Citizenship in London, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Parker, R. (2008), Uprooted: The Shipment of Poor Children to Canada: 1867–1917, Vancouver: UBC Press. Parr, J. (1994), Labouring Children: British Immigrant Apprentices to Canada, 1869–1924, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Paterson, E. C. (1999), Handcrafting a National Industry: The Production and Patronage of Alexander Morton & Company’s Donegal Carpets, MA thesis in Art History, Montréal: Concordia University. Paterson, E. C. (2005), “Decoration and Desire in the Watts Chapel, Compton: Narratives of Gender, Class and Colonialism,” Gender & History, 17 (3): 714–36. Paterson, E. C. (2013), “Crafting Empire: Intersections of Irish and Canadian Women’s History,” Journal of Canadian Art History, XXXIV (2): 243–68.

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Richardson, S. (2008), “Women, Philanthropy, and Imperialism in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain,” in H. Gilbert and C. Tifflin (eds), Burden or Benefit?: Imperial Benevolence and Its Legacies, 90–102, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Roscoe, Muriel V. (1964), The Royal Victoria College, 1899–1962—A Report to the Principal, Montréal: Multilith. Salahub, J. (2006), “Governor General Grey’s ‘Little Scheme,” in C. Coates (ed.), Majesty in Canada: Essays on the Role of Royalty, 98–119, Toronto: Dundrun Press. Steedman, C. (1990), Childhood, Culture and Class in Britain, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. “Stories from the Records Management Archives, Concordia University,” Concordia University. Available online: https://www.concordia.ca/offices/archives/stories/sgw.html (accessed September 8, 2018). Swain, S. (2014), History of Child Protection Legislation, Sydney: Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Swain, S. (2016), “Beyond Child Migration: Inquiries, Apologies and the Implications for the Writing of a Transnational Child Welfare History,” History Australia, 13 (1): 139–52. Waldock, T. (2012), “Apologize for Goodness Sake! Canada’s ‘Home Children’ and Our History of Discrimination against Marginalised Children,” Relational Youth and Care Practice, 25 (2): 69–75. Watts, M. S. (1904), The Word in the Pattern, London: William H. Ward & Co. Watts, M. S. (July 29, 1906) Diary held at Watts Archive, Compton, Surrey, UK. “Where Are the Children? Healing the Legacy of the Residential Schools.” Available online: http://wherearethechildren.ca/en/timeline/research/ (accessed July 20, 2017).

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4

Beyond the Couch: Anna Freud and the Analytic Environment Amélie Elizabeth Pelly

Few professions evoke an association to a piece of furniture as strongly as that of the psychoanalyst and their couch. Inviting you to recline to the prescribed 35-degree angle, to let yourself be covered in blankets, directing your gaze away from the analyst and into your own past. Given its drastic effect on the body and on the mind of the analysand, it comes as no surprise that the couch is understood as the locus of the psychoanalytic environment. Yet, to halt our consideration of such environments at the foot of the couch is to diminish the profound, complex and minute orchestration which such spaces underwent during the early years of the profession, and still to this day. Scholars have written on the topic of the designed psychoanalytic interior and, in the interest of doing so, have consistently turned to Sigmund Freud’s (1856–1939) Viennese consulting rooms—otherwise known as the birthplace of ­psychoanalysis— as case study (Fuss and Sanders  2004: Rice  2007). Scholars researching the space benefit from a plethora of visual and textual archives, ranging from Edmund Engelman’s photo-documentation of Berggasse  19, and clinical vignettes, to the present-day Sigmund Freud Museum in London, where all of the original furniture is now displayed and preserved, and a second Freud Museum in Vienna.1 The image of the psychoanalytic interior, which permeates our cultural unconscious, is doubtlessly informed by Engelman’s iconic photograph of Sigmund’s couch. While this ­fin-du-siècle interior retains its title as the primary reference for contemporary practitioners to this day, an alternate approach to the psychoanalytic environment had emerged only a few steps away, across Sigmund’s own foyer, in Anna Freud’s (1895–1982) consulting room. Anna’s analytic environment—the combined space of the waiting room, her bedroom, and her consulting room—reveals her agential use of space and design when understood in relation to her pioneering work in the field of child psycho­ analysis. This specialization may have agreed with the enduring stereotypes of the female analyst as “nurturing, supportive, and emotionally expressive” (Notman and Nadelson 2004: 193) as well as echoing her era’s association of her gender to the domestic and the maternal. Yet Anna both subverted and exploited these expectations in her personal and professional lives. It was she who prompted psychoanalysis to move beyond the ties held to the interior and the couch by differently conceiving

her analytic environment to better suit children analysands and their active egos. Her negotiation of gender norms and social expectations became an opportunity to redefine not only psychoanalytic techniques and models, but the very environment in which it belonged. Within the psychoanalytic interior, the nature of the encounter works to heighten that which is overlooked, offering an ideal setting in which to examine how a space molds and contains traces of its occupant’s agency. Moreover, Anna’s domestic and professional spaces were collapsed into one, a unique framework in which to examine its inhabitant’s evolving position in her field and society. This chapter is dedicated to her early years as a child psychoanalyst (1918–38) and will consider her analytic environment at Berggasse  19 in Vienna, Austria, as photographed by Engelman in  1938. Anna’s analytic environment provides us with an essential opportunity to consider how discrete, and nearly imperceptible, agential gestures inform the spatial configuration and the decoration of one’s interior. Through a close observation and experience of Anna’s lived and designed environment, we can observe the forms through which her intentionality surfaces.

Anna Freud: Expectations and Negotiations Because of the nature of psychoanalysis, in particular the notion of transference—the event wherein the analysand transfers onto her/his analyst impulses which emerge from her/his past object relations—it has been said that the public and private lives of analysts are inseparable (Robinson 2015: 267). Moreover, as Elisabeth Young-Bruehl states in her crystalline biography of the figure, Anna was “a woman whose life was, through and through, psychoanalytic” (2008: 18). To unpack the myriad connections between Anna’s profession, gender, and analytic environment, one must understand the unique upbringing and life she led. Anna was the sixth, and youngest, daughter of Sigmund and Martha Freud (1861– 1951, born Bernays). She was the sole child to have followed her father’s path into the realms of psychoanalysis. As the numerous letters exchanged between Sigmund and Anna elicit (Meyer-Palmedo 2014), communication was fluid between the father and daughter. Her father voiced opinions concerning nearly every aspect of Anna’s life, from encouraging her to turn suitors away, to influencing her choice of career. Sigmund had strongly encouraged his daughter to become a schoolteacher, a path which Anna followed until 1920 when she was forced to resign due to her poor health following tuberculosis (Young-Bruehl 2008: 92). Anna trained as a lay-psychoanalyst—a term employed to distinguish medically trained practitioners from those who entered the profession through training from another psychoanalyst; she began her training in 1918 by undergoing analysis with her father. Her membership with the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society was confirmed in 1922 with the presentation of her first paper, Beating Fantasies and Daydreams, now largely accepted as “a report on her own case” after analysis with her father (Young-Bruehl 1989: 391). In 1938, at the age of forty-three, Anna left Nazi-occupied

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Austria and headed to London, England, along with her father and mother with whom she resided her entire life. They relocated to 20 Maresfield Garden where she lived until her own death in 1982. Anna lived with her life partner, Dorothy Burlingham, in what contemporaries now understand as an ascetic “twinship based on mutual identification” (Burlingham 1991: 618; Young-Bruehl 2008). After the passing of her father in  1939, Anna ensured that Sigmund’s consulting room and study would remain intact for their eventual museum display in the same house in which the Freuds lived. In her notes from an analysis with one of her young analysands, Anna noted, introspectively: “3 kinds of women: wife and mother—genius—governess. I would be g[enius] if analysis would let me” (Heller 1990: 175). Early in her career, Anna appears to have understood and worked to fill three gendered shortcomings: her position as a lay-analyst, her decision to remain unwed, and finally, the absence of biological children all the while working with those of others.

Toward a Complete Analytic Environment Published in  1976, the compiled photographs of Engelman are preceded by a floor plan of the Freuds’ apartments located on the first floor of Berggasse 19. The photographs invite us in from the street and into a covered transitional lobby area connecting the street to inner courtyard. With the distant greenery of the courtyard ahead, the cobblestone path opens to the right onto a staircase. Analysands and visitors would make their way up two flights of stairs, arriving at a landing with two doors. To the left, a door led to the Freuds’ familial quarters and, to the right, a second door marked the passage into Anna and Sigmund’s analytic environments. On this door, a name plate announced Prof. Dr. Freud, 3–4. Anna received analysands here for nearly fifteen years, behind the door which bolstered her father’s titles. Both Sigmund’s and Anna’s analysands shared the waiting room (Spielman 2002: 430), one heavily imbued with the father’s presence. In his hurried attempt to photograph Sigmund’s analytic environment, Engelman only dedicated one still to the waiting room. The photograph depicts a close-up of the room’s most adorned wall where Sigmund’s attestation of membership to the British Psychological Society is hung for all to see. The portraits of Max Eitington, Sandor Ferenczi, and Anton von Freund were displayed. These portraits of the illustrious first directors of the International Psychoanalytical Journal remind us, and the patients of the time, of the medical and patriarchal origins of psychoanalysis2 as developed by Sigmund himself, in his adjunct study. In the waiting room, closely recreated by the Vienna Sigmund Freud Museum, we are reminded of the significant age difference between Anna’s and Sigmund’s analysands. Naturally, child analysands would occasionally encounter adult analysands, or even their analyst’s father himself. In a brief clinical vignette, Anna recalls one such meeting: When I was seeing [this boy], at a time when he was very engaged with his lion story, my father walked through the waiting room which he and I shared, and the

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little boy nodded to me and then said, in reference to my father, “also a sort of a lion.” (Anna Freud, quoted in Spielman 2002: 430)

In her complete clinical analysis, Anna identifies the boy’s lion as a fantastical substitute for his own father, whom he “hated and feared as a real rival in relation to his mother” (A. Freud 1966: 74). It is impossible to say whether the boy’s allusion to Sigmund as lion was an explicit reference to his lion being his own father, or to the similarity in character between his father and his analyst’s father. What is undeniable, however, is that like a lion, Sigmund claimed the territory of the waiting room as primarily his through the bourgeois fin-de-siècle décor, the certificates, and his physical proximity; in other words, it was a paternal space of prestige. Having only reached the waiting room, analysands were already exposed twice to Sigmund’s professional and paternal superiority. Yet this peculiar arrangement of the shared waiting area was far from causal. The arrangement resulted from Anna’s desire to rid herself of the “terribly grubby” wallpaper found in her bedroom in 1920, which her mother Martha refused to remove (Anna to Sigmund, November 1, 1920). Here, her father’s support is manifest as he suggested that Anna move to the street-facing quarters, previously the boys’ room (Pressler  2017:  22). During her early years of involvement with the psychoanalytic community, Anna very much acted as an extension of her father, through her position as his secretary, both by becoming his analysand and by allegedly perpetuating his own theories through her research (Sayers 1991). Hence, while it is tempting to accept this period of Anna’s career as marked by her complete adherence to her father’s practice, this reductive view would benefit from being challenged. Given her highly calculated nature,3 this move can similarly be understood as a strategic launch to her professional psychoanalytic career. After all, if her father’s reputation persists to loom over her own name, even in the annals of history, we must recognize that it simultaneously bolstered her own standing at the time and most certainly gave her a base to evolve from. In her early years as a child analysand, Anna employed means which were readily available to her, such as moving into the street-facing quarters of Berggasse 19 and undergoing the required analysis with her father, in order to evolve within her chosen field. Moreover, her analysis with Sigmund was commonplace, a requirement for any lay-psychoanalyst in training. This analysis was a crucial point for Anna’s ­self-realization, informing her later theories such as her entrance paper on beating fantasies (1922) and her first book, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence (1936) (Young-Bruehl  2008:  104). Choosing to view these years as a period of compliance toward Sigmund and his psychoanalytic theories is therefore to overlook the ways agency can be harvested from within one’s lived context, and not necessarily through revolt, distance, or difference with that which precedes. As per Naomi Choi’s ­definition of a situated agent, Anna was capable of “using and modifying [her] social context … according to the means [she] held” (2007: 873, italics are mine). The waiting room bore the hallmarks of accumulation and ornamentation, adorned in rich motifs and wallpaper, with walls covered in medical certificates, photographs

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of Sigmund’s professional connections, and the print reproductions of mythological scenes. The door to his consulting room ajar, Sigmund’s iconic décor seamlessly flowed out into the waiting room. A break in decoration, and in decorum, from traditional to modern, marked Anna’s analysand’s transition toward a distinctive analytic experience.

Displaying Privacy Having met her analysand in the waiting room, Anna would escort them once again through the foyer, down a dark hall, toward her consulting room. Before arriving at the consulting room, it was necessary for her analysands, and possibly their parents, to walk through one final room; Anna’s bedroom. As previously mentioned, Anna moved to her new quarters in 1921. Within the family dynamics, this shuffling bore the apparent trace of her father’s support and approval, and unexpectedly made way for Anna to further affirm her taste and independence from bourgeois standards (Pressler 2017: 22). From then on, her own bedroom was located behind the door announcing her father’s name rather than within the family’s living quarters. While this passage into the analyst’s intimacy suggests that her personal life unfolded within the realm of her father’s professional life,4 this unique configuration reveals much more about the crafting of the child psychoanalyst’s public image, and its inextricable relation to her private life. On his documentary mission of Berggasse 19, Engelman omitted to photograph Anna’s bedroom, the very preamble to her consulting room. In his memoir, he details the course of the three first days during which he avidly documented the birthplace of psychoanalysis at the request of August Aichhorn, a close friend and colleague of the Freud family (Engelman 1976: 134). The photographer’s memoir does not relate any conversation with Anna concerning the decision of photographing her consulting room and of omitting her bedroom. This being said, by excluding the connecting doorframe from the photographic frame, we are presented with a false sense of an independent, non-domestic consulting room as the location of Anna’s practice. Anna’s decision to have her bedroom as the penultimate transitional area before her actual consulting room necessarily entailed a reflection on the analyst’s public and private lives. As previously mentioned, it was known that she balanced two important gendered shortcomings before her analysand and their families: she was a pioneering child analyst yet also a lay-analyst, and, she was a woman, hence, by her epoch’s gendered expectations surely a maternal figure, but without biological children. At times, the criticism went so far as to accuse her of being underserving of any fame beyond her surname (Heller 1990: 127). To remedy to this, the bedroom seems to have been conceived as an appeasing space: Dear Ernst, […] both rooms have turned out beautifully, much better than I had ever imagined. The bedroom has all of the light furniture, the toilette has been moved in between the two cupboards against the long wall, with the bed ­opposite in the window corner. The wash-stand is hidden by the folding screen and the

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middle is clear; the whole thing looks very much like a bedroom (Shlafzimmer) and dressing-room (Ankleidezimmer). (Anna, quoted in Pressler 2017: 22)

The ensemble of the bedroom offered healthy policing of Anna’s private life. Punctured by two large doorways, the bedroom itself became an extension of the hallway, a fleeting instant for the passerby to absorb. Moreover, a large window opens onto the passing street of Berggasse, through which a considerable number of smaller windows created the sense of a passive yet constant gaze into the room. The white, tinged with blue, of Anna’s furniture and walls must have aided in effacing any sentiment of guilt for having trespassed or having gazed at the private, all the while appeasing those who penetrated the space by the lightness of it all.5 The humble size of the room ensured only a single bed could, unpretentiously, occupy a corner of the room. Opening up her bedroom as a public space served to attenuate any suspicions of a deviant lifestyle or sexuality, presenting her as a single daughter, and most certainly served to comfort and present herself to the child analysand as a domestic, ascetic figure.6

Gesturing toward Agency Emerging from the bedroom, we enter the psychoanalyst’s consulting room [Figure 4.1]. Given the direction of the light and the shadows cast on the table and vase,7 the couch is the first element to appear before the visitor. Notably, Anna’s couch aligns itself in space and in orientation with Sigmund’s own analytical couch, resting along the other side of the same wall. Anna’s couch is nestled within her analytic environment, suggesting its function as part of the analytic environment rather than its epicenter. It is bordered by a towering bookcase at the head while a large cupboard, designed by modernist Viennese architect and interior designer Felix Augenfeld (1893–1984), rises at the foot.8 A circular, three-legged table, covered by a needlepoint tablecloth and enlivened by a vase bearing five mature poppies, is placed near the couch. Against the wall, the couch is lined with pillows extending the couch’s plush body onto the solid, flat surface of the wall while knit blankets adorn its surface. As a whole, this ensemble enables her younger analysands to adopt a position other than the prescribed semi-reclined analytic posture comfortably, if they wish to do so. As would a child’s play pen, this configuration emulates both the safety and comfort which are ever present during one’s childhood. While Fuss and Sanders describe Sigmund’s upright, erect, position behind the head of his semi-reclining patient as evocative of sexual tensions, regardless of the analysand’s gender (2004: 40), an entirely different reading is necessary given Anna’s desire to accommodate her analysand’s needs. Throughout her clinical vignettes, we read of the child psychoanalyst’s movement through space during sessions; from the chair, behind or in front of her analysand, to standing near the stove along the wall to the right of the couch [Figure 4.2], or even sitting next to her analysand at her desk, situated between the two windows facing Berggasse [Figure 4.3] (Heller 1999: 35).

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Figure 4.1  View of Anna Freud’s consulting room at Berggasse 19, Vienna, Austria, in 1938. Photographed by Edmund Engelman. (Freud Museum, London)

It has been remarked by contemporary philosopher, feminist, and psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray that “it may be necessary for the psychoanalyst to invent gestures which prevent the economies of the two subjects becoming intricated” (1989: 127). By sitting in plain sight of her analysand Anna made herself accessible, vulnerable, and exposed to the transference and free associations which analysands were encouraged to explore. Moreover, Anna risked inhibiting the analysand’s transference by being present in their field of vision, as well as by engaging verbally in dialogue and by returning the analysand’s gaze. Anna did not emulate her father’s spatial positioning, that is, of sitting behind the analysand, nor did she refrain from using dialogue during the session. Hence, it was necessary that the child psychoanalyst have some other gesture which enabled both child analysand and analyst to retain their analytic individuality. In Anna’s case, knitting, and later weaving, became the gesture which shielded her.

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Figure 4.2  View of Anna Freud’s consulting room at Berggasse 19, Vienna, Austria, in 1938. Photographed by Edmund Engelman. (Freud Museum, London)

Figure 4.3  View of Anna Freud’s consulting room at Berggasse 19, Vienna, Austria, in 1938. Photographed by Edmund Engelman. (Freud Museum, London)

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The topology of knitting or tapestry afford the analyst such intelligent and subtle opportunities both for listening to a patient, whether male or female, and for preserving the liberty of both partners in the scene. (Irigaray 1989: 128)

The intersection of knitting and psychoanalysis is rich in conscious and unconscious associations. The creative act has been suggested as a sort of defense mechanism for the analyst from the analysand (Irigaray 1989), a manifestation of penis-envy, or, in simpler terms, a cover for the absence of desired genitals (Young-Bruehl 2008: 45), as well as being the result of a “compulsive logic of the unconscious” which engulfs “saving, collecting, weaving” as part of the realm of women and the realm of compulsive and obsessional activity (Fer 1999: 250). One child analysand also bluntly transferred upon Anna’s weaving, calling the act “man and woman: the thread goes into the hole” (Heller 1990: 133), an explicitly sexual gesture reenacted. Beyond the unconscious motivations which we cannot discern, Anna concretely employed the craft as both an ingenious embodiment of maternal comfort toward her analysand, a brash and defiant act in the face of the phallocentric psychoanalysis at this time and, on a personal level, an attempt to belong within the household’s women. In 1927, Anna conducted the analysis of the future “father of psychosocial development,” Erik Erikson (1902–94). As historian Janet A. Sayers informs us, Erikson, who grew irritated by Anna’s knitting during analysis, became smitten once he was presented with a handmade sweater for his newborn son (1991: 160). In this case, Anna’s patient was not one of her child analysands. However, the result transpires in a similar fashion nonetheless: knitting, and the resulting creation, were employed as soothing agents within Anna’s analytic technique. Erikson may have been irritated by the act for he believed it was taking away from his analyst’s attention on his issues. When the creative process resulted in a mark of attention toward his newborn child (virtually an extension of himself), the suspicion was appeased. Similarly, on occasion, Anna would knit clothing for their dolls and teddies to gain her young patient’s confidence (Sayers 1991: 154). During analysis, children could relate to their analyst’s occupation of knitting as one most probably practiced by their maternal figures of their own lives. Since she could be seen as occupying a liminal status as daughter-mother/lay-analyst, Anna may have felt the need to account for these maternal traits otherwise required by her child analysand, and further prove that her deviance from the norm was in fact no threat. While this association bears some standing historically, it should be understood that Anna believed that mothering as an analyst was detrimental to the profession, promising more than psychoanalysis could actually offer (Sayers 1991: 199). Hence, this is not to say that Anna’s intent was to be maternal, nor was it to replace the mother, but rather to evoke a sense of familiarity. In this way, the psychoanalyst could discuss with the young analysand, approaching them with advice and education on various topics. Anna’s craft hobby should not solely be considered as a means to emulate motherhood, to soothe and to conform. By profession, Anna was aware of her father’s theories on femininity and penis-envy, and if she did not internalize them as his

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daughter then she certainly did as his secretary, translator, and colleague. The crafts of weaving and knitting, according to Sigmund himself, were a way by which women sought to conceal their lack of male genitals (Young-Bruehl 2008: 45). Fortunately, knitting did not only appear from a space of lack for Anna but was rather a means for the lay-analyst to reaffirm her femininity in a setting within which her maternal touch was an asset and could have been repudiated in honor of a medical, sterile emulation of her father’s techniques. By knitting in such proximity to the man who conceived the act as one of lack, Anna not only reaffirmed her pride in her gender, but also claimed ownership over its presupposed lack, all the while reminding us of her defiant nature9. Knitting was also, concretely, a method for Anna to bond with the female figures of her household (Young-Bruehl 2008: 45), those from whom she was professionally and spatially isolated. Although Anna worked and lived outside of the living quarters at Berggasse  19, her mother, Martha Freud, and her aunt Minna Bernays (1865– 1941) who occupied the familial apartment across the door way, were known to be avid knitters and also skilled at needle work (Ransohoff 1976: 69). Anna’s older sister Sophie (1893–1920) was also exceptional at the craft, arousing much jealousy and competitive motivation on behalf of the youngest sibling (Young Bruehl  2008:  45). Within this familial context, Anna struggled to integrate into her mother’s knitting circle given her lack of talent at the craft (Sayers 1991: 147; Young Bruehl 2008: 45). As Young-Bruehl relates, Anna, who was far from talented at knitting, persisted to knit to such an extent that it became somewhat of an obsession, which led her parents to request she stop. Ultimately, it was this behavior which spurred Sigmund’s theories on knitting and gender. If only as a final comment about Anna’s gesture of knitting, I would like to remark that the craft became a tangible capital gain which enabled the psychoanalyst to further her life’s work. As Young-Bruehl tells us, Anna’s knitting increased toward the end of her life, putting toward a fundraiser for the Hampstead Clinic, a later expansion of the analytic environment (2008).10 In all the intersections of the gesture and the practice, knitting proves an act for psychoanalysis, whether directed at the analysand or at the analyst’s well-being.

Between Two Movements Returning to Engelman’s photography of the consulting room, our gaze slips down from the couch and onto the floor, we are met with an Oriental rug of reds and greens. The latter connects the space of the consulting room across Engelman’s two photographs, covering most of the floor [Figures 4.1 and 4.2]. Stylistically reminiscent of her father’s own couch and overthrows, the actual activation of this Oriental rug through Anna’s interactions, denotes the child analyst’s responsive, adapted, and expanded psychoanalytic technique. Through another clinical vignette with six-year-old analysand Adelaide Sweetzer we begin to understand the extent to which Anna’s analytic environment outgrew the couch:

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Sitting on the floor and pointing to a pattern in Anna’s oriental rug, the little girl asked, “Will it take as many days as there are red bits? or even as the green bits?” No, treatment would take much longer—at least as many days, Anna indicated, as there were medallions on her rug. That said, her young patient helped persuade her parents to let therapy continue. (Sayers 1991: 153)

Anna’s shifting spatial relations with her analysand was in itself remarkable for its departure from prescribed techniques. The very action of permitting her analysand to sit on the rug, on the floor, further testifies to Anna’s independent configuration of the analytic environment. If Sigmund’s couch enacted “a serviceable memorial to psychoanalysis in its infancy” (Fuss and Sanders 2004: 39), his daughter’s work with child psychoanalysis propelled the field into maturity, displacing the couch as locus of analysis, in favor of an expanded analytic environment where movement, storytelling, and board games were permitted (Heller 1999: 161). Engelman’s second plate of Anna’s consulting room also includes the wall opposite the two windows [Figure 4.2]. A modern bookcase, also commissioned by the child psychoanalyst from Felix Augenfeld, occupies most of the frame from left to near-center. To the right of the tile stove, a twentieth-century Japanese traveling chest, also known as a Tansu11 lined the dividing wall between Anna’s rooms. In contradistinction from her father’s fin-du-siècle interior, Anna acquired pieces from a modernist designer in order to furnish her space. Augenfeld studied in Vienna under Adolf Loos (1870–1933) in the early twentieth century and appears to have adopted Loos’s belief that ornamentation should be significantly reduced within the bourgeois interior. Accordingly, Anna made sparse use of decorative elements, with a balanced quantity of personal mementos. Her preference for uniformly painted walls over wall paper informs us of her awareness and inclusion of her contemporary’s creations and the changing times. Anna later employed Augenfeld as an architect to rebuild her cottage, Hochrotherd, in 1931. Ernst L. Freud, Anna’s brother, was an interior decorator and architect who participated in this project as the architectural designer (Welter 2012: 30), in collaboration with his sister. Hochrotherd was an opportunity for Anna herself to participate in the actual building of the home, learning how to lay bricks and build some of the roof (Welter 2012: 24). Visually, and by association to her brother’s professional inclinations, with whom she discussed her living arrangements and their betterment at Berggasse among other projects (Welter  2012:  24), Anna’s sense of modernity seems to coincide with her sibling’s. For the domestic environment, being modern did not mean one should be bold, but rather to be thorough with materials, and to recognize the inhabitant’s investment in the space. In short, “an ideal home should be conservative as it had to please the public, meet present needs rather than recreating past or anticipated future ones, and generate feelings of being comfortable” (Welter 2012: 44). This demonstrates that while Anna’s awareness of the modernist movement and of the preceding fin-de-siècle interior supplemented the creation of her own interior, it was neither fully tinted by one movement nor by the other,

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becoming rather a space where Anna could independently construct the public image she wished to present to analysands and other visitors. Considering both the Tansu and Anna’s cottage, it is essential to note that traveling was a substantive part of the psychoanalyst’s private life. As aforementioned, Anna lived most of her life in what contemporaries now begin to accept as a monogamous, ascetic, and psychoanalytic relationship with Dorothy Burlingham, a husbandless American woman with children of her own (Young-Bruehl 2008: 3). In Vienna, Anna’s private and professional lives belonged to the public sphere. Traveling outside of Berggasse to other familial homes or cottages of her own seem to have provided a space of privacy, intimacy, and liberty to be “at home” (Young-Bruehl 2008: 136).

Toward a Recognition of Agential Subtleties Anna instinctually considered the essentials of expanding the analytic environment through her reflection of her professional relation to her child analysands, making use of space—including furniture, décor, and the negotiation of the private/domestic and the public/professional. She succeeded in forging a legacy of psychoanalytic theory and practice which has come to engulf the male-dominated profession. Today, child psychoanalysts act as “developmental object[s]” rather than parental figures (Sugarman 2018: 109). The psychoanalytic environment heightens the need for us to consider the many subtleties of the designed interior as it is a setting which is inherently organized by principles and theories which are intangible. Hence, analyzing Anna’s agency through the space of her analytic environment generates endless elements of inquiry which exceed the scope of this chapter. Why did Anna display the portrait of Dr. Freud, executed by Ferdinand Schmutzer, above her own couch? Did this portrait hang as a lay-analyst certification, or perhaps a sign of allegiance?12 What did the mirror integrated in Augenfeld’s bookcase reflect, and for whom, during analysis? Although the beauty of history is in part the loss of such fleeting lived experiences, careful examination of Anna’s analytic environment can still exponentially enhance our appreciation of space, psychoanalysis, and gender negotiations. Anna’s interior, situated at this very intersection, only begins to illustrate how one can exert agency not only through the assemblage of furniture and objects, but through the gestures which activate them, and which occur in the space in between.

Notes 1 In May of 1938, Sigmund, Martha, and Anna fled Nazi occupied Vienna with the help of Ernst Jones and Princess Marie Bonaparte. The family succeeded in bringing with them all their personal belongings, including Sigmund Freud’s extensive archeological collection. This exile resulted in the creation of two Freud house museums: 20 Maresfield Garden, in London, which holds all the original Freud furniture and belongings, and Berggasse 19,

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in Vienna, where Freud’s Viennese apartment exhibits Edmund Engelman’s photographs of the space before the exile. 2 Sigmund Freud displayed portraits of the women of psychoanalysis within the private space of his study, as demonstrated in Plates 33 and 34 of Edmund Engelman’s photographic book. These included Marie Bonaparte, Lou Andreas-Salome, and Yvette Guilbert. 3 Anna demonstrated foresightedness on many occasions, most markedly in her absolute conservation of her Father’s analytic environment at 20 Maresfield Garden. This enabled the creation of the present-day Sigmund Freud Museum, London. She also ensured that certain psychoanalytical documents would only be publicly released in the future, as is the case with Marie Bonaparte’s correspondence with Sigmund Freud which will be released in 2020. Hence, Anna’s proactivity ensures a maintained interest in the field of psychoanalysis, to this very day. 4 For a complete discussion of Anna’s analytic environment in relation to public and private realms, see Pelly, A. “Mother and Wife—Governess—Genius”: Anna Freud and the Analytic Environment, Master’s Thesis, Montreal: Con. U, 2019. 5 In 2016, the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna, Austria, recovered a Psyche found in Anna’s bedroom at the time that the family lived in Berggasse 19. 6 The concept of Ascetism was first introduced with regard to Anna’s sexuality in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl’s 1988 biography of Anna Freud. 7 Engelman did not employ any flash during this photographic séance of Berggasse 19 for fear of alerting the Gestapo which were said to be constantly surveying the Jewish psychoanalyst’s apartment and occupying the upper floors of Berggasse 19 (Fuss and Sanders 2004: 32; Engelman 1976: 135). 8 Object number 4926, Sigmund Freud Museum in London. Produced in 1920. 9 Constance Casey remarked in her  1991 Los Angeles Times review of Janet Sayers’s Mothers of Psychoanalysis: “(It) took guts for Anna to sit there clicking away since her father, Sigmund Freud, had explained that knitting was motivated by women’s desire to conceal ‘their genital deficiency’” (How Four Good “Mothers” Changed Analysis, 1991). 10 The Hampstead Clinic, today known as the Anna Freud Centre, was founded in 1952 by Anna, Dorothy Burlingham, and Helen Ross, as a teaching, research, and treatment clinic for children. The Hampstead Clinic provided a new setting in which a full psychoanalytic treatment could be obtained, especially for children from less fortunate backgrounds. 11 Object number 4924, Sigmund Freud Museum, London. 12 A similar portrait was found in Marie Bonaparte’s analytic environment, as well as in the dining area in Berggasse 19.

Bibliography Burlingham, Michael J. (1991), “The Relationship of Anna and Dorothy Burlingham,” Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 19 (4): 612–19. Engelman, E. (1976), “A Memoir,” in Berggasse 19: Sigmund Freud’s Home and Offices, Vienna 1938, 131–43, New York: Basic Books.

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Fer, B. (1999), “The Work of Art, the Work of Psychoanalysis,” in Perry, G. (ed.), Gender and Art, 240–51. London: Yale University Press and Open University. Freud, A. (1966), The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, trans. Cecil Baines, New York: International Universities Press. Fuss, D. and J. Sanders (2004), “Freud’s Ear,” in The Sense of an Interior: Four Writers and the Rooms That Shaped Them, 31–47, New York: Routledge. Heller, Peter (1990), A Child Analysis with Anna Freud, International Universities Press. Irigaray, L. (1989), “The Gesture in Psychoanalysis,” in Brennan Teresa (ed.), Between Psychoanalysis and Feminism, 127–37, London and New York: Routledge. Meyer-Palmedo, I., ed. (2014), Freud and Freud: Correspondence 1904–1938, trans. Nick Somers, Cambridge: Polity Press. Notman, M. T. and Carol C. Nadelson. (2004), “Gender in the Consulting Room,” The Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, 32 (1): 193–200. Pressler, M. (2017), “The Apartment Is Doing Well.” The Freuds at Berggasse 19, Vienna: Sigmund Freud GmbH. Ransohoff, R. (1976), “Captions to the Photographs,” in Berggasse 19: Sigmund Freud’s Home and Offices, Vienna 193, 55–71, New York: Basic Books. Rice, C. (2007), The Emergence of the Interior: Architecture, Modernity, Domesticity, London: Routledge. Robinson, K. (2015), “Book Reviews. Correspondence 1904–1938: Sigmund Freud and Anna, edited by Ingeborg, Meyer-Palmedo, trans. Nick Somers. Published by Polity, Cambridge, 2013; 536 pp,” British Journal of Psychotherapy, 31 (2): 267–78. Sayers, J. (1991), Mothers of Psychoanalysis: Helene Deutsch, Karen Horney, Anna and Melanie Klein, London: W. W. Norton & Company. Spielman, R. (2002), “Books Reconsidered: The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence. Anna Freud, 1938,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 36 (3) (June): 430–4. Sugarman, A. (2018), “The Importance of Promoting a Sense of Self-Agency in Child Psychoanalysis,” The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 71 (1): 108–22. Welter, Volker M. (2012), Ernst L. Freud, Architect: The Case of the Modern Bourgeois Home, New York: Berghan Books. Young-Bruehl, E. (1989), “Looking for Anna’s Mother,” The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 44 (1): 391–408. Young-Bruehl, E. (2008), Anna: A Biography, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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5

Multum in Parvo : Scale and Agency in the Thorne Miniature Rooms Erin J. Campbell

The Thorne Miniature Rooms in the Art Institute of Chicago are easily one of the most popular exhibits in this world-renowned museum. Displayed in an intimate, low-ceilinged gallery on the lowest level of the museum, these diminutive rooms, as interiors within an interior, provide the consummate experience of interiority. Peering through a series of small windows placed at the eye level [Figure  5.1], the viewer enters what Susan Stewart, in her book On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, has called “the infinite time of reverie,” produced by a phenomenology of scale that fosters the sensation of spatial trans­ cendence, transforming time and history.1 Designed originally for educational purposes, the miniature rooms were assembled between  1920 and  1940 under the direction and patronage of Narcissa Thorne.2 The series consists of sixty-eight rooms, including European interiors from the sixteenth century through the 1930s, American interiors from the seventeenth century to  1940, and a Chinese and Japanese interior. Many of the rooms are inspired by historical interiors and are based on extensive research. Conceived on a scale of one inch to one foot, the furnishings were created by a dedicated team of craftspeople committed to precise reproduction and quality (Foote 1943: 121; Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 18–21). As evidence of their importance to the museum and to the public, considerable resources are devoted to their ongoing conservation, stewardship, and display, including a Keeper of the Thorne Miniature Rooms whose job it is to maintain the rooms and provide historically appropriate seasonal decorations (see, for example, Chicago Tonight 2012).3 Recognizing that the Thorne Miniature Rooms continue to play a role in the history of the interior, this chapter explores the miniature rooms as agents of design. The editors of this volume have defined the agency of design in these terms: “Design itself, in its various material and ideational manifestations, informs one’s perception and experience of the world, thus asserting its own agency whether it be as a social, cultural, political and/or economic force to be reckoned with” (see Potvin). In this chapter, I argue that the Thorne Miniature Rooms provide a unique opportunity to demonstrate the continually unfolding and intertwined activity among design, environment, and people. Such an ecological approach to design agency emphasizes the mutually constituting and enmeshed agencies of people and things, in which

Figure 5.1  Miniature of a French Salon of the Louis XVI Period (with shadow of a viewer), Thorne Miniature Rooms, Art Institute of Chicago. (Photo credits: Creative Commons/ Giovanni-P, 2008)

the spatial, material, and social are interwoven (Ingold 2006: 10; Ingold 2011: 168; Withagen et  al.  2012:  257; Campbell  2014:  3,  6). Through an approach that begins with the social contexts of their creation and reception, and then turns to the phenomenology of the miniature rooms, I ask the following series of questions: What constraining daydreams of the interior are created through the deceptions and seductions of scale? How is space managed through measurements, to exclude class, race, sexuality, and gender? What oppositions and hierarchies does scale impose? And, how can such miniaturizations of the interior help us better understand the agency of our interiors today? The chapter falls into three sections. First, I begin by providing a brief biography of Thorne and the historical context for the creation of the rooms. The second section turns to a phenomenology of the agency of the miniature rooms, using the lens of the concept of the collection. In the final section, I consider the agency of the interior today in light of what we have learned about the Thorne Miniature Rooms.

The Creation of the Collection Narcissa Thorne (née Niblack), who was responsible for the creation and stewardship of the Thorne Miniature Rooms, was born in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1882. She traveled widely as a child, attended school, and moved with her family to Chicago

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sometime before 1900, where she married James Ward Thorne in 1901 (Art Institute of Chicago  2004:  12). Narcissa was a dedicated patron of the arts, contributing to the cultural world of Chicago through her involvement with the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Historical Society, now the Chicago History Museum (Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 13). She began collecting dollhouses and miniatures in childhood, and the economic and social upheavals of the 1930s led to an increase in opportunities to purchase miniatures that came onto the market. By 1930 she had rented a studio on Oak Street, close to her home on North Lake Shore Drive, in order to house her growing collections (Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 13). The first set of thirty miniature rooms were put on display in 1932 at the Chicago Historical Society, for the Architectural Students’ League. A year later hundreds of thousands of people lined up to see them in their own building at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 15). This success encouraged Thorne to develop a second set of thirty-one miniature rooms to showcase European design history, which ultimately included twenty-nine European rooms, a Chinese room, and a Japanese room. Significantly, English and French interiors of the eighteenth century formed the largest proportion of the European rooms, since for Thorne and her peers the eighteenth century was the epitome of good taste (Art Institute of Chicago  2004: 16). This second set of rooms was completed in 1937 and exhibited at the World’s Fairs in San Francisco in 1939 and New York in 1940. Such was the popularity of the rooms that they traveled to a number of other cities, including Baltimore, St. Louis, Boston, and Washington, DC (Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 16). Encouraged by the enthusiastic reception of the miniature rooms as they toured the country, Thorne decided to create thirty-seven American rooms to complement the European rooms. Only three of the American rooms represent contemporary trends (from the West and Southwest), thereby excluding most of the modern styles, including Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Prairie School, and Bauhaus Modernism (Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 17). Although all three sets of rooms were given to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1940, shortly after acquiring them the museum sold thirty to IBM, and they were promptly put on tour, and in 1960 Thorne’s son, Niblack, arranged to have them returned to his mother. In 1962, sixteen were donated to the Phoenix Art Museum, nine were presented by IBM to the Dublin Gallery of Art in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the rest were dismantled. The rooms in the Art Institute were put on permanent display in  1954 with funds from Thorne (Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 17–18). During the period between their creation and when they were finally installed as permanent exhibitions, the miniature rooms were wildly successful in attracting the attention of the public. As they traveled across the country, they received much attention in the press, including the November 29, 1937, issue of Life magazine, which devoted five pages to the miniature rooms. Emphasizing the accurate reproduction in miniature of “every detail,” and the “thousands of people all over the world” who contributed to furnishing the rooms, the article records, as noted above, that 300,000 people paid twenty-five cents each to see them at the Century

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of Progress Exposition in Chicago (“Period Rooms” 1937: 38). The Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago reports in 1944 that “during the two years in which the rooms have been on circulating exhibition … they have been seen by seven hundred thousand visitors” (“Notes” 1944: 80). When the European rooms were exhibited at the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis, for example, attendance was almost equal to the attendance numbers for the entire year in  1940, the last recorded year for museum attendance (“Notes” 1944: 80). A new exhibition attendance record was set at the City Art Museum in St. Louis when the American rooms were exhibited, with over 160,000 visitors (“Notes” 1944: 80). What factors contributed to the evident popularity of the Thorne Miniature Rooms? Although miniatures historically have been objects of fascination,4 specific developments in design and housing in an era of economic uncertainty between the two World Wars made the miniature rooms especially pertinent to people’s lives. At this time, the idea of the period room was taking hold in American institutions, including the Brooklyn Museum, Winterthur, Colonial Williamsburg, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection of American period rooms which opened in 1924 (Peck 1996: 10; Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 14).5 The public’s fascination with dollhouses also stoked the keen interest in the Thorne Miniature Rooms (Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 14). Dollhouses were widely prized by European elites starting in the sixteenth century with the dollhouse made for Albert V, Duke of Bavaria, which is typically cited as the earliest-known example. These richly outfitted miniature homes provided an idealized version of domestic life, complete with expensive and often exotic furnishings made to mimic the opulence of princely and elite residences (Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 14; Pasierbska 2008: 10). Originally created for adult women, dollhouses were designed as interactive, tactile teaching tools for instructing brides and mothers on the ideals and best practices of domesticity (Moseley-Christian 2010: 341–2). The m ­ ost-celebrated example contemporaneous with the genesis of the Thorne Miniature Rooms is Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House (1921–4), now in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (Pasierbska  2008:  24). Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the dollhouse was put on display at the British Empire Exhibition in  1924–5, where its working miniature objects, such as shotguns, elevators, cars, and even water pipes with flowing water created a sensation (Royal Collection Trust, “Highlights”; Royal Collection Trust, “Sir Edwin Lutyens”). In addition to period rooms and dollhouses, the cultivation of historical styles for the homes of the elite also contributed to the popularity of the Thorne Miniature Rooms. Driving this trend was nostalgia for a world that existed pre-First World War (Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 15). Examples include Henry E. Huntington’s San Marino in California, James Deering’s Vizcaya in Florida, and William Randolph Hearst’s San Simeon in California (Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 15). Dealers like Sir Joseph Duveen and interior design firms such as P. W. French of New York and Alavoine of New York and Paris supported such nostalgia-based decorating campaigns (Art Institute of Chicago  2004:  15). At least one dimension of the popularity of historical styles is

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“fear of the future,” as Judith Flanders argues in The Making of Home. Such styles allow people to take “refuge in a simplified past” and reject “uncertainty by refusing to engage with variety, evolution and change” (2014: 271). Significantly, the Handbook to the American Rooms in Miniature, published in 1941, offers the American rooms as an example of specifically American values in the midst of the turmoil of the Second World War, positioning them as especially “timely” given that people were “becoming acutely conscious of the value of our American institutions and traditions” (Rogers 1941: 3). While the miniature rooms are not restricted to American examples, nevertheless, their presentation as a collection promotes the idea that the carefully selected American traditions on display are intimately connected to a similarly edited European past. Finally, certain reactionary trends in housing made the Thorne Miniature Rooms especially attractive to audiences seeking confirmation of specifically white, bourgeois values, including the emergence of subdivisions with “protective restrictions” (Fogelson  2005:  118–23). Such communities were based on exclusion and the fear of “otherness,” employing measures such as high prices and racial covenants to filter out “undesirable” races and classes. There were no shops, stores, or offices due to a fear of commercialism. They promoted the single-family dwelling, prohibited multifamily dwellings, and did not allow domestic animals or billboards (Fogelson 2005: 123–200). Although we don’t typically think of the miniature rooms as representing a tiny “gated community,” nevertheless, through their collective embrace of middle-class and elite interiors, with the implication that these are single-family dwellings, and with the absence of any commercial presence, clotheslines, or chicken-coops, they implicitly communicate the values promoted by the restricted subdivisions.

The Collection: Scale, Space, Time, Production The previous section mapped out the genesis of the Thorne Miniature Rooms and the social factors which led to their popularity, to argue that they were appealing, at least in part, because they catered to the same reactionary values embraced by the heritage gated community. This section builds on Susan Stewart’s perceptive analysis of the phenomenology of the miniature in her foundational book, On Longing (1984; 1993). Stewart emphasizes that the miniature is a product of human design, revealing the capacity of the miniature, in turn, to control the viewer: “There are no miniatures in nature; the miniature is a cultural product, the product of an eye performing certain operations, manipulating, and attending in certain ways to the physical world” (1993: 55). Speaking specifically to Stewart’s exposition of the manipulative powers of the miniature, in this section we examine how the operations of scale, time, space, and production in the Thorne Miniature Rooms serve as striking demonstrations of design’s agency, an agency, I would argue, that we ignore at our peril.

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The Collection In order to understand the agency of the Thorne Miniature Rooms, we first need to approach them as a collection. It is their nature as a collection that gives the Thorne Miniature Rooms the agency to represent all interiors. As a collection, the Miniature Rooms operate as a “mode of control and containment” (Stewart  1993:  159), controlling and containing our perceptions of the interior. Stewart, writing on the nature of a collection, argues that it creates a new whole: a spatial whole that supersedes the individual narratives that “lie behind” individual objects (1993: 152–3). As Stewart contends, the function of a collection “is not the restoration of context of origin, but rather the creation of a new context, a context standing in a metaphorical, rather than a contiguous, relation to the world of everyday life” (152). Thus, the Thorne Miniature Rooms, as a collection, are an “autonomous world” (152); they represent the world of the interior. Indeed, the museum itself, as an institution of culture, desires to be representative, striving to stand in for all time and space (Stewart 1993: 161). Significantly, Meyric Rogers, who was Curator of Decorative Arts and Curator of Industrial Arts at the Art Institute of Chicago when the rooms were acquired by the museum, refers to the American rooms as a “fully developed American Wing in miniature” (1941: 4). The Thorne Miniature Rooms, as a museum within a museum, strive to be representative of all interiors, for all time and space, according to the logic of the museum collection. If the museum collection represents the world (Stewart 1993: 162), then the Thorne Miniature Rooms constitute the world of the interior. Through the metonymic displacement of part for whole (Stewart 1993: 162), which is the logic of the collection, the Thorne Miniature Rooms imply that these interiors are all interiors. Tracing its genealogy to the very origins of the museum in the cabinets of curiosity of early modern Europe, the display area itself recalls the claims to universal knowledge advanced by such collections. Such cabinets aspired to be microcosms of the macrocosm (Weston  2009:  41). While some cabinets of curiosity were literally housed in a purpose-built cabinet, others were specially designed rooms with walls that were lined with built-in shelves and display cabinets to order and communicate the knowledge represented by the collections (Weston 2009: 39). The exhibition area of the Thorne Miniature Rooms is similarly an enclosed room fitted out with inset, glass-fronted, wooden-framed display cases placed at the eye level on the walls. Thus, through the use of design that evokes the encyclopedic ambitions of the early modern cabinet of curiosities, the Thorne Miniature Rooms advance the claim that we are confronted here with the universal order of the interior. Significantly, the collection includes one Chinese interior and one Japanese interior. These individual rooms are in a metonymic relation to the interiors from these cultures; that is, the part standing in for the whole. But in the logic of the collection, they announce that the collection truly represents the world. They contribute to the claim that the collection encompasses all of space and time, in such a way that seems that the “world is accounted for by the elements of the collection” (Stewart 1993: 162).

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Scale The agency of the Thorne Miniature Rooms as a collection to represent all interiors, and, indeed, control the history of the interior, despite its actual selectivity and chronological limitations, depends on scale, space, time, and production. As Joan Kee and Emanuele Lugli point out in the recent issue of Art History devoted to scale: “Scale transforms and is transformed in relation to the affective sphere” (2015: 253). Speaking in particular to the power of miniaturization, Dagmar Motycka Weston notes in her study of cabinets of curiosity, that “in many religious and magical traditions, the miniature model or likeness of some real thing or person represents its essence” (2009: 42). Miniaturization allows things to become “magical, symbolic surrogates” (Weston 2009: 42). In this way, the Thorne Miniature Rooms represent the “essence” of the interior, an effect enhanced by the tiny objects placed within the rooms. The books, vases of flowers, dishes, eye-glasses, toys, etc. are scaled to the miniature cabinets, tables, and chairs in the rooms. Such miniatures within the miniature draw the viewer’s gaze into the tableau, where their diminutive scale confers on them the power to be representative of all books, toys, etc.

Time and Space In addition to scale, the experience of time and space in the miniature rooms also contributes to the agency of the collection. The scale of the miniature “skews” time and space relationships (Stewart  1993:  65). Significantly, museum publications on the miniature rooms underscore the effects of scale on time and space. “Time has been condensed,” remarks Helen Foote about the European series of rooms in the September 1943 issue of The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art (121). “Space has been bridged, distance, eliminated for through these miniatures, bits of England and France have been brought to Cleveland’s doorstep” (121–2), Foote asserts, emphasizing the power of the miniature to transcend normal spatial relationships. Indeed, the authenticity of detail captured in miniature encourages the transcendence of time and space: “Authentic in every detail, these rooms have actually transported to the mid-twentieth century the spirit and charm of some four centuries of gracious living, starting with Tudor days and progressing to the modern” (121). As Stewart claims, “There may be an actual phenomenological correlation between the experience of scale and the experience of duration” (1993: 66). Stewart alludes here to an experiment to test the degree to which the perception of time was relative to scale (DeLong 1981: 681–3). In the school of architecture at the University of Tennessee adult subjects were asked to work with models of environments that were 1/6, 1/12, and 1/24 of full scale. In the experiment adult subjects (7) observed different scale-model environments  1/6,  1/12, and 1/24 of full size. Scale-model environments representing small lounges were constructed with cardboard partitions and chipboard furniture as well as scale figures. Subjects were familiarized with the model environments, asked to move

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the scale figures through them, to imagine themselves the scale figure, and to identify activities appropriate for the space. They were then instructed to imagine themselves the scale figure in the space, to engage in one of the activities previously identified, and to inform the investigator when they subjectively felt (not thought) the scale figure had been engaged in the activity in the scale-model environment for 30 minutes. (DeLong 1981: 681)

The investigators concluded that at a scale of 1:12, five minutes of actual elapsed time would feel like sixty minutes had passed.6 These results point to how “miniature time” transcends “everyday time.” Time and experience of scale were deemed relative (DeLong 1981: 682). Although the Thorne Miniature Rooms don’t allow for physical interactivity, specially designed education modules encourage children to imagine themselves shrinking to fit inside the miniature rooms (Art Institute of Chicago 1997). Clearly, more work needs to be done in this area, nevertheless the experiment shows that miniaturization produces “private time”; that is, “an interior temporality of the subject” relative to scale. As Stewart points out, “In other words, miniature time transcends the duration of everyday life in such a way as to create an interior temporality of the subject” (1993: 66). Perhaps more sinisterly, the miniature, Stewart argues, operates as a “tableau”: “The miniature always tends toward tableau rather than toward narrative, toward silence and spatial boundaries rather than toward expository closure. Whereas speech unfolds in time, the miniature unfolds in space. The observer is offered a transcendent and simultaneous view of the miniature, yet is trapped outside the possibility of a lived reality of the miniature” (1993: 66). In other words, the spatial nature of the miniature appears initially to offer the potential for real-life engagement, after all, it is “real”—it takes up space. Yet, as a spatial rather than textual art, it withholds the possibility of a narrative that unfolds over time, so that it always remains apart from lived reality which is inherently temporal. This is especially pernicious when the miniature presents the cultural other, which is thus perceived as a “timeless and uncontaminable [sic] miniature form.” As she concludes, “The miniature is against speech” (1993: 66). As a world of “arrested time,” “the outside world stops and is lost to us” (Stewart 1993: 67).

Mode of Production The agency of the collection is also amplified by the mode of production. Some 569 detailed scale drawings exist of furniture, light fixtures, mirrors, and clocks, and the construction of the miniature rooms involved approximately three dozen craftspeople (Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 19). They include Claus Brundel, a self-taught engineer and an inventor, who worked for a window display company, individuals connected with the Needlework and Textile Guild of Chicago, who supplied custom needlework, and A. W. Pederson, who was the full-time foreman between 1932 and 1939. Pederson’s tasks included painting china and outdoor scenes, and finishing work

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on the furniture. Francis W. Kramer, who was a window-display artist for Marshall Field and Company, built the exterior walls of the rooms, as well as the shelves which supported each room. Alfons Weber, who also worked for Marshall Field and Company creating displays, crafted the ornamental moldings for some of the European rooms (Art Institute of Chicago 2004: 18–19). This brief mention of some of the craftspeople involved in building the rooms demonstrates that the creation of the rooms demanded much labor. Various museum publications show through their continuing emphasis on the mode of production, that how the rooms were made was one of the attractions of the exhibit. Commentators enthuse about the historical accuracy, the exacting research, and the skill and precision involved in creating the rooms and furnishings (Rogers 1941: 3–4; Foote 1943: 121; Rogers and Thorne 1943: 1; Keefe 1977: 14). Yet, the miniature masks its mode of production, for, as Stewart argues, “the mode of production is made magical” (1993:  165), while at the same time constituting a throwback to a preindustrial aesthetic of the handmade object. Significantly, Meyric Rogers observes in the Handbook to the American Rooms in Miniature that “Mrs. Thorne’s solution to the problem of scale in these rooms is almost magical” (1941: 4). Such a mode of production specifically with respect to miniatures can be related to Alfred Gell’s notion of “captivation.” As Jessen Kelly notes in her study of the Heneage Jewel, an Elizabethan portrait miniature crafted by Nicholas Hilliard, “Captivation is a mode of response that stems from an artwork’s capacity to mask its inception through spectacular technical virtuosity” (2007: 115). Kelly explains: Viewers cannot envisage the process of the object’s manufacture from its immediate appearance, and thus they are unable to imagine creating such an object themselves. The marvel induced by this illegibility creates a crucial inequity between spectator and object; the work “traps” its viewer in a manner that ultimately contributes to the reproduction of social hierarchies. Captivation is, in this respect, an instrument for the exercise of power. (2007: 115)

Thus, Gell’s argument stresses that agency resides in art objects’ roles “as mediators of social relations” (Kelly 2007: 115). As Gell argues with respect to Trobriand canoe prow-boards: “Artistic agency, especially of the virtuoso character so obviously present in Trobriand carving, is socially efficacious because it establishes an inequality between the agency responsible for the production of the work of art, and the spectators” (Gell  1998:  71). For example, in the Louis XIV table in the French Interior [Figure 5.2], we are presented with a miniaturization of a preindustrial, handcrafted elite object. The original object itself captivates through its technical virtuosity, and its power is then magnified through miniaturization, so there is a doubling of the captivation effect. In this way, through the accumulation of the miraculous effect of the miniature objects within each room and from room to room, the Thorne Miniature Rooms “capture” the viewer and hold her/him in thrall of their carefully edited vision of the interior.

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Figure 5.2  Mrs. James Ward Thorne, French Salon of the Louis XIV Period, 1660–1700, c. 1937. Miniature Room, mixed media. Interior: 18 ¾ x 31 x 23 ¾ in. Gift of Mrs. James Ward Thorne, 1941. 1203. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA. (Photo credits: the Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource)

“Much in Little”: The Agency of the Interior Today As we have seen, the Thorne Miniature Rooms activate a phenomenology of scale, space, time, and production to captivate the viewer, holding her/him in a state of suspended time, in thrall to the ontology of the interior which the collection of miniature rooms represents. In this concluding section, I would like to address the final question posed at the beginning of this chapter: How does what we have learned about the agency of design in the Thorne Miniature Rooms help us understand the agency our interiors today? Reflecting on the maxim “much in little” (multum in parvo), our examination of the phenomenology of the miniature rooms reveals in nuce the agency our interiors wield. Acting as a microcosm of all interiors, the miniature rooms show us that we and our interiors are in fact mutually constituting: design choices, such as scale, furnishings, and craftsmanship, all have the power to shape us as much as we shape them. In the example of the Thorne Miniature Rooms, the agency of design works to constrain the interior (and us) through specific exclusionary and reactionary design choices. Yet, inspired by Tim Ingold’s approach to environments, we can think of the agency of the interior as issuing from what he calls the “domain of entanglement”: a domain as dense and tangled as a “patch of tropical forest,” ever-growing and pulsing with relationships issuing from multiple human and nonhuman agencies (Ingold 2006: 13–14). As a living, growing, constantly changing environment full of

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life and movement, the interior “instantiates” humans in the world; we inhabit the world of the interior. In the context of habitation, agency “is not a property of persons imaginatively projected onto the things with which they perceive themselves to be surrounded … it is the dynamic, transformative potential of the entire field of relations within which beings of all kinds, more or less person-like or thing-like, continually and reciprocally bring one another into existence” (Ingold 2006: 10). In my view, we have an ethical imperative to recognize that the agency of the interior inheres in its capacity to be such a transformative domain of entanglement or meshwork of the human and nonhuman. Constituted by people and things and changing over time and space, the interior is a resonant and resilient cultural environment—our habitat. Such an approach to the interior gives it and us agency, to recognize that all interiors have the capacity to be design agents of social and environmental change.

Notes 1 First published in 1984; I use the 1993 edition: 65. 2 Throughout the literature on the Thorne Miniature Rooms, Narcissa Ward is referred to by her married name, “Mrs. James Ward Thorne.” 3 Just to take one example of the labor involved in the conservation of the rooms, the Needlework and Textile Guild of Chicago spent 1,157 hours replacing eight carpets in selected rooms (Keefe 1977: 14–15). 4 Witness, for example, the “Midway’s Midget Village” (Ganz 2008: 12), and the “World’s Smallest Bible” (Ganz 2008: 1510), on exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933. 5 The American interiors at the Metropolitan Museum were preceded by the museum acquiring a bedroom from a villa near Pompeii in  1903, and, three years later, an ­ eighteenth-century Venetian bedroom from the Palazzo Sagredo and a ­seventeenth-century chamber from Switzerland (Peck 1996: 10). 6 It should be noted that the investigators also determined that the relationship between elapsed time and the perception of time is dependent on the scale of the observer (DeLong 1981: 681, 682).

Bibliography Art Institute of Chicago (1997), Japanese Traditional Interior, Chicago, IL: Department of Museum Education. Art Institute of Chicago (2004), Miniature Rooms: The Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago, entries by Fannia Weingartner; with an introduction by Bruce Hatton Boyer. Chicago, IL: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Campbell, E. J. (2014), “Listening to Objects: An Ecological Approach to the Decorative Arts,” Journal of Art Historiography, 11 (December): 1–23. Chicago Tonight (2012), [TV program], PBS, December 18, https://www.pbs.org/video/ chicago-tonight-december-18-2012-thorne-miniature-rooms/ (Accessed June 8, 2018).

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DeLong, A. J. (1981), “Phenomenological Space-Time: Toward an Experiential Relativity,” Science, 213 (1981): 681–3. Flanders, J. (2014), The Making of Home: The 500-Year Story of How Our Houses Became Our Homes, New York: Thomas Dunne Books; St. Martin’s Press. Fogelson, R. M. (2005), Bourgeois Nightmares: Suburbia, 1870–1930, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. Foote, H. S. (1943), “European Series of the Thorne Miniature Rooms,” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 30 (7) (September): 121–2. Ganz, C. R. (2008), The 1933 Chicago’s World’s Fair: A Century of Progress, Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. Gell, A. (1998), Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ingold, T. (2006), “Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought,” Ethnos, 71 (1) (March): 9–20. Ingold, T. (2011), Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description, London and New York: Routledge. Kee, J. and E. Lugli (2015), “Scale to Size: An Introduction,” Art History, 38 (2) (April): 250–67. Keefe, J. W. (1977), “Restoration and Refurbishment of the Thorne Miniature Rooms,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago (1973–1982), 71 (3) (May–June): 14–15. Kelly, J. (2007), “The Material Efficacy of the Elizabethan Jeweled Miniature: A Gellian Experiment,” in Robin Osborne and Jeremy Tanner (eds), Art’s Agency and Art History, 114–34, Malden, MA; Oxford, and Victoria, Australia: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Moseley-Christian (2010), “Seventeenth-Century Pronk Poppenhuisen: Domestic Space and the Ritual Function of Dutch Dollhouses for Women,” Home Cultures, 7 (3): 341–64. “Notes on the Thorne Miniature Rooms” (1944), Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, 38 (5) (September–October): 80. Pasierbska, H. (2008), Dolls’ Houses from the V&A Museum of Childhood, London: V&A Publishing. Peck, A. et al. (1996), Period Rooms in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Period Rooms in Miniature Are Exhibited Chicago Art Institute,” (1937), Life, 3 (22) (November 29): 38ff. Rogers, M. R. and Mrs. J. Ward Thorne (1941), Handbook to the American Rooms in Miniature Designed and Produced by Mrs. James Ward Thorne and Presented by Her to the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago. Rogers, M. R. and Mrs. J. Ward Thorne (1943), Handbook to the European Rooms in Miniature by Mrs. James Ward Thorne and Presented by Her to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2nd edition, Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago. Royal Collection Trust, “Highlights of Windsor Castle,” https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/ visit/windsor-castle/highlights-of-windsor-castle#/ (accessed June 8, 2018). Royal Collection Trust, “Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens (1869–1944): Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House 1921–24,” https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/5000050/queen-marysdolls-house (accessed June 8, 2018). Stewart, S. (1993), On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press.

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Weston, D. W. (2009), “‘Worlds in Miniature’: Some Reflections on Scale and the Microcosmic Meaning of Cabinets of Curiosities,” Architectural Research Quarterly, 13 (1) (March): 37–48. Withagen, R., H. J. de Poel, D. Araújo, and G.-J.Pepping “Affordances Can Invite Behavior: Reconsidering the Relationship between Affordance and Agency,” New Ideas in Psychology, 30 (2012): 250–8.

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Listening for Design: Agency and History in a Philips Aachen-Super D 52 Michael Windover

In March 2017 Sylvia and Leo Strawczynski visited the Carleton University Art Gallery and happened upon an exhibition entitled “Making Radio Space in 1930s Canada” [Figure  6.1]. The exhibition explored aspects of radio’s visual and material culture in Canada and included reproductions of advertisements, photographs of a transmission station and maps, as well as several receivers ranging from floor models to tabletop, portable, and car radios. Since some of the radios exhibited were identified as belonging to the Carleton University Collection, the Strawczynskis reached out to me, as one of the curators, about donating a receiver that they owned and which dated from the 1930s. Unlike the others in the collection, this radio was not Canadian in origin. It had come to the country from Germany in  1948 with Juda and Sara Weinberg, Sylvia’s parents. They had lived in a displaced persons camp there after the war, and the radio was one of very few possessions that immigrated with them. Although no longer in use as a receiver at the time of the donation, the radio was of personal significance to the Strawczynskis, and in seeing other radios involved in narrating history and prompting reflection on the medium’s impact on the designed environment they no doubt recognized the potential of their Philips Aachen-Super D 52 to do the same [Figure 6.1]. I was delighted to accept the receiver and learn about its place in the lives of its users. It also has provided me with an opportunity to consider, through close scrutiny of a single object, relationships between agency and design and design history. Radio, in general, is useful for thinking about design. For instance, in Objects of Desire: Design and Society since 1750, Adrian Forty turns to the example of radio receivers to highlight key approaches to designing commodities: “archaic,” where technologies are housed in period-style furniture; “suppressive,” where technologies are “hidden” in a preexisting form of furniture or object; and “Utopian,” where the form becomes more outwardly expressive of the technology’s connotations (1986:  11–12). By looking at radio, rather than listening to it, Forty draws attention to formal, aesthetic qualities and, in a way, makes receivers appear as objects worthy of study by design historians. He is not too concerned about the engineering aspects of radio receiving equipment; rather, he emphasizes the case, the visual presence of radio, in order to introduce his readers to a way of considering design from the standpoint of consumption. Artemis Yagou (2002) also uses radio as a case

Figure 6.1  View of “Making Radio Space in 1930s Canada,” curated by Michael Windover and Anne MacLennan, February 27–May 7, 2017, Carleton University Art Gallery. (Photo credit: Peter Coffman)

study to examine morphology in communications product design, focusing on the standardization of interface. While she employs a theoretical framework premised on context and use, her interests, like Forty’s, remain primarily in the realm of the visual and material. In a more recent introduction to a reader on design culture, Ben Highmore (2009) points to the example of media machines, including radio receivers, to help reorient design studies away from its earlier preoccupation with name designers and masterpieces and toward users and use, thereby radically extending the definition of design to incorporate a broader number of participants. Indeed as a mass communication medium, radio lends itself well to a dynamic model of design as co-production (Oudshoorn and Pinch 2003). Broadcast radio culture exists because users engage with the medium as active consumers of on-air content as well as radio’s visual and material culture. Radio receivers thus provide tantalizing material for exploring agency in design as they sit at the interface of users and a series of systems and design propositions, both material and social. In this chapter I use the Strawczynskis’ radio to explore the valence of material objects in design history and respond to Highmore’s call for a broadened definition of design culture. The story of this radio’s life and use allows us to consider agency as it affects the design of radio culture in a number of different contexts. Its physical design affords us a view into its potential and actual uses (e.g., illuminating some of the actors involved in the creation of the radio culture), and by learning more about how it operated for its owners over time we gain a better sense of how it contributed to the design of their domestic space, daily routines, and broader worldview.

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Drawing from material culture studies, ethnographic approaches to technoculture, and inspired by the dynamic model of society proposed by Actor-Network-Theory (ANT), this chapter offers ways of thinking about degrees of and changes in the nature of agency. While proponents of ANT would discourage studying tangible networks that exist “out there” (it is not a toolkit for exploring these obvious networks but a way of engaging with social entities), design historian Kjetil Fallan asserts that ANT can provide a useful “conceptual framework” (2010: 78) for design history. More fruitful from a methodological standpoint is Phillip Vannini’s work on ethnographic approaches to technoculture. In a chapter on “interactionist approaches to material technoculture,” Vannini outlines four imbricated principles: ecology, diffused agency, emergence, and semiotic power (2009). In keeping with ANT, the theoretical underpinnings emphasize relationships between human and nonhuman agents that cut across time and space. Also central are notions of process and indeterminancy in the encounter between humans, nonhumans, and their environment. While the Strawczynskis’ radio always held the potential to operate as an historical artifact in a university teaching collection, its design as such was governed more by users and their environments than, say, industrial designers or marketers, who focused more on its ideal life and initial function as receiver of radio frequencies. Vannini’s framework underlines materiality and context, and holds ultimately an interest in “the consequentiality of representation” (80). Meanings derive not simply from symbolism read from objects but through interaction between an object and its beholder/interpreter/user. This opens the door to “narrativization” of objects, or a consideration of how they objectify culture by illuminating values engrained in material form (Woodward 2009). Objects bear the traces of their production and past and gather meaning through use in different contexts, including as narrative prompts. Despite the fallibility of memory, oral histories provide important evidence of the meanings of an object over time and offer a way of showing how “mute” artifacts can become active agents of design history by compelling narratives (e.g., Sandino 2006; Orthel 2014). This chapter blends two approaches to object biographies identified by anthropologist Janet Hoskins: it begins by situating the object in its historical context to explore encoded “intentionalities,” and then turns to ethnography to consider how the radio was perceived by its users (2006:  78). By exploring the narratives of a particular Philips receiver as a representative radio of a particular time period, as recounted by the Strawczynskis and as a material artifact that has borne witness and contributed to several different contexts or what we could call design ecologies, I show how an ethnographic material culture approach to design can inform discussions about relationships between agency and design, and between designed objects (understood as interfaces) and design historiography. In other words, the Philips Aachen-Super D 52 operates both as a way of thinking about design ecologies (i.e., how a particular object affects designed spaces and spatial practices) and as a catalyst for narrating design histories. The radio set literally generated the sound of broadcasted events while in use over several decades and now prompts histories of its use and former places. It thus continues to be an object that beckons a listening ear.

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The Philips Aachen-Super D 52 The Philips Aachen-Super D  52 came onto the market in Germany in  1937 [Figure  6.2].1 With seven vacuum tubes, the model would have been a powerful tabletop radio, capable of receiving broadcast, short-wave and long-wave signals and thus, given its expense, would have been aimed at an affluent, middle-class consumer base. Powered by alternating current rather than batteries and housed in a handsome, slightly curved wooden case, this radio receiver was designed for domestic use. Its size (535 x 355 x 230 mm) and lack of historicizing ornament meant that the receiver could be fairly easily incorporated into a variety of different rooms depending on its user’s listening habits. The radio contains an integrated loudspeaker and connection for an external antenna. It was designed with additional applications and enhancements in mind as well, including the possibility of attaching another loudspeaker and a turntable. This points to the use of this radio as part of a potentially larger entertainment system. The form of the radio hints at this multifunctionality, with a tuning dial that could slide down into the top of the cabinet, ostensibly giving it the appearance of a simple speaker. This radio was designed to link into existing technological systems (e.g., alternating current and gramophone) and facilitate patterns of listening and leisure activity [Figure 6.2]. The cabinet’s formal qualities suggest its designers engaged with modernist aesthetic principles associated with simplicity, honesty (i.e., truth to form), and

Figure 6.2  Philips Aachen-Super D 52, 1937, Carleton University Collection. (Photo credits: Peter Coffman)

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functionality. This was not a radio disguised in a period cabinet, as was more common in the previous decade and early 1930s. The fawn-colored grille cloth surrounded by a projecting, rectangular frame dominates the front of the case, emphasizing the receiver’s function as a sound-making instrument. The rectangular tuning dial harmoniously mirrors this form and is clearly marked with the names of places the user could tune in to, ranging from relatively close sites in Europe to places on the other side of the planet. On the left-hand side of the dial, a circular window would glow green as users approached clear channels, offering something of a synesthetic experience by giving the sonic a corelating visual signifier. The large knob on the front of the cabinet marks another instance of formal simplicity by combining several functions into one element meanwhile underlining the tactile quality of using the radio. A unique feature engineered by Philips, this single knob (Monoknopf) allowed users to change the stations by turning its circular top, adjust volume by moving the knob up or down, and adjust tone by moving it left or right. The only other control for radio use is the power switch located on the side. Radios like this translated spatial and acoustic relations into a privately consumable visual and material experience. And over time, the radio could become integrated into a daily life habit, extending the impact of the design of the radio receiver—with its visual, material, and sonic dimensions—into spatial practices. In Henri Lefebvre’s terms, the design of the receiver could affect perceived, conceived, and lived space (Lefebvre  1991). For Lefebvre, space is a social product informed in part by its representation through media, which would include radio. The radio dial prompts listeners to conceptualize space and their position within it in a certain way. Listeners could virtually travel along the radio spectrum, stopping off at green-lit stations to participate in events. As I have argued elsewhere (Windover  2015; Windover and MacLennan  2017; Windover  2018), while participating in these events, listeners became part of a public that was formed through the assemblage of other audience members, those involved in production of the broadcast and the material infrastructure, ranging from receivers to transmission stations. Receivers should thus be considered constituent parts of the social entity of a radio public. After flipping on the power, the receiver would hold the listener in anticipation as the electrically powered tubes warmed up and the volume gradually rose. The listener would then take hold of the monoknob on the front and peer down onto the dial, making adjustments to the frequency, volume, and tone until satisfied. Then the listener (and perhaps others nearby) would turn their attention to the broadcast for a certain duration. This engagement of user and object resonates with Andrew Pickering’s notion of the “dance of human and non-human agency” (Pickering 2010: 195), as we imagine the user holding the dial and looking into the radio’s “magic eye.” Pickering puts emphasis on performance as humans encounter nonhumans and begin a backand-forth dance that ultimately blurs the boundary between the two. The user of the radio starts it then becomes enmeshed with it, as he or she joins the assemblage of things making up the radio public. While Pickering’s theoretical framework could apply to any human–nonhuman interaction, it is particularly useful in considering

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designed objects. Designed objects are predicated upon some kind of interface, whether directly or indirectly, between humans and things. As such, design is inherently social. Radio receivers offer fruitful material for considering questions of design as they provide the interface between listeners and broadcasts. It is in front of the receiver where listeners come in contact with the medium most directly. Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, understood the social and political value of this interface well (Reimann  1976:  202–5; Bergmeier and Lotz  1997). By making radio present in public life through the installation of loudspeakers and in domestic life through the state-sponsored production of cheap radios, Goebbels flooded the country electro-acoustically with Nazi propaganda (Birdsall 2012). The VE (Volksempfänger) 301 [Figure 6.3] began production in 1933 (the number 301 refers to January  30,  1933, when Hitler ascended to power).2 Sold for  76 Reichsmarks (roughly two weeks average pay and about half the price of an average set), the initial and subsequent versions of the cheap receivers sold very well, making up 44 percent of all radios sold between 1934 and 1935, and contributing to a high level of radio ownership in “Greater Germany,” such that by 1941, nearly 15 million receivers were listened to by an audience of about  50  million (Bergmeier and Lotz  1997:  9). The tuning dials did not generally include foreign location names, and, given the low power and poor sensitivity of these receivers, listening to non-German broadcasts through them was more challenging, although not impossible. In  1939 listening to foreign stations was outlawed and, deemed a traitorous act, could be punishable by death. The globetrotting potential of the Philips Aachen-Super D 52 would thus have

Figure 6.3  VE (Volksempfänger) 301, 1933. (Creative Commons Universal Public Domain Dedication)

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been curtailed, at least from a legal standpoint, shortly after its arrival on the market. Meanwhile, the roughly contemporary VE 301 Dyn, a Bakelite Volksempfänger also manufactured by Philips (one of twenty-eight manufacturers enlisted to produce these sets), would have reinforced the social designs sought by Goebbels (Van Halem and Stevens 2011: 310) [Figure 6.3]. With only numbers listed on dials, sometimes paired with German place names, the Volksempfänger receivers represented a different version of radio space compared to the Aachen-Super D  52. The technological potential of each approximated the representations on their dials and, by extension, made possible differing social spaces. Listeners of the Volksempfänger receivers became part of an imagined, greater German nation represented on the dial, while the listener of the Aachen-Super D 52 participated in a global network of stations that could be drawn into his or her home instantly. The difference in the design of these radio receivers highlights the role of agency. Each could afford its users opportunities to participate in public discourse through the act of listening (Lacey 2013) and either could be used in support of Nazi social design or could undermine that vision by listening to something other than the Reich Broadcasting Corporation. Context becomes important in a political consideration of agency. The Volksempfänger and the Aachen-Super D  52 were designed for use in continental Europe. Their visual characteristics—for instance, the inclusion of eagles and sometimes swastikas as ornament on the Volksempfänger—position the radios at a particular moment, as do their technical aspects. A close look at the Strawczynskis’ radio reveals a plug designed for use in the North American electrical outlet. This indicates a modification to the original wrought by the desire to use the technology in a new setting. In moving from one design ecosystem to another, and accommodated to that situation, the Strawczynskis’ radio takes on different meanings and affords different potential uses. We might also consider how objects appeal or become available to different users over time. When put on the market in 1937, Jews were forbidden to own radios in Germany, and, given the price, this radio would not have been affordable to a majority of Germans. Its potential users changed quite dramatically in the postwar period, as there was no restriction on ownership and its price likely went down in the face of competition from new models on the market. As the interactionist model of agency proposed by Vannini makes clear, the environment in which a designed object inhabits affects its use (and potential use) as well as its social meaning(s). To best explore how the Philips radio participated in society, we ought to examine not just its physical and technological attributes but its place in different social situations over time.

The Weinbergs’ Radio The story of the Strawczynskis’ radio receiver begins in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp in 1948 (see Reilly 1998).3 Juda Weinberg had traveled there a few years earlier to be reunited with his wife, Sara, after the American army liberated the concentration camp at Dachau where he had been imprisoned. According to Sylvia

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Strawczynski, who was born in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp, her father began making money there by selling smoked fish, which he would transport under his coat by motorcycle, as such operations were not permitted. As historian Dan Stone notes, generally displaced persons “were uninterested in integrating into the German economy, preferring to engage with it on an ad hoc basis as the need arose,” especially Jews who still suffered from widespread anti-Semitism (Stone 2015: 151). Juda used the proceeds of his business activity to acquire the radio receiver, probably in a flea market. It is thus unlikely that he was the first owner of the radio receiver or that he had many options from which to choose. As Strawczynski put it, the set “was not chosen so much as available.” As far as she knows, her parents had never owned a radio before, as they were of fairly modest means living in Lodz, Poland, prior to the war, where they worked as tailors for a theatrical company. This therefore would have been a substantial purchase for the couple. We do not know how much the Weinbergs used the radio in Europe prior to their arrival in Canada in May 1948, but it was clearly a possession of great significance as it was one of only a few items transported. The family’s fares were paid by the Jewish Immigration Society, so when they arrived, they already owed a $70 debt. This again underlines the importance of the radio, as it could have been sold to help reduce that debt prior to departure. The radio was packed in a trunk with two duvets and two pillows; in addition to this, they brought one small suitcase with diapers and clothing for baby Sylvia and another with clothing for the parents. The family and their possessions crossed through customs in Halifax, Nova Scotia, before traveling to Montreal, Quebec. For the first two years, the Weinbergs lived in a triplex on the west side of the Plateau-Mont-Royal neighborhood. The radio receiver sat on a table in the parlor, which doubled as the parents’ bedroom (the other rooms were rented out). In 1950, the family moved into a nearby duplex on Rue Jeanne Mance, where they stayed until 1961. Here, the radio receiver again sat on a low table in the parlor/living room. Around it on adjacent walls sat a beige, plastic-covered couch and a green chair. This wooden and upholstered furniture, coffee table, and two end tables, as well as the parents’ wooden bedroom set, were purchased new, likely directly from a factory through personal contacts in the Jewish community in Montreal. The style of the furniture might best be described as a kind of 1940s “liveable modern,” following Kristina Wilson’s definition of middle-class Depression-era furniture of the United States (Wilson 2004) and bearing in mind Joy Parr’s discussion of Canadian postwar consumer habits and interests, which she shows tended to be somewhat conservative (Parr  1999; see also Wright  1997). The look of the Philips radio would have resonated with the contours of this furniture, although perhaps more by accident rather than by design. Strawczynski explained that her parents were not interested in creating a deliberate, harmonious interior design scheme, but were more concerned with durable and functional pieces. This might explain the longevity of use of their furniture, including the radio receiver.

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The Weinbergs configured their living room furniture similarly in their subsequent and final home, located further north in Park Extension, a newly developed neighborhood that provided housing primarily to immigrant communities. They had purchased the apartment with money received as restitution from Germany. Friends in the Jewish community had gone into the construction industry in Montreal and began building four-story, cold water flats in this area and it was from them that the Weinbergs purchased their home. They committed to buying the newly constructed place in 1957, but did not move in until May of 1961. Juda converted the basement apartment into a store where he sold women’s apparel primarily to neighbors in the Greek and Italian communities and worked as a tailor. Sara continued to sew and sell clothes out of the home. The Philips radio receiver played a significant role in everyday life routines. Members of the family listened to particular programs. Juda and Sara tuned in to news coverage frequently, and, in Strawczynski’s terms, her father was “fixated” on “The News of the World.” They listened frequently to CFCF, a station that brought a variety of programming including regular news reports. Her father also tuned in to The Jewish Hour on CKVL every Sunday at 10 a.m. Broadcast in Yiddish, the language spoken most often at home, the Jewish Hour allowed for additional participation in the local Jewish community. Juda would also listen to shortwave broadcasts at night of European or American origin, and considered the shortwave capability of the radio receiver one of its best features. Sylvia remembers listening to popular shows like the Cisco Kid and Amos ‘n’ Andy, as well as to popular music in the evenings between 8 and 9 p.m. while doing her homework. Generally, though, she remembers the Philips radio as used for purposeful listening, rather than simply being on in the background. Her father later bought another radio that played most of the time in the shop downstairs, but in the home, radio was turned on to listen to specific programs. With the introduction of television—a black and white, 19-inch Zenith set in a blond, faux-wood case, purchased in the early 1960s—the radio’s role in household entertainment diminished, as Sylvia watched shows like the Ed Sullivan Show and Great Movies with her parents; however, the radio continued to be the trusted conduit for news. It remained in use, with Juda replacing worn-out tubes occasionally, into the late 1970s when he passed away, and on to 1981, when Sara died. The Weinbergs’ radio receiver was considered a piece of furniture, an ordinary object that sat quietly in the background of the family’s activities for much of the day. However, when switched on, it changed the nature of the space of the home. Now elements from outside, whether music, events, or the voice of a broadcaster, mixed with the acoustic properties of the living room, and the social unit of family or solitary listener became enmeshed in a larger social entity of listening public. Sound from the speaker called attention to the radio receiver, soliciting a different level of attention from listeners as the room transformed, at least potentially, into an e ­ lectro-acoustically produced auditorium. While the Weinbergs may not have purposefully designed the living room around the radio cabinet in a visual sense such that it appeared a coherent

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ensemble, the radio cabinet nonetheless affected its social and spatial design. The radio’s regular use affected the rhythms of everyday life and thus played a significant role in the larger design ecologies of their home. Turning on, listening to, and then turning off the radio did not radically or permanently alter the state of the room, but it did affect it and always contained the potential to make a difference in the lives of the user. If, as I have suggested above, design is primarily about interface in the moments and places where things and people interact, then the agency of designed objects is perhaps best revealed in the way they support potential to cause change. The Philips receiver owned by the Weinberg family becomes particularly useful in thinking about agency in design when we consider how and why it was used. From Strawczynski’s recollections, it was used regularly to connect with communities, to escape in entertainment, and to remain vigilant. Strawczynski described her parents as paranoid. No doubt because of their experiences during and immediately after the war, they always wanted to be able to pick up and leave quickly should they need to. Although well established in Montreal, with weekly visits with friends on Sunday afternoons, they were nonetheless somewhat anxious living there during the transformative Quiet Revolution era of the  1960s and beyond.4 The radio, which they considered a crucial conduit for news (and privileged over the television in this regard), supported their desire to keep informed should extremist or anti-Semitic politics take hold. From this perspective, the radio affected aspects of the design of their everyday life as it allowed for the establishment of certain rhythms and contained the potential to effect change. We could also speculate that this particular radio had mnemonic qualities for the Weinbergs. Given where and how it was acquired, it seems likely that this particular radio would have reminded Juda and Sara of past events. Instead of signifying contemporaneity, as most electronic media inherently do, this radio would have gestured both to the past and to the immediate present at the same time. In this way, the radio may have served, much as it is doing in this chapter, as a historical artifact, as a material and conceptual thing that promotes reflection on the past.

From Radio Receiver to Historic Artifact After Sara passed away, Sylvia and Leo Strawczynski inherited the radio and it sat on a low table in their Ottawa living room until sometime in the mid-1980s, when it was stored away in a cupboard. By that point, it no longer worked as a receiver and functioned mainly as reminder or souvenir of Sylvia’s parents and her earlier life. Although occasionally they considered disposing of the radio, they held on to it until donating it to Carleton University in 2017. At that time, spurred on by the exhibition at the art gallery, they considered the ability of this radio to elicit histories, a function it had already been performing in earlier stages of its life in Montreal and Ottawa, and decided to share it with a wider audience. While the radio was always designed to transmit narratives, how it does so has altered over time and by context. Instead of converting radio waves into the sounds of broadcasted

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programs at home, it now prompts questions about its former use, users, and situations. In both instances, the radio is involved in making publics, but, to adopt Bruno Latour’s terminology, the “matters of concern” have changed (Latour 2005: 87–120). The reasons for engaging with the receiver, influencing how a user might look at, touch and listen to it, differ depending on its design ecology. In its current situation, the radio can enter the classroom and be used to support materially based historical inquiry or studies of methodology and can join a new constellation of materials (e.g., the audio recording of the Strawczynskis’ interview) and people who will no doubt debate different issues than those the radio witnessed in earlier stages of its life. The example of the Strawczynski/Weinberg radio underlines that design is ultimately about interface. Taking an interactionist approach that considers among other things contexts and users leaves us with a broadened perspective on the role of agency in design and in design history. This model highlights use and change in the designed environment caused by users and things and does not privilege innovation and invention, which tend to dominate histories of technology (Edgerton 2007). Considering the longer life of seemingly ordinary things—like the Philips radio discussed here, the kind of material that makes up most of the designed ­environment—yields great potential for future design history studies.

Acknowledgments My deepest thanks go to Sylvia and Leo Strawczynski who donated the radio and met with me to discuss its history in their family. I would also like to thank my colleagues Charles O’Brien, Carol Payne, and Alexis Luko for their thoughtful feedback on portions of this chapter, as well as Peter Coffman for his photographs, and to acknowledge the support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for the funding associated with the exhibition “Making Radio Space in 1930s Canada.”

Notes 1 Technical specifications can be found at “Aachen-Super D52-AU,” Radiomuseum, https://www. radiomuseum.org/r/philips_aachen_super_d52_d_52.html (Accessed November  24,  2018). Special thanks to Paul Guibord of the Ottawa Vintage Radio Club for providing copies of material uploaded to this site. 2 The design of the VE  301 has been attributed to chief engineer Otto Griesing (Reimann  1976:  203), but also and more often to industrial designer Walter Maria Kersting (e.g., Van Halem and Stevens 2011: 310). 3 The details of the Weinberg and Strawczynski family histories come from an interview conducted by the author with Sylvia and Leo Strawczynski at their home in Ottawa on October 17, 2018. 4 After eighteen years of rule by Union Nationale Party led by Maurice Duplessis, the Province of Quebec began a period of accelerated social and economic change marked by the election of Jean Lesage’s Liberals in 1960. Legislation saw the nationalization of

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hydroelectricity, increased rights for women, a lowered voting age of eighteen, and a modernized public education system, the latter resulting in a waning of the power of the Catholic Church in the province. Meanwhile, French-speaking Quebeckers witnessed a rise in prosperity and the right to use their language in the workplace. The Quiet Revolution sparked a burgeoning of Québecois nationalism, which fueled the separatist movement.

Bibliography “Aachen-Super D52-AU,” Radiomuseum. Available online: https://www.radiomuseum. org/r/philips_aachen_super_d52_d_52.html (accessed November 24, 2018). Bergmeier, H. J. P. and R. E. Lotz (1997), Hitler’s Airwaves: The Inside Story of Nazi Radio Broadcasting and Propaganda Swing, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. Birdsall, C. (2012), Nazi Soundscapes: Sound, Technology and Urban Space in Germany, 1933–1945, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Edgerton, D. (2007), The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fallan, K. (2010), Design History: Understanding Theory and Method, Oxford and New York: Berg. Forty, A. (1986), Objects of Desire: Design and Society since 1750, London: Thames and Hudson. Highmore, B. (2009), “General Introduction: A Sideboard Manifesto: Design Culture in an Artificial World,” in B. Highmore (ed.), The Design Culture Reader, 1–11, London and New York: Routledge. Hoskins, J. (2006), “Agency, Biography, and Objects,” in C. Tiller, W. Keane, S. Küchler, M. Rowlands, and P. Spyer (eds), Handbook of Material Culture, 74–84, London: Sage. Lacey, K. (2013), Listening Publics: The Politics and Experience of Listening in the Media Age, Cambridge: Polity. Latour, B. (2005), Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Lefebvre, H. (1991), The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith, Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell. Orthel, B. D. (2014), “Ordinary Wallpaper: Identity and Use of History,” Interiors, 5 (3): 361–88. Oudshoorn, N. and T. Pinch (2003), “Introduction: How Users and Non-Users Matter,” in N. Oudshoorn and T. Pinch (eds), How Users Matter: The Co-construction of Users and Technology, 1–25, Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press. Parr, J. (1999), Domestic Goods: The Material, the Moral, and the Economic in the Postwar Years, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Pickering, A. (2010), “Material Culture and the Dance of Agency,” in D. Hicks and M. Beaudry (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, 191–209, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reilly, J. (1998), Belson: The Liberation of a Concentration Camp, London and New York: Routledge. Reimann, V. (1976), Goebbels, trans. Stephen Wendt, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company. Sandino, L. (2006), “Oral Histories and Design: Objects and Subjects,” Journal of Design History, 19 (4): 275–82.

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Stone, D. (2015), The Liberation of the Camps: The End of the Holocaust and Its Aftermath, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. Van Hallem, L. and H. Stevens (2011), “Acquisitions: Twentieth Century Art and Design from the Machine Age,” The Rijksmuseum Bulletin, 59 (3): 300–17. Vannini, P. (2009), “Material Culture and Technoculture as Interaction,” in P. Vannini (ed.), Material Culture and Technology in Everyday Life: Ethnographic Approaches, 73–85, New York: Peter Lang. Wilson, K. (2004), Livable Modernism: Interior Decorating and Design during the Great Depression, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press in association with Yale University Art Gallery. Windover, M. (2015), “Designing Public Radio in Canada,” RACAR, 40 (2): 42–56. Windover, M. (2018), “Building Radio Publics in Post-War Canada,” Journal of Architecture, 23 (6): 1046–74. Windover, M. and A. MacLennan (2017), Seeing, Selling, and Situating Radio in Canada, Halifax: Dalhousie Architectural Press. Woodward, I. (2009), “Material Culture and Narrative: Fusing Myth, Materiality, and Meaning,” in P. Vannini (ed.), Material Culture and Technology in Everyday Life: Ethnographic Approaches, 59–72, New York: Peter Lang. Wright, V. (1997), Modern Furniture in Canada 1920–1970, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Yagou, A. (2002), “Shaping Technology for Everyday Use: The Case of Radio Set Design,” The Design Journal, 5 (1): 2–13.

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Agency and Architecture in Medical Murals by Mary Filer and Marian Dale Scott Annmarie Adams

What is the role of art and architecture in the construction of medical legacies?1 In this chapter, we look at two modern murals painted within a twelve-year period (1942–54) in two public building typologies dedicated to healthcare: a hospital and a medical school. What influence does medical architecture have on the production of mural design? What roles have heroic physicians and scientists played in the ways they are themselves “permanently” pictured? How much did artists learn about medicine and science in the production of such works, and to what extent do these murals continue to communicate the history of medicine today? In pursuit of these questions, this research investigates human and material agency as they emerged through the production of two murals. Here I explore three expressions of agency: the role of hospital architecture as a setting for artistic depictions of medicine and medical history; the transformative potential of murals as didactic works that shape architecture and communicate medical information to future generations; and the agency of women artists in negotiating their artistic integrity while navigating male-dominated environments, the hospital and the university. This research is a significantly new direction in my work. In the past I have addressed how medicine has been enabled by architecture (Adams  2008); here I question instead how heroic medicine is pictured. The choice of these two particular murals offers a way to see medical art in an architectural context, widening the scope of art, architecture, and design history by uncovering the dynamics of mural decoration and room design. With these ambitions in mind, this chapter tours two murals that depict the work of two Montreal-based medical giants: Wilder Penfield and Hans Selye, whose lives overlapped for nearly seventy years (1907–76). How do the material circumstances of each artwork shape the legacies of these famous innovators? In each case, and inspired by our concerted effort in this book to understand agency, who or what serves as agent in the construction of historical, medical significance? With regard to grounds for a comparison, both murals were “built in” to an influential public/medical building. For neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield (1891–1976), we look at Mary Filer’s The Advance of Neurology, painted in a conference room of the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) in  1954. For endocrinologist Hans Selye (1907–82), we turn to Marian Dale Scott’s mural Endocrinology, painted

for the conference and reading room of McGill University’s Histology Department, in the stunning Strathcona Building, over eighteen months from  1942 to  1943 (Trépanier  2000:  163).2 This pair of murals has been overlooked by historians of medicine and even so, only a handful of art historians have looked at them as art (Dumas  1943; MacDermot  1943; Scott  1943; Anderson  2002:  191–244; Bagg 2010; Johnson-Dean 2016).3 Agency is a dubious concept in architectural discourse (Schneider and Till 2009: 97). Scholars from anthropology and sociology have produced a substantive literature on agency (Karp  1986; Hoskins  2006; Karp 1986; Pickering  2010; Rotenberg  2014). To expand on what agency means in relation to architecture, I turn to the notion of “spatial agency,” as articulated by architectural educators Nishat Awan, Tatjana Schneider, and Jeremy Till. Building on the work of sociologist Anthony Giddens, Awan, Schneider, and Till see agency as linked dialectically with social structure (Awan Schneider and Till, 2011: 30), and spatial agents are those who effect “change through the empowerment of others, allowing them to engage in their spatial environments in ways previously unknown or unavailable to them, opening up new freedoms and potentials as a result of reconfigured social space” (2011: 32). While Filer and Dale Scott did not intend to radically “reconfigure” the research environments in which they worked, I show how they tested the norms of appropriate femininity, but within the limitations of their social positions. A second significant text exploring architectural agency, useful to our approach to medical murals, is Annabel Jane Wharton’s 2015 book, Architectural Agents: The Delusional, Abusive, and Addictive Lives of Buildings. Wharton defines architectural agents separately from both stakeholders and intentions, as “spatial objects—that have an effect on their animate environments, independent of intention” (2015: xiv). As we will see, both murals expressed the wonder and power of medical and scientific research, actively inspiring viewers to understand and participate in research. In this way, the murals functioned like research tools, pushing human knowledge further. In the immediate pre- and postwar period, architectural murals were seen as a decorative and descriptive medium with enormous communicative power. In 1933, the distinguished artist Arthur Lismer wrote in the Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada that murals were “undoubtedly the most important form of artistic expression and of great social significance.” “Mural painting should be the extension of the functions of the building,” he told Canada’s architects (1933: 133–4). As an architectural historian, I am drawn to the public nature of murals for the following reasons. Unlike most paintings and other works of art, murals are usually immovable. Conceived and created in situ, murals often fill entire walls and thus define rooms, hallways, auditoria, stairways, and other spaces: they are, as it were, architectural. The architecture of a surrounding building is an integral part of their design; in the case of enclosed rooms, the artists know exactly how their murals will be seen and plan their paintings accordingly (Trépanier 2000: 164).4 In addition, because the viewer can only occupy so many places, scale is particularly important. Often lost

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in documentary photographs of the murals is the nature of this architectural setting, hence isolating the artworks as if they were traditional, framed, detachable paintings. For both Filer’s and Dale Scott’s murals, the spaces were relatively intimate and intended as meeting spaces only for the employees of the academic departments they occupied. I consequently understand murals as contributing to an architectural history of the medical institution. I also understand the murals (in their architectural settings) as material culture. According to anthropologist Robert Rotenberg, the most potent form of material agency is that which “enhance[s] the agentive human, especially as she operates on the fringe of rule-based spheres of socially constituted activities” (2014: 37). The murals thus exert material agency, since they contribute to the creation of medical history within the hospital and university environments. Furthermore, my goal in this chapter is to assess the murals from a feminist position, since the murals were created by women artists whose work was overseen by men within the male-dominated environments of the hospital and university. In this regard I admire Janice Anderson’s dissertation from Concordia University, “Creating Room: Canadian Women’s Mural Painting and Rereadings of the Public and the Private”; in particular, Anderson points out that woman artists do not share a homogeneous identity: each woman’s entry into the sphere of artistic production is specific to that individual’s time, place, and circumstance (2002: 22). I also take seriously art historian Anna Hudson’s challenge with regard to Marian Dale Scott that the work of these artists “can only be fully appreciated with continued interrogations of the relationship between modernism and feminism” (2010: 35–6). In other words, although Filer and Dale Scott’s murals may not stand out by today’s standards, their artistic contributions were extraordinary within their lifetimes, when the art world revered the work of the “individual (male) genius” (Hudson  2010:  35). In the case of both murals, the gendered dynamic between physician- or scientist-patron and women mural artists opens up space to examine the extent of women’s agency within institutions. Filer and Scott negotiated the means available to them—which, as educated women, were far from scant, but still limited—to participate in the construction of medical research as muralists. I thus advocate for the engagement of architectural and feminist perspectives in the quest to understand human and material agency in the production of medical murals of the mid-twentieth century.

Subjects In both case study murals, the relationship of artist to patron (or what we in ­architectural history might call client) is key. Mary Filer knew Wilder Penfield from her time as a nurse at the MNI from 1944 to 1946, which Penfield directed from 1934 to 1960. They corresponded about the mural project, even though another physician, Francis McNaughton, acted as the main liaison with Filer on behalf of the MNI. Filer’s spouse is also of interest to an architectural and feminist analysis of these murals. Filer eventually married McGill architecture professor Harold Spence-Sales, and she

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often worked with architects. Even in the  1940s, her burgeoning interest in architecture positioned her as the ideal candidate to realize a medical mural for the MNI. Painter Marian Dale Scott was a friend of endocrinologist Hans Selye, perhaps through their personal networks at McGill University, where Scott’s husband, lawyer and poet Frank Scott, was a faculty member (Kasirer 2008). Frank Scott and Selye (and Penfield) were part of the same social circle at McGill University and often lunched together at the university Faculty Club (Djwa 1987: 260). Historian of stress Mark Jackson and art historian Esther Trépanier attest that his wife Penna Selye played a role in the conceptualization of Dale Scott’s Endocrinology, which was commissioned after the Selyes saw her painting, The Philosopher, a portrait of engineer Patrick Rolleston (2000:  161). Before performing her own in-depth research, Dale Scott also discussed the major themes of the mural with both Penna and Hans Selye (Jackson 2013: 103). Biographer Sandra Djwa points to Dale Scott’s exposure to WPA murals in the United States from the couple’s sabbatical year at Harvard University in 1941 as an influence for her McGill project (1987: 248). The murals are thus both family affairs and a confirmation that social networks were key for women artists, who often worked as favors to friends and family. In this case, however, both Filer’s and Dale Scott’s murals were paid commissions (Johnson-Dean 2016: 43).5 Filer’s mural illustrates a heroic history of a medical specialty in a narrative, roughly chronological progression through individuals tightly positioned and a lineup of “discoveries.” The Advance of Neurology looks at the field from prehistory to the ­present, through forty-eight identifiable figures from Hippocrates to an imagined future beyond 1954, the year it was unveiled. Marian Dale Scott’s mural for McGill, however, is a more abstracted and metaphorical snapshot of research in endocrinology, not a history, and includes about fifteen unidentified figures. Both murals include patients, students, researchers, animals, words, technologies, medical diagrams, and body parts. They were painted to celebrate brand new buildings or wings of buildings.

Mary Filer, The Advance of Neurology, 1954 Mary Filer’s mural, The Advance of Neurology, of 1954 [Figure 7.1] is well documented in extant correspondence at the MNI. In September 1951, shortly after completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts and while teaching at McGill University, Filer first asked Penfield if she could come to the MNI to do a series of drawings, prints, and paintings “expressing the color and drama of the personalities and activities of the Institute.”6 Penfield agreed and passed it along to McNaughton, who had “a keen interest in art.”7 In January 1953, while completing a Master’s degree at Pennsylvania State University, Filer wrote to Penfield, McNaughton, and fellow neurosurgeon William Cone, offering to do a mural for the new McConnell Wing at the MNI: “I would be honoured to paint a mural in the new extension of the Neuro if it was desired, and would gladly volunteer my services purely for the pleasure it would give me.”8 Although she would reiterate her willingness to do the mural free of charge, even contemplating its potential as a doctoral thesis,9 Penfield confirmed the commission of $1,000 plus travel

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Figure 7.1  Mary Filer’s The Advance of Neurology, 1954, captured the wonder of neurology. Oil on plaster wall,  96 x  254  cm. On display at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital. Visual Arts Collection, McGill University Library, 1989–031. (© Estate of the artist. Penfield Fonds, P142, Box 9, Folder A/N 9-1/3. Courtesy of Osler Library of the History of Medicine)

expenses.10 Penfield’s insistence on remunerating Filer suggests two things. Filer was joining the ranks of professional medical muralists in painting a medical narrative. Penfield recognized this as important work and legitimized it through compensation. At the same time, in paying Filer, Penfield confirmed the artist–patron relationship, and all of the respective rights and obligations that it implied. Having visited the new wing [Figure 7.2] on a tour in winter or early spring of 1953, Filer contemplated the influence the architecture might have on her work. She later recalled that Penfield envisioned “a great collage of notable neurologists surrounding him at a moment of perception in the diagnosis of epilepsy” and that the setting for this moment should be the “Monday morning ward round” taking place in a conference room in the new wing (Filer Spence-Sales 1992: 162). Writing to McNaughton, she requested the dimensions of the conference room and wall, as well as two other areas contemplated for murals. “At your suggestion,” she wrote, “I think it would be good to keep continuity in the design with the architecture and present decorative scheme both inside and out.”11 McNaughton and Filer exchanged thoughts on themes, notably the inclusion of trephining, and McNaughton hoped that her work could “express some of the spirit of wonder and adventure which I associate with neurology.”12 She replied to McNaughton that “the wall must be such a wonder itself if it is to embody that quality.”13 Penfield later called it “an artistic fantasy” (1955: x). In the months leading up to the summer of  1954, when she would complete the mural, Filer continued to think about the space as an influence on her work, writing that “simplification and change in scale is necessary to suit the dimensions of the conference room.”14 The room was at the center of the ground floor of the addition, designed by the architecture firm of Fetherstonhaugh, Durnford, Bolton & Chadwick of Montreal. Built to the north of the original MNI building of 1934, the six-story extension doubled the hospital’s floor space and increased the number of beds from 49 to 139. Despite its substantial size, however, it blended in with rather than stood out from the existing building, with its relatively small street frontage,

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Figure 7.2  This aerial photo of the Montreal Neurological Institute shows the McConnell Wing of 1955 on the left. Penfield Fonds, P142—Series E (Events), Sub-series E/VN, Folder E/VN 1–1.4 (1933–4). See http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/penfieldfonds/fullrecord. php?ID=9656&d=1. (Courtesy of Osler Library of the History of Medicine)

similar architectural language, and matching Montreal limestone façade (Adams and Feindel 2016: 456). The conference room was located between sets of examination rooms and across the hall from the nurses’ study and a nursing office, and the mural originally occupied the full width of one of the room’s shorter walls. A photograph by Basil Zarov [Figure 7.3] in an influential Maclean’s article on Penfield from 1956 suggests that the mural was at the back of the room, as lecture attendees were shown seated facing away from the mural (Hutton 1956: 14–15). The photograph shows how the life-size figures in the mural enabled an (almost) seamless continuation of the real space of the conference room.15 The impact of this arrangement could be twofold: on the one hand, the audience at any given presentation would seem larger and more illustrious by the addition of the figures in the mural. On the other hand, any presenter would be facing the mural while speaking. Implicit in such

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Figure 7.3  The life-size scale of figures in Filer’s The Advance of Neurology made the mural seem like a continuation of the real room. Photograph by Basil Zarov. Published in Eric Hutton, “Penfield,” Maclean’s Magazine (February 18, 1956): 15.

an arrangement is a direct link from everyday life at the MNI, to the realms of the most prominent figures of academic neurology.16 In order to explore Filer’s mural from a feminist perspective, we turn to how the artist may have included images of herself in the work. Christina Johnson-Dean has suggested that Filer may have painted herself into the wall decoration as both patient and nurse. The figures of patient and nurse are central, the largest, and the brightest figures in the mural. They are also at the cusp of a compositional arc, almost parabolic or catenary, that serves to divide the long mural into upper and lower sections.17 A reclining patient occupies almost a third of this arc-shaped boundary. Filer depicted the patient with a cloth covering her midsection, leaving most of the legs and torso exposed (2016:  41,  42). This exposure was eventually criticized by Penfield and others. The mural was unveiled in this form in November 1954, but Filer later recalled that “it is not known who was first disturbed over the half-covered patient’s body, but early in 1955 Dr. Penfield asked me to repaint the covering sheet, extending it up to the neck and down to the ankle!” (1992: 165). The letter with this request to cover up the figure of the patient is not available, but we know of its existence because the artist responded to Penfield that she was “impressed with [the letter’s] sincerity” and that his “idea about making a drapery arrangement for the patient which will both be more appropriate for the hospital situation and still fit into the all-over composition is a good one.”18 Much later, however, Filer wrote that Penfield’s comments in

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the letter, or one written around the same time, had been “disturbing” to her,19 and that “his orders were obeyed, but under duress” (1992:  165). The enforced clothing of the patient was particularly ironic considering that in the MNI’s lobby stood a copy of Louis-Ernest Barrias’s La Nature se dévoilant à la Science (1899), a sculpture that presented Nature as a woman lifting a veil to reveal her face and breasts (Adams 2019). Note there is no extant evidence that Filer’s depiction of the patient was a self-portrait.20 Although the mural is only signed once by Filer, three dates appear under her signature: 11/9/54, 31/1/55, and 8/4/55. The evidence that has survived suggests the “covering up” happened in winter  1955, so the second and third dates make sense. Is it possible that she re-signed it at the time of significant changes?21 Also, an in-process photograph [Figure 7.4], showing the mural with the figures only outlined,

Figure 7.4  Mary Filer working on The Advance of Neurology, c. 1954, showing the patient unclothed. Penfield Fonds, P142, Box 430, Folder E/l-f (F). (Courtesy of Osler Library of the History of Medicine)

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before any color was applied, shows the patient uncovered to the lower abdomen. This record of changes, including those requested by Penfield, and the multiple dating of the work suggests that Filer saw the project as layered. The exchange between Filer and Penfield about the patient’s dress points to the equivocal nature of Filer’s agency. She influenced the design of the MNI conference room, for as a muralist she permanently altered the hospital and joined the ranks of other medical muralists in the process. However, Penfield was her patron, and a well-known medical innovator. In the context of mid-twentieth-century gender politics and in his role as a paying art patron, this meant that his word was the last. With regard to the question of self-portraiture, Filer had depicted herself at the center of an earlier mural, The Life of a Nurse [Figure 7.5], embracing her parents on graduation day from nursing school. She painted the approximately 3.3 x 7-meter mural at Penn State in 1953, documenting her experiences as a nursing student. A writer in the Montreal Star suggested it might be too powerful for its setting: “Maybe

Figure 7.5  Mary Filer’s The Life of a Nurse, 1953, at Pennsylvania State University, served as a precedent for her Montreal mural. William Vernon Cone Fonds, P163, Sub-Series A1, Box 2, File 42. (Courtesy of Osler Library of the History of Medicine)

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too much for the wall of a students’ lounge. If you just wanted to relax, you might find it disturbing, for it is seething and churning with life densely thronged with humanity, being born, suffering, serving, loving, dying” (Ayre 1953). The Penn State and MNI murals are clearly linked. When Filer first indicated her interest in doing a mural at the MNI in correspondence from January  1953, she described The Life of a Nurse and included hand-captioned progress photographs. She also mentioned that she was about to begin a mural for the office of Penn State’s president, Milton Eisenhower.22 Further supporting her proposal, she reminded McNaughton that “you mentioned last summer that there might be a suitable wall in a laboratory” and that “the Neuro means a great deal to me.”23 Thus The Life of a Nurse, with Filer at its center, served both as a formal precursor to and as a professional stepping stone toward The Advance of Neurology. A significant source for the meaning of The Advance of Neurology was its publication and explanation in the Second Foundation volume of  1955, celebrating the opening of the McConnell Wing (Filer  1955:  10–11). The description appears to have been written by Penfield and sent to both Filer and McNaughton for comments,24 and serves as the “official” reading of the mural. Penfield and his contemporaries are glossed over as “some senior members of staff,” while the nurse and her identity are not mentioned, nor are any of the other women depicted by Filer. These are Eileen Flanagan, the supervisor who had hired Filer as a nurse, Phoebe Stanley, at the left of the surgical grouping, and a woman in the group of donors in the bottom left corner, alternately identified as Lily Griffith McConnell, in whose name a research endowment was established at the MNI, and “a figure representing women donors” (Anderson  2002:  222; Feindel and Leblanc 2016: 263; Johnson-Dean 2016: 41).25 Filer painted some of the figures from photos, others from life. Perhaps because of her insider status at the MNI, she was given unlimited access to the hospital, including the operating rooms. A letter to McNaughton on April 7, 1954, suggests she considered the work in the tradition of El Greco’s The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, Frans Hals’s military company group portraits, and Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp.26 In an earlier letter, she outlined her process, which was to start by making separate sketches of concepts and incidents, “slowly building up the whole.” In terms of artistic agency, she wrote of the challenge of giving it “visual meaning and impact for the beholder,”27 which she may have seen as her main objective as the artist. Following the initial sketches, she described making more drawings on the spot to secure accuracy in the details.

Marian Dale Scott, Endocrinology, 1942–3 Marian Dale Scott’s Endocrinology [Figure  7.6] depicts contemporary research in the medical field of histology, discreetly implying Hans Selye’s place. Selye is widely understood to have demonstrated the existence of biological stress, for which he was nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1949. Hungarian-born Selye was fascinated with

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Figure  7.6  Marian Dale Scott’s Endocrinology,  1942–3, was intended to inspire scientific research. Oil on plaster wall. 369 x 494 cm. Strathcona Anatomy Building, McGill University. Visual Arts Collection, McGill University Library 1986–025. (© Estate of the artist)

the relationship of science and art, a topic he detailed in Canadian Art in 1943, where he described the mural as picturing the “spirit of scientific research” (1943:  19) in a similarly heroic fashion as McNaughton’s urge that Filer capture the “wonder” of neurology at the MNI. Endocrinology was painted in a conference and reading room for the research staff of the Department of Histology in McGill’s main building for the Faculty of Medicine, known colloquially as “the Strathcona,” constructed in  1909. Whereas Filer employed the arc, Dale Scott’s main formal device was the spiral; “man, the seeker” (“Explanatory Key”  1943:  18), presumably a researcher, male, muscular, turned away from the viewer, grasps at the spiral.28 Jackson speculates that the figure was “supposedly modelled on her husband but perhaps also carried allusions to her developing intimacy with Selye” (2013: 131), while Trépanier notes that Dale Scott had intended to ask her husband, Frank, to pose for the central figure (2000: 185). Fifteen or so other figures are standing or lying down, all naked, and rendered in browns and grays, establishing a hierarchy with varying degrees of transparency and detail, swirling out of and around the spiral. The description accompanying Dale Scott’s and Selye’s articles on the mural in Canadian Art uses the term “revolving” and says that “the architectural lines of force [between objects] receive greater emphasis, and the various objects are correspondingly subordinated” (“Explanatory Key” 1943: 18).

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The artist includes several women figures, giving birth, breast feeding, and even sitting along the edge of the approximately 3.6 x 4.9 meter mural. The largest figure, stepping into the mural from the lower left corner, is a giant figure produced by pituitary overactivity. Next to his hand is Dale Scott’s image of the thyroid gland. The lower right corner focuses on women’s conditions. As Hugh E. MacDermot, the author of a  1941 biography of cardiologist Maude Abbott, explained to fellow physicians in the Canadian Medical Association Journal: “the ovarian follicle is shown with the corpus luteum and the association with lactation, pregnancy and ovarian malfunction” (1943: 224). This is visible in the figure at the bottom right, whose female secondary sex characteristics remain underdeveloped. It is significant that Dale Scott also pictures women representing conditions that are not specific to female anatomy. Female figures illustrate conditions associated with the adrenal (round form at middle right), pituitary (top left), and thyroid (bottom left) glands. Dale Scott may have been inspired by African American artist Aaron Douglas’s 1934 four-mural suite at the New York Public Library’s 135th Street branch entitled Aspects of Negro Life. Douglas’s angled, moving silhouettes of differing tonal shades, circular and concentric forms, and muted color palette are similar to Dale Scott’s mural. As a founding member of the Contemporary Arts Society in Montreal, a well-traveled social activist, and a long-standing friend of artist Pegi Nicol MacLeod who lived in New York, it is very likely that she would have either seen or been familiar with the Douglas project.29 Needless to say, Selye and Dale Scott do not themselves appear in this mural. Dale Scott’s feminist message is expressed in other ways. For example, she sets out to paint science as a progressive topic that includes research on women; she sees art as an opportunity for inclusiveness, to expose those without specialized knowledge of science; and she looks beyond traditional women’s subjects such as domestic scenes, children, and landscapes to find beauty in the male-dominated realm of science. She correspondingly saw herself as an artist actively participating in scientific research—this is a crucial aspect of her agency—and urged other artists to participate in important developments of their time. Interestingly, and in the spirit of scientific investigation, Selye and Dale Scott saw the mural project as a partnership. Their published reactions to the project in the same edition of Canadian Art, as “art as an inspiration to science” and “science as an inspiration to art” (Scott 1943; Selye 1943), played active roles in this dynamic. Most significant for an architectural history of medicine is that the mural was intended to inspire those meeting and working in the room itself, rather than simply decorating it or celebrating their achievements. Jackson’s account in The Age of Stress says Selye took a very active role in choosing what was depicted, suggesting a diminished role for the artist, something we see constantly in life stories of women architects (Adams  2012). By contrast, art historian Shannon Bagg assesses the mural without a single reference to Selye (2010). When Selye asked Dale Scott to illustrate a textbook he had written, she wrote that “she did not want her art to be a ‘servant’ of science” (Trépanier 2000: 164–5). In any case, and more pertinent to

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­ rchitectural–medical–feminist interpretations of the mural, is that it played an active a role in scientific research, like the tools it depicts: rat, microscope, and library file.30 The medical conditions depicted in the mural were and are immediately legible to physicians, and thus the mural is not as abstract as non-physicians may perceive it.31

Conclusion Artists engaged art and architecture in dynamic interplay to produce murals that celebrated, explained, and even inspired medical legacies such as those of Penfield and Selye. In both cases, the modest size of the conference rooms had a major impact on the way the work was designed and viewed. It also meant that the works were almost always seen in small groups of viewers and at close range. This intimate space therefore invited close inspection and perhaps even encouraged viewers to reflect on the creation of scientific knowledge. Both Penfield and Selye appear to have played major roles in the production of the murals. Penfield granted permission for Filer to produce the work, full access to the institution as subject matter, and even policed the moral boundaries of the work after its unveiling, as we have seen. Finally, both Filer and Dale Scott took on significant research, both historical and scientific, in order to produce their works. Additionally, our foray into two meeting rooms in Montreal reveals important considerations in seeing medical murals as significant feminist material culture. Both murals forecast the future, projecting a rosier prospect for women after the mid-twentieth century. In both cases, feminist principles are evident in the inclusion of women as major figures: nurses, patients, donors, and students. A feminist aspect of the Montreal murals lies in the agency of the artists as women and muralists. In completing these high-profile commissioned murals, Filer and Dale Scott established themselves alongside other giants in the history of mural painting. Since women’s artistic contributions have often been downplayed, erased, or attributed to their male partners, it is not insignificant that these two women produced these artworks in the first place, contributing to both architecture and medicine by transforming two everyday spaces. Importantly, as Wharton suggests, alterations to a room—in this case, artistic interventions—could “lead to innovations in teaching practices. Buildings, in this sense, certainly have social agency” (2015: xix). In this respect, the murals offer unanticipated lessons on the depiction of medical heroes. First, they show how “seeing” medicine at this time was filtered through specialized technologies. Filer made use of photographs as part of the artistic process. Dale Scott, instead, used a less traditional tool for artists: a microscope. Importantly, the murals depict imagined situations. In Filer’s case this meant juxtaposing dead and living figures. Dale Scott’s mural depicted medical conditions simultaneously that would never have been found in a single patient. Second, both murals connect to other murals, forming a network. Thirdly, the works depict medicine and science as positive forces in society, with an emphasis on teamwork and the role of the “human” in research. Finally, both murals

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are in spaces intended for knowledge-sharing. Through this act of place-making, they make us all feel part of the process.

Notes 1 This research relies on the expertise of Duncan Cowie, Vanessa Di Francesco, Dominic Hardy, Mary Hunter, Martha Langford, Catherine LaRivière, Y. Ipek Mehmetoglu, Magdalena Milosz, Laura O’Brien, Wendy Owens, Michelle Paquette, Jennifer Phan, Lily Szczygiel, and Mary Yearl. I am indebted to Janice Anderson, John Leroux, Benjamin Mappin-Kasirer, and Nicholas Kasirer who commented on versions of this work. An interactive workshop funded by the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art provided rich feedback on an earlier draft. 2 Trépanier says she worked on it for eighteen months and it was unveiled on June 26, 1943, so I presume Dale Scott started about January 1942. The invitation came in fall 1941. 3 On Filer’s The Advance of Neurology, see Montreal Neurological Institute and McGill University, 1955; On Marian Dale Scott’s Endocrinology, see Jackson (2013); Lerner (2008); MacDermot (1943); Nemiroff (1980); Selye (1943); Trepanier (2000). 4 In writing about Marian Dale Scott, physician Paul Dumas sees the mural as restricted by both its architectural context and the function of the institution in which it is located (Dumas 1943). 5 The original amount for Filer’s mural was $1,000 plus travel expenses. See Penfield to Filer, February 1, 1954, Wilder Penfield Fonds, P142, Series A/N (Administration/Neuro), A/N 33, p. 1. Johnson-Dean indicates that Filer was offered $400 for changes after the mural was completed. Penfield also helped Filer to sell some of the individual portraits to the doctors and to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. 6 Filer to Penfield, September  23,  1951, Wilder Penfield Fonds, P142, Series C/G (Correspondence/General), C/G 51 (Mary Filer), pp. 1–2. 7 Penfield to Filer, October  1,  1951, Wilder Penfield Fonds, P142, Series C/G (Correspondence/General), C/G 51 (Mary Filer), p. 1. 8 Filer mentioned in her letters to McNaughton and Cone that she also wrote to Penfield, Filer to McNaughton, January  2,  1953, Francis Lothian McNaughton Fonds, P165, Sub-series B2, Box 8, File 86, p. 4; and Filer to Cone, January 2, 1953, P163, Sub-series A-1, Box 2, File 42, p. 2. 9 Filer to McNaughton, December  20,  1953, Wilder Penfield Fonds, P142, Series A-N (Administration/Neuro), A/N 33, p. 1. 10 Penfield to Filer, February  1,  1954, Wilder Penfield Fonds, P142, Series A-N (Administration/Neuro), A/N 33, p.1. 11 These were “the wall in the Fellow’s lounge, and the wall in the corridor with steps at the West end of it.” Filer to McNaughton, April 19, 1953, Francis Lothian McNaughton Fonds, P165, Sub-series B2, Box 8, File 86, p. 2. 12 McNaughton to Filer, May  25 or June  3,  1953, Francis Lothian McNaughton Fonds, P165, Sub-series B2, Box 8, File 86, p. 1.

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13 Filer to McNaughton, June  19,  1953, Francis Lothian McNaughton Fonds, P165, Sub-series B2, Box 8, File 86, p. 1. 14 Filer to McNaughton, April  7,  1954, Wilder Penfield Fonds, P142, Series A/N (Administration/Neuro), A/N 33, p. 1. 15 The mural is extant, but the room in which it is located has been much reduced in size, from an original length of approximately 9 meters to approximately 3.6 meters. Anderson writes that “the reduction in the length of the space from 40’ to 12’ makes it difficult, if not impossible, to stand back far enough from the mural to appreciate its complexity” (2002:  215). The likely original room configuration (approximately  9  x  6.5  meters) is shown in a plan of the McConnell addition from  1951. Fetherstonhaugh, Durnford, Bolton & Chadwick, Architects, “Montreal Neurological Institute Additions and Alterations, Drawing No. 2–01, First Floor Plan,” scale 1/8’ = 1’-0’, August 29, 1951, McGill University Archives, arch. no.  052, building code  059, file  1023M, accession number 901. 16 I am grateful to Benjamin Mappin-Kasirer for this observation. 17 There are many well-known murals that divide into upper and lower sections, including Rivera’s A Dream (1947–8) and The History of Medicine in Mexico: The People Demanding Health (1953–4), as well as El Greco’s painting Burial of the Count of Orgaz (1586–8), which Filer cited as an influence. 18 Filer to Penfield, February  28,  1955, Francis Lothian McNaughton Fonds, P165, Sub-series B2, Box 8, File 86, p. 1. 19 Penfield’s letter was dated December 8, 1954. Filer to William Feindel, September 23, 2002, William Feindel Fonds, McGill University Archives, Correspondence with Mary Filer (2002–5), p. 1. 20 Johnson-Dean is the only source to claim that Filer pictured herself as the patient. Significantly, Filer’s self-portrait as a nurse—made distinct by her uniform and dark hair in a low chignon—bears little resemblance to the patient. 21 Correspondence regarding the publication of the mural in Prospect and Retrospect in Neurology further illuminates the timeline. William Feindel first communicated with Little, Brown and Company on January 25, 1955, about the inclusion of the mural in the book, writing that “the mural will not be completed finally for one more month.” On February 16, he wrote that “the mural has already been finished well ahead of schedule, since we had not expected it to have been finished for another month or so.” Feindel to Theodore Phillips, January  25,  1955, Wilder Penfield Fonds, P142, Series A/N (Administration/ Neuro), A/N 4-2/1, p. 1; Feindel to Theodore Phillips, February 16, 1955, Wilder Penfield Fonds, P142, Series A/N (Administration/Neuro), A/N 4-2/1, p. 1. 22 Filer to McNaughton, January  2,  1953, Francis Lothian McNaughton Fonds, P165, Sub-series B2, Box 8, File 86, p. 5; Filer to Cone, January 2, 1953, William Vernon Cone Fonds, P163, Sub-Series A1, Box 2, File 42, p. 2. This mural, entitled Role of University Administration in the Community (1954), was later removed because Eisenhower thought “it tended to overwhelm the office somewhat and its colors simply did not seem to harmonize with the general office décor” (quoted in Johnson-Dean 2016: 38). Johnson-Dean notes that it was likely painted over.

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23 Filer to McNaughton, January  2,  1953, Francis Lothian McNaughton Fonds, P165, Sub-series B2, Box 8, File 86, p. 5. 24 Penfield wrote to Filer, “I enclose a tentative title and explanation to accompany the reproduction in the book. Send back any suggested alterations as the publishers wish this before the picture.” Penfield to Filer, March 4, 1955, Francis Lothian McNaughton Fonds, P165, Sub-series B2, Box 8, File 86, p. 2. The note to McNaughton was “AD” to McNaughton, March 4, 1954, Francis Lothian McNaughton Fonds, P165, Sub-series B2, Box 8, File 86. 25 Anderson compares this “dismissal” of women donors to the lack of women in neurology’s history except as nurses and patients. McConnell was also the wife of William McConnell, who funded the project. 26 Filer to McNaughton, April  7,  1954, Wilder Penfield Fonds, P142, Series A/N (Administration/Neuro), A/N 33, p. 1. 27 Filer to McNaughton, April  19,  1953, Francis Lothian McNaughton Fonds, P165, Sub-series B2, Box 8, File 86, p. 1. 28 Anderson notes that Dale Scott had used the spiral in previous works (2002: 235). I am grateful to Nicholas Kasirer for pointing out the important role of the spiral in other works by Dale Scott, including “Variation on a Theme: Cells and Fossils, No. 6, 1946” in the National Gallery of Canada. 29 Thanks to John Leroux for showing me this work. 30 Shannon Bagg suggests that Dale Scott’s diaries functioned as a similarly active force, “as a way to develop her awareness and expression” (2010: 41). 31 For example, and anecdotally, when I took medical students there in winter 2018 they immediately noted the similarities to the ways these conditions are illustrated in common textbooks. McGill medical student Benjamin Mappin-Kasirer confirmed in an email December 28, 2017: “Some elements immediately stand out to anyone who has been flipping through a medical textbook—the illustrations of acromegaly, hyperthyroidism, pregnancy, lactation, and references to pancreatic endocrinology are striking, relevant, and both scientifically accurate and symbolically productive.”

Bibliography Adams, A. (2008), Medicine by Design: The Architect and the Modern Hospital, 1893–1943, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Adams, A. (2012), “‘Marjorie’s Web’: Canada’s First Woman Architect and Her Clients,” in K. Huneault and J. Anderson (eds), Rethinking Professionalism: Women and Art in Canada, 1850–1970, 380–99, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Adams, A. (2019), “Designing Penfield: Inside the Montreal Neurological Institute” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 93 (2): 207–40. Adams, A. and W. Feindel (2016), “Building the Institute,” in W. Feindel and R. Leblanc (eds), The Wounded Brain Healed: The Golden Age of the Montreal Neurological Institute, 1934–1984, 441–58, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Anderson, J. (2002), Creating Room: Canadian Women’s Mural Painting and Rereadings of the Public and the Private, PhD diss., Concordia University, Montreal.

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Awan, N., T. Schneider and J. Till (2011), Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing Architecture, London: Routledge. Ayre, R. (1953), “Art Notes: Mural Work by Mary Filer Shows Power,” Montreal Star, July 25. Bagg, S. (2010), “Marian Scott: Within and without Modernism,” in A. Carr (ed.), Raven Papers: Remembering Natalie Luckyj (1945–2002), 37–55, Manotick, ON: Penumbra Press. Djwa, S. (1987), The Politics of the Imagination: A Life of F.R. Scott, Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre. Dumas, P. (1943), “La fresque endocrinologique,” Journal de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, 12 (3): 209–12. “Explanatory Key” (1943), Canadian Art, 1 (1): 18. Feindel, W. and R. Leblanc (2016), The Wounded Brain Healed: The Golden Age of the Montreal Neurological Institute, 1934–1984, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Filer, M. H. (1955), “The Evolution of Neurology and the Foundation of the Montreal Neurological Institute,” in Montreal Neurological Institute, Prospect and Retrospect in Neurology: Second Foundation Volume Published for the Staff, to Commemorate the Opening of the McConnell Wing and the Second Foundation of the Montreal Neurological Institute, of McGill University, colored pages between, 10–11, Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company. Filer, Mary and Harold Spence-Sales (1992), “The Advance of Neurology,” in E. Barrowman, P. Robb, and T. Rasmussen (eds), Nursing Highlights 1934 to 1990: Montreal Neurological Institute & Hospital: A Narrative of the Reflections, Revelations, Anticipations and Dreams of Nursing at the Montreal Neurological Hospital, 162–5, Montreal: n.p. Hoskins, J. (2006), “Agency, Biography and Objects,” in C. Tilley, W. Keane, S. Küchler, M. Rowlands, and P. Spyer (eds), Handbook of Material Culture, 74–84, London: Sage. Hudson, A. (2010), “Commentary on Marian Scott,” in A. Carr (ed.), Raven Papers: Remembering Natalie Luckyj (1945–2002), 34–6, Manotick, ON: Penumbra Press. Hutton, E. (1956), “Penfield,” Maclean’s Magazine, February 18. Jackson, M. (2013), The Age of Stress: Science and the Search for Stability, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnson-Dean, C. (2016), The Life and Art of Mary Filer, Salt Spring Island, BC: Mother Tongue Publishing Limited. Karp, I. (1986), “Agency and Social Theory: A Review of Anthony Giddens,” American Ethnologist, 13 (1): 131–7. Kasirer, N. (2008), “The Dance Is One,” Law & Literature, 20 (1): 69–88. Lerner, L. (2008), “When the Children Are Sick, So Is Society: Dr Norman Bethune and the Montreal Circle of Artists,” in C. R. Comacchio, J. L. Golden, and G. Weisz (eds), Healing the World’s Children: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Health in the Twentieth Century, 253–81, Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Lismer, A. (1933), “Mural Painting,” The Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, 10 (7) (July): 127–35. MacDermot, H. E. (1943), “The Artist Looks at Endocrinology,” Canadian Medical Association Journal, 49 (3): 224–5.

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Montreal Neurological Institute and McGill University (1955), Prospect and Retrospect in Neurology (Second Foundation Volume), Boston, MA, and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company. Nemiroff, D. (1980), “Les Métaphores de Marian Scott,” Vie des Arts, 25 (été): 37. Penfield, W. (1955), “Introduction,” in Montreal Neurological Institute, Prospect and Retrospect in Neurology: Second Foundation Volume Published for the Staff, to Commemorate the Opening of the McConnell Wing and the Second Foundation of the Montreal Neurological Institute, of McGill University, vii–x, Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company. Pickering, A. (2010), “Material Culture and the Dance of Agency,” in D. Hicks and M. Beaudry (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, 191–209, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rotenberg, R. (2014), “Material Agency in the Urban Material Culture Initiative,” Museum Anthropology, 37 (1): 36–45. Scott, M. (1943), “Science as an Inspiration to Art,” Canadian Art, 1 (1) (October–November): 19, 36–7. Selye, H. (1943), “Art as an Inspiration to Science,” Canadian Art, 1 (1) (October–November): 17, 19. Trépanier, E. (2000), Marian Dale Scott: Pioneer of Modern Art, Québec: Musée du Québec. Wharton, A. J. (2015), Architectural Agents: The Delusional, Abusive, Addictive Lives of Buildings, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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8

Dueling over Domes: Jeffrey Lindsay and Buckminster Fuller Cross Struts and Sprits in the US Patent Office Cammie McAtee

In August  1951 Architectural Forum: The Magazine of BUILDING dramatically announced: “One of the things to come has come” (Anon. 149) [Figure 8.1]. What had come was a breakthrough in prefabricated building construction: the  08C270 Weatherbreak, the first large-span, self-supporting geodesic dome constructed according to Buckminster Fuller’s theories. Assembled by six men in eight hours working in cold weather conditions on the western end of the Island of Montreal, the dome’s 1,000 lbs. of aluminum struts and sprits and stainless steel cabling brought incontrovertible material weight to an idea that many observers had dismissed as another of Fuller’s pie-in-the-sky dreams. But if the geodesic dome had sprung from Fuller’s “blunt forehead,” it was one of his young “lieutenants” who designed, calculated, specified, researched, tested, procured the materials for, and supervised the manufacture of every single element of the 49-foot-diameter dome before directing its rapid construction in a farmer’s field in late December 1950. Weatherbreak proved Jeffrey Lindsay, the founder, director, and financier of the Fuller Research Foundation Canadian Division, to be a risk-taker à la lettre. Although Montreal’s first geodesic dome has been side-lined in the history of geodesics, it was as important, possibly even more so than the one the city is famous for: the United States Pavilion built for Expo ’67.1 The construction of Weatherbreak, or, to be more precise, the diffusion of images of it, opened the way to seemingly unlimited possibilities for geodesics. The dome itself has had a significant “trajectory” both physically and socially to draw on Arjun Appadurai’s work on the “life histories” of things (1988:  5). Over the course of almost seventy years, the structure initially proposed as a revolutionary shelter has been re-purposed as an experimental house, revered as an icon of counterculture and, most recently, acquired as a valuable artifact of twentieth-century technology by a major museum (McAtee 2017).2 While the dome’s physical and contextual mutability makes it an especially rich object for study, this chapter will instead focus on how the design agencies of Buckminster Fuller and Jeffrey Lindsay collided in the wake of its realization. The  following analysis is, quite obviously, motivated by a desire to disassemble the master narrative woven around the life and production of Fuller that has for the most part disregarded the significant contributions his many collaborators made to

Figure 8.1  08C270 Weatherbreak (1949–50) on the cover of Architectural Forum, August 1951. Fuller Research Foundation Canadian Division, designer. (Unknown photographer)

the development and diffusion of geodesics. As the anthropologist Laura Ahearn suggested almost twenty years ago, the concept of agency may offer a means to address the “tensions, contradictions, or oppositional actions on the part of individuals and collectives” (2001: 110). This chapter adopts Ahearn’s definition of agency as the “socio-culturally mediated capacity to act” (110), in this case, for a designer of sophisticated structures to exert his capacity to act within his chosen field of design. But in considering Lindsay as an agent of geodesics, it will be necessary to consider what differentiates an agent from an actor, a distinction raised by another anthropologist, Ivan Karp. Whereas an actor is an individual whose actions are dictated by a rule-governed system, an agent wields “causal power” to bring “effect” (Karp 1986: 137). Karp, however, maintains that the two identities can coexist in a single individual, a proposal that may be useful for thinking about action and agency in a figure like Lindsay. My broad working definition also accepts what design historians Nancy Blossom and John Turpin have identified as a necessary component of what it means to be an agent and to exert agency: that is, risk (2008). This chapter

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will consider how the two protagonists wielded one of the tools of authorship in the design world—patents—to assert their agency. It will also address the fluid identity of the industrial designer and the possible role it played in Lindsay’s agency formation.

Indoctrination, or, on Becoming a Dymaxion Designer Jeffrey Burland Lindsay (1924–84) was among the first group of industrial designers who could claim to have been one of Fuller’s students. In September 1948, Fuller began his first formal teaching position at Chicago’s Institute of Design. Though the appointment came about somewhat by accident, Fuller quickly saw its potential benefits to his research and development work, which he had recently incorporated as the Fuller Research Foundation.3 As well as providing a stable if limited income, teaching brought Fuller into regular contact with young, open minds whose ideas, energy, and enthusiasm fueled his own. The students and later the fellows of his research foundation also proved extremely valuable as unpaid laborers in the construction of the prototypes that he needed to further his work. A comparison can be drawn between Frank Lloyd Wright, who established the Taliesin Fellowship in  1932 as a means of raising much-needed funds and distancing his personal liability, and Fuller, who set up his external research foundation in 1946 for similar reasons. Fuller, however, preferred the role of the traveling preacher to that of the residential guru.4 Moving from campus to campus, the juggler of ideas and inventions could keep many balls in the air at once. But the disciples of Fuller and Wright eventually faced the same problem: lingering too long in the shadow of genius endangered creative and professional independence. Whereas Wright could only rail against those who left him for stealing his ideas, breaking free from Fuller, who held patents on inventions developed in collaboration with various satellites of the research foundation, could be fraught with legal complications. Lindsay, who was from Montreal, had begun his studies in the Institute of Design’s product design program in the autumn of  1946. Nothing in his early biography pointed to a career in either the arts or industrial design. A veteran of the war that had taken his older brother’s life, Lindsay was drawn to design through a near-spiritual belief that technology could solve the world’s problems. Fuller’s optimistic vision of the future that placed the industrial designer on the front lines of the design and production revolution was extremely attractive. He offered his students entry into the Dymaxion world—the concept arising from the merger of dynamic, maximum, and tension—based on a philosophy that privileged speed and the efficient use of materials and technology. The hopeful message, spread through a constant churning out of articles, books, and especially public talks, told young people that they could change the world. Lindsay was one of many who threw himself wholeheartedly into advancing the Dymaxion revolution. While several of his Institute of Design colleagues later contributed to the diffusion of geodesics—Don Richter, who remained in Chicago, played an important ­role— Lindsay’s financial independence made him an especially promising prospect for

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Fuller’s research foundation. As a student, he had financed the fabrication of prototypes, including the iconic necklace dome finalized at Black Mountain College, where Fuller taught in the summers of  1948 and  1949 (Godfrey and Slick  1971:  6–24).5 Spanning 14 feet and supporting the weight of a dozen students, the 1949 aluminum dome was a successful follow up to the previous summer’s “supine dome” as the artist Elaine de Kooning reputedly titled the failed experiment.6 With Fuller’s enthusiastic support, his ID diploma and the Dymaxion license Fuller had awarded to his students in hand, Lindsay returned to Montreal from North Carolina as a Fuller Research Foundation (FRF) fellow in the autumn of 1949. There, in his parent’s home, he established the only FRF research and development branch outside of the United States [Figure 8.2]. The location across the street from McGill University offered easy access to scientists and the occasional use of university facilities. Although it took two years for the Montreal office to be fully incorporated, Fuller immediately gave Lindsay status within the foundation, appointing him to its Board of Trustees, which also included the design world luminaries Charles Eames, George Nelson and Knud Lonberg-Holmes. Lindsay’s investment—which eventually amounted to $32,000—also earned him a place as a director. In its early years, the FRF was a truly collective enterprise. The feeling that they were on the edge of a major breakthrough, if not the start of a revolution, kept its members dedicated to the

Figure 8.2  Fuller Research Foundation Canadian Division office, 3438 McTavish Street, Montreal, c. 1950. Jeffrey Lindsay, photographer. (Fonds Jeffrey Lindsay, Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary. Courtesy of Jasmine Lindsay Forman.)

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shared project of furthering geodesics. Although Fuller fostered competition between the different research satellites and college seminars, a spirit of comradely exchange can be felt at every turn. Fuller and other FRF colleagues reviewed and responded to Lindsay’s designs and calculations for Weatherbreak and other Canadian Division projects, and despite long distances, Lindsay assisted in Fuller’s various research, design, and building seminars across the United States and participated in projects undertaken by other FRF research satellites. There was great excitement within the FRF network about the commercial ­potential of the Montreal branch. Not only was Canada free of the postwar rationing measures still in effect in the United States, the aluminum industry was also booming in Quebec, with Alcan Aluminium actively engaged in product research and development.7 Upon returning to Montreal, Lindsay immediately made contact with the company’s research branches and with the Department of National Defence in Ottawa. By 1949 it was already clear that a northern front was opening in the Cold War and with it possibilities for innovating new structural types. The military was the ideal client for the lightweight structures the FRF hoped to mass-produce on both sides of the border. Lindsay immediately set to work on two Weatherbreaks: the  08C270; and its smaller sibling, the 02C108, a four-man tent designed to withstand arctic ­conditions. Cognizant that media response would be directly proportional to the dome’s size, Lindsay focused his efforts on developing a prototype for the larger of the two. Modeling his practice upon that of his mentor, he closely documented every aspect of its fabrication and assembly through the autumn and early winter of 1950 [Figure 8.3]. Instructed by Fuller to develop a commercialization strategy early on, Lindsay brought Ted Pope, a friend who was working in advertising, on board to promote the Canadian division’s products. That Fuller had full confidence in Lindsay is shown in the unusually high degree of autonomy he gave the two young men in diffusing the project. Yet Lindsay’s ability to act independently was also closely monitored by Fuller, who saw Lindsay and Pope as agents acting on his behalf (Rotenberg 2014: 37). The feature article in Architectural Forum provided Lindsay with an auspicious entry onto the international stage. But the first to benefit from this breakthrough was Fuller. Its publication had an immediate effect, attracting two potential clients from very different sectors.8 The first was Edgar Kaufmann, the department store magnate, who was interested in using a geodesic dome as a cover for a light opera bowl he was planning to build in Pittsburgh (Prentice 1951). Even if this project did not go beyond an idea, it paved the way for the 93-foot truss dome Fuller and the FRF designed for the Ford Rotunda in Dearborn, Michigan, in  1953. It also put Fuller into direct competition with the profession he was plotting to displace: Frank Lloyd Wright, who had been commissioned by Kaufmann to design a major urban renewal plan for downtown Pittsburgh, believed the opera was his project. The second letter of interest—from a commander in the Aeronautics Division of the US Navy inquiring about the use of domes for portable aircraft maintenance shelters—brought Fuller into contact with the military (Willems 1951). It led to projects with the US Marine Corps, chief among them

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Figure 8.3.1–6  Assembly of 08C270 Weatherbreak, Baie d’Urfé, Quebec, December 1950. Jeffrey Lindsay and unknown photographer. (Fonds Jeffrey Lindsay, Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary. Courtesy of Jasmine Lindsay Forman.)

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Dueling over Domes: Jeffrey Lindsay and Buckminster Fuller 135

the “flying domes,” lightweight prefabricated structures that could be easily moved from place to place by helicopters. Photographs of the trials captured the popular imagination and made Fuller and geodesics household names. It is not hyperbole to state that the seeds of his future success were sown in Weatherbreak.

Agency in the Dymaxion World This brings us to the thorny issue of authorship and conflict over agency that lies at the heart of Fuller and Lindsay’s years of collaboration. For his part, Fuller sent out mixed signals, in one breath promoting the collective, whether it be the FRF or one of his later companies, in the next insisting on sole credit as the genius. While he truly believed in the FRF “Fellowship” and demanded that it be credited in news articles, this also served him personally by further distinguishing him from the architects and building trade entrepreneurs he was challenging.9 But as is well known by now, Fuller was notoriously stingy in acknowledging the contributions of those who collaborated with him and absolutely vindictive toward anyone he believed had crossed him. The art historian Maria Gough has shown this well in her study of his unpaid debt to the sculptor Kenneth Snelson (2009). After hearing Fuller speak in the summer of 1948, Snelson, then a student at Black Mountain College, began exploring tension and compression in a series of studies that evolved out of his work on kinetic sculpture. Dubbing Snelson’s discovery “tensegrity” (tension plus integrity)—a first claim to authorship and thus ­invention—Fuller and his students at the Institute of Design began to apply these principles to “great circle” domes, which had failed to stand due to a lack of sufficient rigidity. The realization of a self-supporting dome the following summer and the development of geodesics were immeasurably advanced by Snelson’s work, as Lindsay later credited (1971:  2).10 Fuller, however, steadfastly refused to acknowledge his seminal contributions.11 The troubles Lindsay would later encounter with Fuller were, admittedly, of a different nature. Unlike Snelson, Lindsay was a self-described disciple—a “Fuller G.I.” as he called himself (1951). At this point in time, as his student Dymaxion license underlined, his capacity to work as a designer of geodesic structures came through Fuller. In this regard, Lindsay was working as an actor within a rule-bound environment. The realization of Weatherbreak, however, changed everything. Its success in the media hastened the demise of a close relationship, with Fuller seeing the young man he once claimed as a spiritual son as a rival. Believing that Lindsay was on the brink of breaking into the commercial market, Fuller began to tighten his grip on the Canadian Division, asserting proprietary claims that impeded the young entrepreneur’s ability to innovate and dashing any hope that he could recoup his investment in the prototypes. Lindsay was painfully aware of what was happening. In May 1952, he wrote Fuller a letter expressing disillusionment with the change in their personal and professional partnership: I do not wish to trouble you further. I hope the dymaxion world will exist some day and that I will be able to understand how it came into being.

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You have frequently told me that you never asked me to do anything on your behalf or promised me anything but free reign in Canada in return for my contribution to FRF. But you must surely understand that you achieved a far greater effort and investment from me through your general process of indoctrination than would have been possible through a contract. (1952)

Fuller quickly responded, citing, in typical fashion, misunderstandings and bringing in his wife, Anne Hewlett Fuller, to smooth over hard feelings. He nevertheless continued to harbor concerns about perceptions of authorship as well as perceived financial loss and began to assert his paternity over Weatherbreak. As images of the dome circulated with Lindsay’s name attached to it, Fuller took steps to ensure that it was clear who was really responsible for the breakthrough. Although he was not in Montreal when the dome was assembled, he went so far as to write himself into the story of its birth. In 1954, Fuller recounted the momentous event as nothing less than an epiphany to a group of students: When the structure was completed we looked up into the blue sky through this thing and began to realize something very pleasantly exciting was happening to us. We knew that it was light, knew that it was strong, but we did not know that it was going to do just that to a blue sky. (1955a: 17)

Following a series of unsuccessful attempts to reach an agreement on rights, the dissolution of the Canadian Division, and Lindsay’s decision to make a fresh start in Los Angeles, the dispute over rights was finally resolved in September 1956, when they agreed to a fixed rate for the use of concepts developed by the Montreal branch. Fuller and Lindsay parted ways, if not immediately as friends, as colleagues who were equally dedicated to advancing the “geodesic art,” as they put it in the signed agreement (1956). Yet something still rankled for Fuller, whose façade of sureness hid deep insecurity. In the end, he took his revenge, downplaying Weatherbreak until it all but fell from the origin story of geodesic domes. Despite recognizing that he and Lindsay shared the same capacity to take bold risks in the face of personal and professional ruin, Fuller chose to see his former protégé as a competitor rather than a collaborator, and certainly not as an equal. The many research and development outposts making up the Fuller Research Foundation were also dropped from a grand narrative focused on a single brilliant mind. Individual agency in the Dymaxion world was clearly a power that only Fuller was allowed to wield.

Agency and Patents Authorship in the rapidly moving world of industrial design is a tricky business. One of the chief ways of asserting it comes through patents, which can be seen as one of the key instruments of design agency. They are legal documents intended to protect inventors’ rights over a period of time, usually twenty years. Their history goes back to fifteenth-century Venice, where inventors could be granted the exclusive right (privilegio) to manufacture or otherwise exploit their inventions. As a means

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of guaranteeing some protection from rivals, these patent letters were generally seen as encouraging innovation, though there were debates in England in the nineteenth century that they actually discouraged it. The spread and continuation of patent law since Venice “track both the diffusion of technology and the interest in governments in promoting new technology and in attracting those with skills for innovation” (Cass and Hylton 2013: 50). Tomás Maldanado has rightly identified the patent as a quintessentially modern idea for the very reason that it moved innovation from the anonymity of the guild to the individual, the “I” asserting the personal claim of authorship (1991: 6). With the advent of patents, the inventor-owner had legal and moral rights to his or her ideas. The texts of patents often present a designer’s aspirations, not just for the design in question, but his or her vision of a technological innovation’s potential to make great change. They typically include citations to related designs, which they must argue have not completely answered the problem their design intends to solve. The emphasis in the text is, necessarily, on what makes an invention “novel,” a criterion that is critical in patenting designs. But what historians see as novelty is oftentimes at odds with the perspective of patent law. For example, after three rejected applications, Eero Saarinen’s design for the iconic Knoll Womb Chair was finally granted legal protection in 1951 based not on what design historians recognize as its great ­innovation—the sculptural form achieved by the use of a new material—but on the basis of the hole in its fiberglass shell (Lutz  2012; McAtee  2012).12 The “Shaped chair,” as it was identified in patent documents, was deemed an original invention for what the “aperture of the blank” (the hole) contributes to creating a comfortable chair (covered by a cushion, the void would produce “give” in the chair back) (Saarinen 1951). Buckminster Fuller was an especially zealous patentee. Alex Soojung-Kim Pang has astutely pointed out that “far from being a solitary inventor unconcerned with financial gain or the grubby realities of business, he was well versed in patent law” (1996: 169). He applied for his first patent in 1926 and received his last one in 1983, the year of his death. The Buckminster Fuller Institute lists twenty-five patents for an incredibly diverse series of inventions, including fabrication and construction systems, prefabricated buildings and elements, a car, a map, various marine devices, and lastly, a hanging shelf unit (2018).13 He fully understood the power of patents as documents recognizing the one who was “first-to-invent,” which offered a legal means to control access to the patent holder’s ideas, excluding others from practicing the invention (Gordon and Cookfair 2000: 9). As the holder of the patent, Fuller, and Fuller alone, could grant licenses and thus financially gain from his invention. Fuller also recognized, perhaps even depended upon them as statements of authorship that would exist during his lifetime. Given this, he must have been galled that he had to cite Kenneth Snelson’s 1965 patent for “continuous tension, discontinuous compress structures” in his application for an “octahedral building truss” (Fuller 1967; Snelson 1965). But to return to Weatherbreak, on December 12, 1951, almost exactly one year to the day since the Montreal dome had been successfully

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erected, Fuller applied for his first patent for geodesics, requesting exclusive legal rights not to a domical structure, as described in the accompanying drawings, but to a building system described as “a framework for enclosing space” (1954). Although he had incorporated the Fuller Research Foundation as a legal entity and created a board of trustees, directors, and research fellows, he did not make the FRF the assignee for the patent as was typical for designs developed within a research institutions.14 This is all the more striking in light of the fact that Fuller based his application on the  08C270 Weatherbreak, which he described and cited as primary evidence for the validity of his proposed structural framework. As the construction technology historian Carlo Carbone unequivocally stated, “Weatherbreak is essential to the patent’s authority” (2017: 89). At that time US patent law was based on the principle of “first-to-invent” rather than “first-to-file” as in all other countries. Since everyone knew that Fuller was the mastermind behind geodesics, he was able to make his claim as sole inventor (and take his time in filing). The patent, granted three years later, effectively erased the contributions of Lindsay and the research foundation from the record, assigning all the credit to Fuller for the innovative structural system. If he occasionally decried it when a particular situation called for it, Fuller was again asserting the heroic image of the brilliant visionary working alone. In 1956, two years after Fuller received the patent, Lindsay, now working in Los Angeles, applied for his own patent for a structural framework. It was based on a geodesic system he had designed and manufactured in  1955. The context of the project has been detailed elsewhere (McAtee 2017: 38–41), but a little background will be useful. In 1954, Lindsay was asked to produce three geodesic domes for the Canadian military display at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver [Figure 8.4.1– 8.4.2]. The commission came to Lindsay through the Vancouver architectural office of Sharp & Thompson Berwick Pratt, where a few of the young architects Lindsay had met at McGill were then working. In the end, the military only purchased a single large dome, which was used for showing movies [Figure 8.4.1]. Designed in Lindsay’s Los Angeles office, the aluminum struts and sprits and stainless steel straps were produced by a manufacturer in Ontario, and then shipped across the country by train. Spanning 70 feet across and rising to 30 feet at its apex, the dome enclosed 3,500 square feet and weighed only 200 pounds more than Weatherbreak. Assembled for the first time on the fairgrounds in August 1955, the dome was put up and dismantled annually until 1964. As Carbone has shown through a remarkably perceptive technical analysis of Lindsay’s early contributions to geodesics, the Vancouver dome represented a breakthrough for the young designer, moving him from being an acolyte to a mature and innovative designer of geodesic structures (2017). It was not by size or weight that Lindsay’s new dome distinguished him from the “father” of geodesics, it was through the way it developed new structural possibilities for truss frameworks. It was also in continuity with Weatherbreak in a way that the building construction system patented by Fuller was not. Its particular innovation came from a three-dimensional truss concept of interlocking hexagons and pentagons. The lightweight structure was

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Figures 8.4.1–2  Tri-Services Pavilion (1954–5), Pacific National Exhibition, Vancouver, BC, August 1955. Jeffrey Lindsay, structural designer. Geoffrey Massey, photographer.

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rigidified by means of the tension in the sprits and straps that radiate out like spokes in a wheel [Figure 8.4.2]. Crucially, the design was most closely indebted to the one element of Weatherbreak that Fuller did not include in his earlier patent, namely, the extruded sprits that gave the first dome its distinctive spikey profile [see Figure 8.3]. Combined with cable straps, the protruding member placed the entire structure in tension. This single sprit might be taken as an expression of Lindsay’s independent design agency. Despite a few hiccups in the initial on-site assembly, Lindsay had every reason to be proud of his elegant dome. He sent the project to Douglas Haskell, editor of Architectural Forum for publication. On December 12, 1955, just short of five years to the day that Weatherbreak was first assembled, Haskell telegraphed Fuller to inquire whether Lindsay was “entitled to be named inventor of structure” (1955). The response he received the next day—a telegram of more than  1,000 words—tore Fuller’s former protégé apart, making false claims that Lindsay had stolen the project from Fuller and violated his US and Canadian patents, using personal confidences as evidence that he was psychologically unstable and threatening to sue him for fraud (Fuller 1955b). Even Lindsay’s financial contribution to the FRF was cause for criticism. The story of Weatherbreak was re-written, now becoming one about Lindsay’s opportunism rather than the initiative Fuller had so effusively praised (1950). In patent legalese, Fuller was accusing Lindsay of being an opportunistic expropriator. A sense of desperation to remain in control can be read in every line of Fuller’s rejection of Lindsay’s autonomous practice as a designer. Stating that Lindsay had recently put it in writing that Fuller “had taught him all that he knew regarding structure, inventions and developmental strategy,” Fuller was asserting that no one but he had agency in the world of geodesic structures.15 Perhaps reluctant to risk drawing Fuller’s ire, Haskell dropped the story idea. Fortunately, not every editor was so cowardly; the Vancouver dome was featured on the covers of architectural journals across the globe [Figures 8.5.1–8.5.2]. In January 1956 Lindsay filed for a patent on his “structural framework” and four years later it was granted (1960). Among the six prior patents he cited was predictably Fuller’s 1954 patent based on Weatherbreak. But Lindsay made a gesture that could be interpreted as a parry to Fuller’s thrust: the final line in his application referred to the August  1951 article on Weatherbreak in Architectural Forum. Now a fully autonomous agent of his own design, Lindsay, we might speculate, was asserting co-authorship of the invention that had made Fuller’s career.

Designer or Artist? Our exploration of agency in design might also benefit from a discussion of fluidity in the identity of the mid-century industrial designer. Elaine de Kooning, who met Fuller at Black Mountain College in 1948, was perhaps the first observer to point out the problem of defining Fuller as a designer. In a substantial ARTnews profile that named names and assigned credit to many of his FRF collaborators, de Kooning questioned

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Figures 8.5.1–2  Tri-Services Pavilion (1954–5) on the covers of Bauwelt, December 1957, and The Canadian Architect, March 1957. Jeffrey Lindsay, structural designer and photographer. (8.5.1 courtesy of Bauwelt [© graphics] and Jasmine Lindsay Forman [photograph]; 8.5.2 courtesy of Canadian Architect and Jasmine Lindsay Forman [photograph])

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whether Fuller could be lumped in with “those designers who pretty-up chairs, refrigerators, stoves or automobiles […] with forms borrowed from Miro, Arp, Mondrian, Gabo, etc.” (1952: 42). Deeply critical of such designers, whose pilfering of the art world and self-conscious aesthetics rendered them “mercenaries,” she placed Fuller wholly in the camp of the artist. The distinction, she argued, lay in a fundamental difference in motivation: whereas the designer, driven by the desire to solve a problem, was a reformer; the artist, who identified the problem after finding the solution, was by nature an inventor. She likened Fuller to Picasso, who said: “I do not seek, I find” (1952: 44). It is an apt characterization especially as it strips away the problem of what to call Fuller that has largely focused on professional designation—was he an architect, an engineer, or an industrial designer?—that carries into the present day. It may also help discern differences between Fuller and Lindsay, which in turn may further open some ways of thinking about agency in design and the designer as an agent. Fuller and Lindsay’s training could not have been more different. Unlike Fuller, whose education was truly a sum of practical experiences, Lindsay was educated in one of the most eminent schools of modern design in the United States. His courses at the Institute of Design included a rationalized form of the Bauhaus Vorkurs, industrial drafting, presentation techniques, the design of industrially produced objects like bathroom sinks, precision instruments, and furniture, the last of which was constructed as prototypes, and a broad swathe of general education courses (science, mathematics, literature, music, history, sociology, and economics) (Institute of Design c. 1948: 18–19). Lindsay was also required to take courses in sculpture, which was “treated as a fundamental part of every designer’s experience and not necessarily an art end in itself” (Institute of Design: 10). Arriving as he did just months before the death of the Institute’s founder, László Moholy-Nagy, Lindsay did not get the full experience of the Bauhaus curriculum. Instead, he was in the first class to experience the reorganized curriculum, which privileged professionalism over artistic training (Findeli  1991:  106–7). A late  1940s version of the curriculum outlined that “throughout, emphasis is placed upon the working out of new methods and devices in product design which will tend to create a demand for superior products and optimum use of our resources” (Institute of Design: 17). The program culminated in a practicum project focused on design and research in cooperation with industry with mass production as its goal. It included professional practice and patent procedure. This rigorous training, which was further intensified by the “real life” tasks assigned by Fuller—to seek out the latest research on materials, technology, and methods, and to learn through hands-on work with real prototypes—made Lindsay the very embodiment of Sigfried Giedion’s ideal design practitioner, the scientist-technician. On paper, his Bachelor of Arts in product design gave him the status of a recognized design professional. The establishment of associations brought legitimization to the young design profession in the United States (Society of Industrial Designers est.  1944) and Canada (National Industrial Design Council est. 1948). Both groups were very much focused on product design and the promotion of “good design.” In  1954 Lindsay

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joined the NIDC, which was guided by such pioneering figures in Canadian modern design as Robin Bush and Julien Hébert, who at that time were known for their work in furniture. Lindsay, however, does not seem to have found a place in that particular milieu of industrial design. His experience with the FRF put him in a category that was far less defined. This forced him to confront the inherent paradox of his training and what he later called his “preoccupation” with space structures (Lindsay 1966). In retrospect it seems somewhat ironic that it was architecture that opened the way for Lindsay’s independent career. Geodesics, after all, were intended to revolutionize the building industry, the straightforward construction system bringing an end to the traditional professions, architects made passé by Dymaxion designers. In 1952, Lindsay began to carve out a place for the structural designer within the field of architecture. He entered into a series of collaborations with young architects associated with McGill University’s School of Architecture. Given equal credit as a designer of innovative structures, a way of breaking free from Fuller began to suggest itself. If joining Fuller’s research group was by any measure a risky enterprise—we need only remember how many times Fuller had failed in the past, his radical ideas bankrupting himself as well as others—striking out as an independent designer of geodesic domes was an even more precarious proposition. The rest of Lindsay’s career was spent, practically speaking, working as a structural designer. As an outlier, he brought creative and highly efficient solutions to one of the most intriguing problems of postwar architecture. Much of what we can consider to be his agency came precisely from his capacity to work between architecture and engineering. The issue of identity was reflected in the series of professional designations Lindsay assumed for his practice. He adopted the neutral name “Jeffrey Lindsay & Associates” for his first consultant practice established in 1952. Although it is understandable that he chose to foreground his own name after the imposed anonymity of the Fuller Research Foundation, it said nothing about his expertise. Whereas the chameleon Fuller embraced different identities to suit the occasion, Lindsay struggled to find an appropriate descriptor to encapsulate his work as a designer of complex structures. One of the most interesting of his “self-identities” emerged a few years after his 1954 move to California. Although he did not hesitate to use his association with Fuller to open doors, he also wanted to make a clean break. Around  1957, he began describing himself as a “structural physicist” (Lindsay  1957), a somewhat esoteric designation that must have been chosen to avoid the limitations and unwanted associations that came with more conventional titles. In the mid-1960s, he presented himself as an expert in what he termed the “discipline of space structures” (1966). A portrait by his friend, the Vancouver-based architect Arthur Erickson, captures Lindsay’s polyvalent practice as a structural designer in the early  1970s [Figure  8.6]. Lindsay appears as a modern-day Hermes, the fleet-footed herald of the gods, asserting his mastery over the two structural types that obsessed postwar designers. His foot rests upon a geodesic sphere, its challenge conquered and replaced by a new structural “preoccupation,” a lightweight space frame that he balances upon a single finger. The structure was the great steel and glass skylight

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Figure 8.6  Portrait of Jeffrey Lindsay by Arthur Erickson, early 1970s. Fonds Jeffrey Lindsay, Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary. (Courtesy of the Erickson Estate Collection)

Lindsay designed for Erickson and Massey’s Convocation Hall at Simon Fraser University (1963–7), an icon of Canadian modern architecture.

Conclusion The showdown between Fuller and Lindsay that took place over the  08C270 Weatherbreak bears final consideration for this case study on the workings of agency within industrial design. The Montreal dome was central to the trajectories of both men and by extension to that of geodesics. Although Lindsay’s initial role was framed as an actor working within the FRF cadre—he was quite literally Fuller’s agent— he asserted his design agency through an act of appropriation. Disassociating

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geodesics from Fuller’s agenda, Lindsay internalized the structural problems posed by the geodesic dome, taking it as his problem. Over time, he also transformed it, applying it to new structural challenges and situations, and thus generated new outcomes for the geometric concepts that underlay the early dome. Viewed from this perspective, the act of appropriation, of turning a problem into “one’s own,” might very well be considered fundamental to the assertion of agency in design.

Notes 1 A recent exhibition and publication have revealed a largely unknown story that implicates the city in the earliest years of geodesic innovation. Recovering the lost history of Montreal’s first geodesic dome and its equally forgotten designer was the primary goal of an exhibition at the Centre de design at the Université du Québec à Montréal organized by the author with Réjean Legault and Carlo Carbone. Timed for the fiftieth anniversary of Expo ’67, Montreal’s Geodesic Dreams presented Jeffrey Lindsay’s studies and early career in the 1940s and 1950s and his two projects at Expo ’67. The research, exhibition production, and publication were generously supported by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. 2 On  08C270 Weatherbreak’s many transformations, which have seen it moved from Montreal to Los Angeles and then to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, see McAtee (2017: 48–51, 55, 68–9). 3 Fuller incorporated the Fuller Research Foundation in Delaware in 1946. It grew out of his frustrations with past problems with partnerships, especially one with the US government for wartime housing. 4 For an excellent overview of Fuller’s teaching related activities and their meaning for his work see A. Pang (1996). 5 Lindsay’s fellow students recall that he also funded an earlier prototype in Chicago. See E. Godfrey and M. Slick 1971: 9. Although his focus is on plastic, on these early experiments, see M. Wigley (2015: 157 ff). 6 As one of the artists who participated in the attempt to erect the dome at Black Mountain College, Elaine de Kooning may have dubbed it “supine” then and there. True to form, Fuller later claimed the phrase as his. 7 There is no sign, however, that, as many biographers of Fuller and geodesics have stated, the sole reason why a Canadian Division was established and Weatherbreak was manufactured in Canada was a shortage of materials in the United States. 8 These inquiries came through the Architectural Forum and were forwarded to Fuller. 9 For example, in June 1953, Architectural Forum editor Douglas Haskell apologized to Fuller for a misstep in an article on the Ford Rotunda dome, promising to “re-instruct everybody” about following old habits of “narrowing down of credit to one individual” (1953). 10 In discussing the  1949 summer seminar at Black Mountain College, Lindsay told Mary Emma Harris that “Snelson was the person first to become aware of the tensioncompression structure—tensegrity … These were 100% Snelson’s idea—that he did them

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with elastic bands and aluminium tubes. Fuller considered that he (Fuller) had hit on them. Fuller gives a general perspective to others’ ideas” (Lindsay 1971). 11 Maria Gough shows how vindictive Fuller could be in her recounting of Arthur Drexler’s  1959 Museum of Modern Art exhibition, Three Structures. When Drexler included a section that highlighted the contributions of others to Fuller’s work, Fuller accused Snelson of “poison[ing]” Drexler against him (Gough  2009:  143). Drexler, it should be noted, was quite aware of Fuller’s collaborators; he had included Lindsay’s photograph of 08C270 Weatherbreak in a 1952 exhibition on Fuller and Frederick Kiesler (McAtee 2017: 9–11). 12 On the development of the Womb Chair see Lutz (2012: 107–9). On its reception see McAtee (2012). 13 The Buckminster Fuller Institute’s list seems to miss one or two and includes one held by another individual. Nor does it include Fuller’s extensive foreign patents. Many of the patent titles have been changed to reflect what the particular design is more popularly known as. In some cases this may obscure Fuller’s intentions and ambitions. 14 While the later “geodesic” patents were applied for after the dissolution of the FRF in 1954, the date of this one precedes it. 15 For a complementary reading of the meaning of Fuller’s fulminations see A. Pang (169 ff).

Bibliography Ahearn, L. (2001), “Language and Agency,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 30: 109–37. Anonymous, “Geodesic Dome: Bucky Fuller’s Spidery New Framing Will Roof a Cubic Foot and Span 7 lbs. With Each Ounce of Structure” (1951), Architectural Forum, 95 (2): 144–51. Appadurai, A., ed. (1988), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blossom, N. and J. Turpin (2008), “Risk as a Window to Agency: A Case Study of Three Decorators,” Journal of Interior Design, 34 (1): 1–13. Buckminster Fuller Institute (2018), “About Fuller: Patents.” Available online: https://www. bfi.org/about-fuller/bibliography/patents (accessed July 27, 2018). Carbone, C. (2017), “Fostering Geodesics in Canada from Baie d’Urfé to Vancouver: The Development of Jeffrey Lindsay’s Structural Framework (1950–57),” in C. McAtee (ed.), Montreal’s Geodesic Dreams: Jeffrey Lindsay and the Fuller Research Foundation Canadian Division, 78–95, Halifax: Dalhousie Architectural Press. Cass, R. and K. Hylton (2013), Laws of Creation: Property Rights in the World of Ideas, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. De Kooning, E. (1952), “Dymaxion Artist,” ARTnews, 51 (5): 14–17, 40, 42, 44. Findeli, A. (1991), “Design Education and Industry: The Laborious Beginnings of the Institute of Design in Chicago in 1944,” Journal of Design History, 4 (2): 97–113. Fuller, R. B. (1950), Letter to Jeffrey Lindsay, April 8, Calgary: Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary, Fonds Jeffrey Lindsay, textual series, box 3, file 2. Fuller, R. B. (1954), Building Construction, US Pat. 2,682,235. Available online: https:// patents.google.com/patent/US2682235A/en (accessed January 8, 2019).

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Fuller, R. B. (1955a), “Architecture Out of the Laboratory,” Student Publication (College of Architecture, University of Michigan), 1 (1): 8–34. Fuller, R. B. (1955b), Telegram to Douglas Haskell, December 13, New York: Avery Architecture & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, Douglas Putnam Haskell Papers, box 7, file 3. Fuller, R. B. (1967), Octahedral Building Truss, US Pat. 3,354,591. Available online: https://patents.google.com/patent/US3354591A/en?oq=US+Pat.+3%2c354%2c591 (accessed January 8, 2019). Fuller, R. B. and J. Lindsay (1956), Letter of Agreement, September 21, Calgary: Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary, Fonds Jeffrey Lindsay, textual series, box 28, file 21. Godfrey, E. and M. Slick (1971), Interviewed by M. E. Harris, transcript, November 24, Asheville: State Archives of North Carolina, Western Regional Archives, North Carolina Museum of Art, Black Mountain College Research project. Gordon, T. and A. Cookfair (2000), Patent Fundamentals for Scientists and Engineers, Boca Raton: Lewis Publishers. Gough, M. (2009), “Backyard Landing: Three Structures by Buckminster Fuller,” in H. Chu and R. Trujillo (eds), New Views on R. Buckminster Fuller, 125–45, 207–9, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Haskell, D. (1953), Letter to R. Buckminster Fuller, June 2, New York: Avery Architecture & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, Douglas Putnam Haskell Papers, box 7, file 3. Haskell, D. (1955), Telegram to R. Buckminster Fuller, December 12, New York: Avery Architecture & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, Douglas Putnam Haskell Papers, box 7, file 3. Institute of Design (c. 1948), The Institute of Design, Chicago, Chicago, IL: Institute of Design. Karp, I. (1986), “Agency and Social Theory: A Review of Anthony Giddens,” American Ethnologist, 13 (1): 131–7. Lindsay, J. (1951), Letter to R. Buckminster Fuller, December 17, Calgary: Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary, Fonds Jeffrey Lindsay, textual series, box 3, file 3. Lindsay, J. (1952), Letter to R. Buckminster Fuller, May 9, Calgary: Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary, Fonds Jeffrey Lindsay, textual series, box 3, file 4. Lindsay, J. (1957), Press release for a lecture, October, Calgary: Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary, Fonds Jeffrey Lindsay, textual series, box 27, file 20. Lindsay, J. (1960), Structural Framework, US Pat. 2,929,473. Available online: https:// patents.google.com/patent/US2929473A/en?oq=US+Pat.+2%2c929%2c473 (accessed January 8, 2019). Lindsay, J. (1966), “Space Structures as Preoccupation,” International Conference on Space Structures, Blackwell Scientific Publications Ltd.: 2–5. Lindsay, J. (1971), Interviewed by M. E. Harris, notes, January 15, Asheville: State Archives of North Carolina, Western Regional Archives, North Carolina Museum of Art, Black Mountain College Research project. Lutz, B. (2012), Eero Saarinen: Furniture for Everyman, New York: Pointed Leaf Press. Maldanado, T. (1991), “The Patent between Invention and Innovation,” Rassegna, 46 (2): 6–11.

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McAtee, C. (2012), “Taking Comfort in the Age of Anxiety: Eero Saarinen’s Womb Chair,” in R. Schuldenfrei (ed.), Atomic Dwelling Anxiety, Domesticity, and Postwar Architecture, 3–25, London: Routledge. McAtee, C. (2017), “Geodesic Dreams: Jeffrey Lindsay and the Fuller Research Foundation Canadian Division,” in C. McAtee (ed.), Montreal’s Geodesic Dreams: Jeffrey Lindsay and the Fuller Research Foundation Canadian Division, 8–55, Halifax: Dalhousie Architectural Press. Pang, A. (1996), “Dome Days: Buckminster Fuller in the Cold War,” in F. Spufford and J. Uglow (eds), Cultural Babbage: Technology, Time and Invention, 167–92, London: Faber and Faber. Prentice, P. (1951), Letter to Edgar J. Kaufman, September 6, New York: Avery Architecture & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, Douglas Putnam Haskell Papers, box 7, file 3. Rotenberg, R. (2014), “Material Agency in the Urban Material Culture Initiative,” Museum Anthropology, 37 (1): 36–45. Saarinen, E. (1951), Shaped Chair, US Pat. 2,541,835. Available online: https://patents. google.com/patent/US2541835A/en?oq=US+Pat.+2%2c541%2c835 (accessed January 8, 2019). Snelson, K. (1965), Continuous Tension, Discontinuous Compression Structures, US Pat. 3,169,611. Available online: https://patents.google.com/patent/US3169611A/en (accessed January 8, 2019). Wigley, M. (2015), Buckminster Fuller Inc.: Architecture in the Age of Radio, Zurich: Lars Müller Publishers. Willems, E. (1951), Letter to Douglas Haskell, August 30, New York: Avery Architecture & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, Douglas Putnam Haskell Papers, box 7, file 3.

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9

Desperately Seeking Sunlight: Le Corbusier’s Casa Curutchet and The Man Next Door Mark Taylor

Opener The 2009 Argentinian drama, The Man Next Door (El hombre de al lado), directed by Mariono Cohn and Gastón Duprat is set in Casa Curutchet, a house designed by modernist architect Le Corbusier between 1948 and 1954. While it is not the first time that a house by a famous architect has appeared in a film, it is one of the few where the building has played a prominent role and participated in almost every scene, whether this is internally between the inhabitants, or between inhabitants and the outside world. Although an inanimate object, the house has agency, in that it effectively sets in motion a complex narrative that touches on notions of human morality, actions, intentions, and autonomy. While much of this centers on the intellectual and emotional investment made in the house, the film offers a new interpretation irrespective of original intention. That is, despite the original intention of the architecture and its desire on inhabitation, performance cannot be controlled, and the house, wall, and opening, as agents, produce and reproduce other meanings. The film engages the narrative of a neighbor dispute between Leonardo, the Casa Curutchet occupant (a wealthy industrial designer) and his neighbor Victor, who inserts a window in the boundary wall of the house to transform his own modest dwelling.1 The opening scene uses a split screen device of, on the left side, a wall that is light and luminous from the sun, while the other screen on the right is very dark and contains no light. Initially one side appears to be an exterior the other an interior. The key to this sequence is that it is the same wall. Victor has made the opening because he needs “some of the sun that you don’t use” [Figure 9.1]. This chapter examines the unease and tension between inhabitant and their environment and points to the larger fear of the transgression of the architectural edge. The chapter offers a comparison between the narrative and filmic effects and modernist ideals of open-plan, light-filled environments and their carefully controlled representation through images and text designed to reinforce a particular ideological position. To this extent it surveys existing literature and representations of Casa Curutchet relative to the remodeled interior surface that aggressively colonizes the subject. The chapter concludes by demonstrating how the exterior and interior refuse to disappear and the integrity of a wall is questioned when an interior is presented

Figure 9.1  Opening split screen showing the wall opening from both sides. Credit: El hombre de al lado / The Man Next Door, directed by Mariono Cohn and Gastón Duprat, 2009.

as an exterior rather than merely the other side of the wall. The psychological effect of both aural and physical penetration demonstrates the “insubstantiality of walls” suggesting one space is also the other.

Shelter Casa Curutchet is a small house and doctor’s surgery commissioned by Dr Pedro Curutchet in the city of La Plata,  60 kilometers from Buenos Aires (Argentina). Designed by Le Corbusier with assistants Bernard Hoesli and Roger Aujame, the building was locally executed initially by project architect Amancio Williams and later by Simon Ungers (Martínez  1998:  37). Completed around  1954, it represents Le Corbusier’s only built house in the Americas. Although Alfonso Corona Martinez describes it as a “subtropical version of the Pavillon L’Esprit Nouveau (1925) on a base” (1998: 37), he states that it has a number of elements that distance it from the houses of the 1920s but aligns it with the post–Second World War architecture, such as the Carpenter Centre for the Visual Arts at Harvard University (1953–61). Curutchet commissioned the house for a small lot lying between two adjacent party walls, and to the front, overlooked a plaza and a park. The building comprises four main levels with a vertical courtyard dividing the two areas of house to the rear and clinic to the front. Entry is gained via a front door with a deep frame placed at the street edge. On either side of this grand entrance is a vestigial façade behind which is a dark open space with tree and ramp leading up to the house entrance proper, and a return ramp leading to the surgery situated a half level higher on the street front. Stairs from the entrance hall lead to an upper floor that contains the living spaces

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with a large front terrace that overlooks the city’s main park, the Paseo del Bosque. Above these areas is a top floor with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, the latter of which have curvilinear shapes. In the middle of the building is a two-story void above the ramp and garden, with a hole through the terrace to allow a tree to pass “as if desperately seeking daylight” (Martínez 1998: 34). Another void above the living room allows further light into this space, whereas two voids to the rear, on either side of the staircase, are open from ground to roof. While the house is documented in Le Corbusier’s Œuvre complete, at the time of building it appears to have received little attention in either the Argentinian or international press, but this seems to have changed during and subsequent to the house restoration (1986–8) to commemorate the centenary of Le Corbusier’s birth. Alejandro Lapunzina’s Le Corbusier’s Maison Curutchet (1997) is an important and complete monograph of the house, its design, development, and completion. Lapunzina charts the commission, design and construction, including modifications to the planning and spatial sequences that were made by the locally based architects. Due to the long construction period and Dr Curutchet’s desire to return to the country, the house very quickly fell into disrepair primarily due to moisture affecting the concrete. It was only in 1986, as the centennial of Le Corbusier’s birth approached, that the house received attention and declared a national monument prior to its restoration. Of the post-house restoration research, Martínez (1998) theorizes how and why the house was made in its particular form. He argues that Casa Curutchet is a v­ ariant of the Argentinian colonial house type that was built on narrow urban sites. This was typically a small patio surrounded by a U-shaped building with supporting party walls, such that the patio was arranged to capture the best orientation. One drawback with this layout is that any resulting open spaces to the rear are often deep and dark, which Martínez suggests might be one reason Le Corbusier chose to build upward, sacrificing the ground floor to circulation and placing the terrace at the front (Martínez 1998: 34). Furthermore he proposes that the design avoids “repeating this type, even though it seemed the only rational solution for a lot that was narrow and deep” (Martínez 1998: 33). In order to make the house work spatially and volumetrically he proposes that Le Corbusier wanted to “build into space—to use the lot as a volume rather than a surface,” an action that would lead to a noticeable architecture (1998: 33). To some extent Martínez aligns the house to a number of formal techniques such as “transposition” and “distortion” that enabled an atypical solution that, rather than freeing the ground with the pilotis, occupies this space with elaborate devices for entering the building. Jośe Bernardi’s insightful ACSA (1992) and ASCA (1995) papers cover Le Corbusier’s visit to Buenos Aires in  1929, lectures, and commissioning of the house, while also noting the important spatial arrangements and sectional play in the building. Like Martínez, he also suggests that the house is an improved version of the traditional half-patio houses of Argentina that Le Corbusier praised in his public lectures of 1929 (Bernardi 1992). A discussion of the four-by-four-meter grid, ­pilotis, diagonal grid, and basic volumetric arrangement is also provided by Bernardi

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(1995), who regards the architecture as a series of opposites and tensions between the expanse of the ground floor and “compression and tension of the upper level,” together with “floating” brise-soleil slender columns and exterior diagonal. All are connected by the circulation ramps, void and patios that afford “privacy, protection and a greater sense of autonomy for the inhabitants” (Bernardi  1995:  104). However it is probably Bernardi’s comment that when the house was finally occupied by Pedro Curutchet and his family he was “continually annoyed by onlookers and architectural enthusiasts,” but “the foremost problem was excessive natural light” (1995:  105). Curutchet felt the natural light was never fully governed, “but rather it was governing,” and perhaps due to this abandoned the house after only a few years (1995: 105). To some extent it is this aspect of a Le Corbusier house that gives agency to Victor’s opening. That is, drawing upon Colomina’s understanding of Le Corbusier’s domestic architecture as fundamentally mediatic, she argues that the house is in the air, “it has no front, no back and no sides.” Further stating that “the house, in a certain sense, is immaterial. That is, the house is not simply constructed as a material object from which certain views become possible” (Colomina 2007: 262). While such arguments might pertain to villa-type structures, Casa Curutchet exists in a bounded place, but the attachment to boundaries are made lightly, enabling the structure to remain open and unobstructed.

Narrative In order to appreciate the role played by the house and its two main protagonists in The Man Next Door, it is important to present an overview of the film. However this is also challenging as the film engages with many issues such as space and privacy, form, privilege, social status, and so on. For example, critic Noah Kader describes the film as “a classic tale of familiarity breeding contempt,” in which he suggests the plot is “a dispute [that] slowly escalates to a full blown existential crisis” (Kader 2010: 16). A blog post in Bitchin’ Film Reviews proposes that it is “a comedy of disproportioned manners between neighbours, but quickly evolves into something more tense” (Blake 2010). This tension is also noted by reviewer Leo Nikolaidis who argues the film as “seamlessly dealing with class, taste and human decency to comic and tragic effect” (Nikolaidis 2013). The Man Next Door is a story about two people from different social backgrounds, Leonardo Kachanovsky (Rafael Spregelbud), a wealthy industrial designer who uses the house as his family home and office, and Victor Chubello (Daniel Aráoz), a neighbor whose house backs onto Leonardo’s home. The film opens with a split screen shot (one half is white, the other black) showing a sledgehammer hitting the dark surface and at the same time the impact being registered on the light side. Several blows later and the rhythmic pounding cause a fracture in a wall which continues until an opening is formed. As the sound penetrates his sleep, Leonardo awakens and follows the far-off sounds through his home until, on the ground floor, he looks up into the back courtyard of his house only to discover his

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neighbor making a hole in the wall [Figure 9.2]. Returning upstairs until he is at the same level as the man making the hole, Leonardo looks through his own window and confronts Victor who is in the mid-process. A verbal exchange between the two men is followed by Victor declaring that he has made the opening because “I don’t have light on this side, the sun shines on the other side and I need to catch some rays.” Leonardo protests that he cannot make a hole in a dividing wall as it looks directly into Leonardo’s property, at which point Victor observes that the house is surrounded by many tall apartment buildings that already overlook his property. Not only does he argue that the hole is illegal, but Leonardo claims it will erode the family’s privacy. To appease the situation Victor agrees to cover the opening in black plastic sheet, but the sound of work continues. The affable Victor spends time trying to get to know and befriend Leonardo in order to work out what is the obstacle to his desire to have “a patch of sun, just to catch a few rays,” and sincerely offers to make a window “in accordance with the modern style of your house … I thought of it like a porthole on a ship, but decided to make it rectangular … the coolest window in your house.” This conversation takes place in Victor’s “pimped out” van complete with 1970s décor, minibar, and mirrorball that are the antithesis to Leonardo’s modernist academic integrity. Although he protests that making a hole in the wall is not legal, Leonardo is unable to clearly state his objections and so deflects the problem to his wife Ana as “she will never accept it.” This is the first of several moments when the normally confident Leonardo is reduced to a more passive state, and is unable to directly resist Victor’s argument. When Leonardo finally sees the finished window with its crudely joined frame and surrounding timber architrave, he explains to Victor’s uncle Carlos that it has to go. Later, without discussing it with Victor, Leonardo instructs his solicitor to

Figure 9.2  Leonardo in the rear courtyard locating the source of noise. Credit: El hombre de al lado / The Man Next Door, directed by Mariono Cohn and Gastón Duprat, 2009.

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write a demanding letter, an action that backfires as the slightly overbearing Victor confronts firstly the lawyer and then Leonardo. As a compromise Leonardo suggests the window could be an above head height horizontal slit window with frosted glass and no timber surround, a proposal that Victor agrees to and makes the necessary changes. However, Ana is still not satisfied and cannot understand why the window remains. Although comical at times, the film’s tragic final sequence has Victor confront thieves entering Leonardo’s house, and receives a gunshot wound from which he dies. In a parallel move the film is terminated by a single camera inside Victor’s house as the window is finally bricked up, and the sunlight is lost. Throughout the film the action in Casa Curutchet moves between all spaces, with careful camerawork used to capture views through and around the house. Initially some of these views seem familiar as the dramatic angles and layered spaces are reminiscent of published photographs. There is no attempt to disguise or alter space, or rebuild rooms and spaces as a set more conducive to tracking camerawork. To some extent the split screen opening of The Man Next Door registers the interplay between two flat color surfaces and the sledgehammer pounding against the bricks. This sound source is an indicator that a transformational process is occurring in which the materiality of a territory is being altered (Kesler  2013). For Leonardo, awakening from sleep, the far-off sound is puzzling and in a way attunes him to his environment because their “origin is in some ungiven region” (Kracauer 1960: 124). He is therefore, compelled to explore.

Wall A number of films have examined the wall and noted the unease and tension between occupant and their room and the larger fear of the transgression of the architectural edge. For example the fragility of domestic boundaries and their bodily and material transgression is discussed in Katherine Shonfield’s book Walls Have Feelings (2000). She argues that in the film Repulsion (dir. Polanski  1965) the unstable introverted virgin Carol (Catherine Deneuve) spends her days smearing face packs on her beauty shop clients. To make her daily journey to work, Carol has to endure leering looks and comments from a group of self-confident workmen, exposing Carol’s fear of penetration. With her sister’s departure for a week’s holiday, Carol has to confront this issue and Shonfield describes how during the film the surfaces of Carol’s flat begin to crack and “can no longer hold back the outside. At its climax the walls begin literally to smear the edges between Deneuve and themselves” (Shonfield 2000: 56). As Carol flings herself onto the wall it melts, “she clings to it; and it begins to cling to her” (Shonfield 2000: 59). Comparing the narrative and filmic effects with 1960s building systems, she proposes that as against the Brutalist fantasy that “the interior can become merely the other side of the wall,” both films attest to the agency of the wall and its refusal to allow the exterior and interior to disappear. The integrity of walls and their ability to leak and crack threatens the security of containment, one that is transformed not just by physical and psychological terror, but also by an aural

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penetration that demonstrates the “insubstantiality of walls.” This aural penetration, much like Carol’s fear of sexual penetration, is made evident through the use of the wall, as it cracks and embraces her body in the confinement of her room. The inseparability of body and interior surface is the subject of Simone Brott’s (2008) examination of the microgenre of “wallpaper scenes” in Through a Glass Darkly (dir. Bergman 1961). The first technique proposes that the “close-up” occurs when a subject is in close proximity to the interior surface (touching) and the surface aggressively colonizes the subject. In this sense “close-up” is not a camera movement or simple magnification, nor is it a “psychological projection onto the objects of the film.” It is intended to produce real effects within the filmic space and “in the affective space of the audience,” revealing the subjects’ schizophrenia, madness, failure, and rejection. The second mechanism “withdrawn effect” is when the surface assimilates the subject such that the character disappears, or is absorbed into the sequence suggesting that the character is not inside and the space is “dissolved by and into its surfaces” in the way person is merged into matter. In both these examples the boundary between inhabitant and wall changes along the surface. In Repulsion, Carol becomes wall as the surface boundary liquefies and contaminates her body, whereas in Through a Glass Darkly the body is either colonized or disappears and is dissolved into the wall surface. In both cases an anomaly has occurred that disrupts the normal or ideal understanding of a wall’s material, spatial, and psychological role. In an echo of gothic literature the wall acts on the body present in space, such that wall and body are mutually indistinguishable. Such understanding of the wall questions traditional notions of a wall as a form of boundary, barrier, or border that operates in both distinct and mutable ways—as is both retreat and exclusion. Under this conception the wall as barrier is designed to omit that which intrudes or offends and conversely assures stability for the inhabiting body. In The Man Next Door, the hole in the wall enables spatial fluidity between the enclosed space (Victor’s home) and the open space (Leonardo’s home). By breaking the wall in an unconventional manner and in an unconventional place (the boundary wall) the two homes become topologically united. The two environments are brought together, and Leonardo is under threat from not only the spatial leak, but also the personality invasion of a more sexually confident and outgoing persona that challenges his somewhat introverted and sexually clumsy identity.

Hole The resulting hole in the wall enables one space/person to see, and conversely the other space/person to be seen. Thus for Victor, while the hole in the wall possesses infinite newness, Betina Kesler’s semiotic reading of the opening split screen sequence and soundscape presents the wall as a symbol for division, dismemberment, and transformation (Kesler 2013: 80). These properties she suggests, that are apparent in the opening scene, are then manifested in the following actions that take place in this space. This opening sequence operates on another level due to the

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close-up camera work that registers the event on both sides of the wall. Alongside the rhythmic pounding Leonardo wakes up as if from a dream, the camera capturing his face fills the screen. This sequence operates in a manner similar to what Siegfried Kracauer in Theory of Film describes as “luring the spectator into the dimension of her intimate preoccupations” (1960: 46). The example Kracauer provides is from D. W. Griffith’s After Many Years (1908) where the camera closes in on the face of brooding Annie Lee until it fills the screen, and follows this with a picture of the object of her thoughts—her husband on a desert island. Kracauer proposes that “the close up of her face is not an end in itself; rather, along with the subsequent shots, it serves to suggest what is going on behind that face—Annie’s longing for a reunion with her husband” (1960: 46–7). Leonardo only realizes the object of his disturbance when he looks up at the opening in the wall, and we realize that his occupational practices and privacy are at stake. The wall opening’s agency is to facilitate awareness of notions of privacy, alongside the logic of open-plan, light-filled space. For example, Leonardo occupies the original medical rooms as his office, where he has to endure groups of people who stand across the street and point, talk and photograph the house, something that Pedro Curutchet also disliked. However, while some callers, such as Leonardo’s students do gain access for design tutorials (and clumsy attempts at seduction); most visitors are not permitted to cross the building’s threshold. One person who does cross the threshold is Victor who manages to breach the home by invading the party wall, an action that brings into question not only regulatory acts, but also notions of personal privacy. The wall as a frontier between Leonardo and Victor is breeched, and what remains of Leonardo’s self-isolation is no longer possible. The opening is made between Victor’s and Leonardo’s living rooms at the second floor level, and into Leonardo’s courtyard [Figure 9.3]. This location of events enables Victor and his accoutrements (finger puppet show, girlfriend, etc.) to enter Leonardo’s world, in a manner that evokes Robin Evans description of “untempered communications” that “insert themselves into what had been thought of as a more resistant reality” (Evans 1997: 40). Throughout the film Leonardo’s privacy is under threat from visitors, architectural tours, and overlooking from neighboring apartment buildings. But, by forcing an opening in the wall Victor establishes a dialectical relationship between his home comprising traditional dark cellular loadbearing structure with windows, and Leonardo’s Le Corbusier-designed home which is a spatially open frame building in which walls are merely infill panels— many of which are made of glass. In a foundational or philosophical sense Leonardo’s house is “open,” unrestrained, and visually and spatially permeable. This openness that is produced by the architecture allows wind, rain, light, and landscape to pass through. It is the agency of this structure that causes Victor to question his own enclosed world and to seek some of Leonardo’s sunlight. As far as Victor is concerned it is the outside, and therefore the place to get sunlight. While the window is not strictly inside Casa Curutchet, but is made into a small courtyard, it offers another degree of confusion in Leonardo’s mind. While

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Figure 9.3  Confrontation between Leonardo and Victor over the need for sunlight. Credit: El hombre de al lado / The Man Next Door, directed by Mariono Cohn and Gastón Duprat, 2009

he acknowledges that he does not want a window inside his house, there is a tacit understanding that the window is both outside and inside; outside the house enclosure, but inside the site perimeter. Although Victor makes his opening in order to gain a bit of sunshine, it is not made for a view or to gaze at his neighbor. There is no indication from Victor that it will include clear glass, but Leonardo and Ana are concerned that their lives will be under his gaze. However, while both Leonardo and Ana “spy” on Victor and his girlfriend, Victor develops a relationship with Leonardo’s daughter by putting on a finger puppet show using a range of edible props. The difference being that Leonardo and Ana look into Victor’s home, while Victor projects his personality outwards. In a psychological sense the agency of the opening is to reveal Leonardo’s predilection for secrecy and covert activities (also hinted at in his clumsy attempts to seduce his students), while living in an outwardly visible environment. Victor, on the other hand, is revealed as someone whose friendliness and outgoing character are seeking to expand the space he occupies. Moreover, for the sexually confident masculine Victor, the opening it is a way of releasing his dark world, and bringing it to light. However, for Leonardo it is a breach of his “liberal” world, a disruptive element that challenges his authority, and in some way emasculates him, particularly in the way he is unable to directly challenge Victor and diverts decision making to his wife Ana.

Closer In this discussion the wall is an agent, but not that usually ascribed to human morality or intentionality. It is closer to the way Annabel Wharton assigns agency to nonhuman

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entities or spatial objects (2015: xiv). For Wharton, the intention is to understand that spatial objects have “an effect on their animate environments, independent of intentions” (Wharton  2015: xiv). It is a position that Annabel Holmes reveals was also in the director Duprat’s mind when, in an interview, he states that by making a hole in a great architectural masterpiece “it acquired greater dimension, that’s why we decided to make it there, and it ends up being another character in the film” (Holmes 2017: 122). However, spatial objects are not exempt from their representative value. I have provided some examples of the fictional pasts of walls, relative to film, and their representation as both psychological and/or social manifestation. In literature there are many examples of the agency of the wall as a political and cultural manifestation, as there are in real life. One literary example worth noting comes from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In this play, a group of actors called the Mechanicals, put on a production of Ovid’s tragedy Pyramus and Thisbe. Pyramus and Thisbe are two lovers who inhabit adjoining houses, and are separated by a dividing wall. They are forbidden to be wed, because of their parents’ rivalry, but communicate between each other through a crack in one of the walls. However, for the reenactment, the role of the wall that is to keep the lovers apart is played by Tom Snout—a human. In this sense walls can be understood through their representation, whereas a building pathology could offer a means to understand their diurnal effect and reveal something of their lives. And while this is not meant to anthropomorphize the inanimate object, it is suggested in order to understand the bodily agency of architecture. Holes in walls are often romanced when set against picturesque decay, since they encapsulate the effect of time upon a material and attest to longevity. To this extent, we know through Lapunzina’s (1997) history of the house that the Curutchet family lived there between 1953 and 1962, after which it was abandoned until 1986 when it was declared a national monument. Subsequent restoration has removed all traces of time and change, offering the house as new, as though time has had no effect. This makes Victor’s opening all the more challenging as it reciprocates states of ruin but without the romanticism. To extend the discussion once more, the wall, and in particular the agency of the hole, has enabled both a visual and a real momentary reversal of inhabitation, and reinforced the instability of the boundary. In one part Leonardo is seen on the other side of the wall, visiting Victor’s apartment and conversely, Victor enters Leonardo’s house. In the former Leonardo is seen from Casa Curutchet and framed by Victor’s new timber window as he talks to Carlos. In this scene Leonardo is confined and appears uncomfortable, both in his dealings and in the environment. However when Victor enters Casa Curutchet he is very comfortable and embraces the space and movement afforded by the architecture, in a sense he fills the space. As the narrative develops from a crude hole in the wall to a more refined opening that through each iteration, progressively gets smaller and smaller until it is finally closed—the spatial breech is sealed. It is presented as a flow of life rather than a process designed to reduce the object to what Kracauer describes as “near-abstract

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shapes” (Kracauer 1960: 185). In some sense as the film explores spatial and material presence, together with the texture of everyday life, it enables the viewer to “not only to appreciate our given material environment but to extend it in all directions” (Kracauer 1960: 304).

Note 1 The film is made in the actual house and not a reproduction, and the opening is not made into any existing Casa Curutchet walls, but seems to be a film set built above a single-story wall, in a rear courtyard next to the staircase.

Bibliography Bernardi, J. (1992), “Precisions about Le Corbusier’s Curutchet House (La Plata, Argentina),” in Papers Presented at the ASCA Regional Meeting, Montreal, Canada: McGill University. Bernardi, J. (1995), “Le Corbusier’s Curutchet House: The Pleasure of Memory,” Proceedings of 83rd ACSA Annual Meeting, 101–6. Blake (January 27, 2010), “The Man Next Door (El hombre de al lado),” Bitchin’ Film Reviews, Available online: http://bitchinfilmreviews.com/the-man-next-door-el-hombrede-al-lado/ (Accessed March 17, 2015). Brott, S. (April 2008), “Close Encounter, Withdrawn Effects,” Journal of Architectural Education, 61 (4): 6–16. Colomina, B. (2007), “Vers une architecture médiatique,” in Alexander von Vegesack et al. (eds), Le Corbusier: The Art of Architecture, Weil am Rhein: Vitra Design Museum. Evans, R. (1997), Translations from Drawing to Building, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Holmes A. (2017), Politics of Architecture in Contemporary Argentine Cinema, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Kader, N. (May 2010), “A Window into the Soul,” American Cinematographer, 16–18. Kesler, B. (2013), “Lo mismo y lo otro. Semiotización de lo extraño en el film El Hombre de al Lado,” in De Signos y Sentidos, 14, Santa Fe, Argentina: ediciones UNL: 75–88. Kracauer, S. (1960), Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, New York: Oxford University Press. Lapunzina, A. (1997), Le Corbusier’s Maison Curutchet, New York: Princeton Architectural press. Martínez, A. C. (Autumn 1998), “Le Corbusier’s Curutchet House in La Plata,” AA Files (37): 33–9. Nikolaides, L. (2013), “The Man Next Door,” Sounds and Colours, Available online: http://www.soundsandcolours.com/articles/argentina/the-man-next-door/ (Accessed March 17, 2015). Shonfield, K. (2000), Walls Have Feelings: Architecture, Film and the City, London: Routledge. Wharton, A. J. (2015), Architectural Agents: The Delusional, Abusive, Addictive Lives of Buildings, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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Part 2  Systems and Institutions of Design

Introduction Marie-Ève Marchand

In London in 1852, one of today’s most important museums of art and design, the Victoria & Albert Museum, opened its doors as the “Museum of Ornamental Art” in Marlborough House. Entitled “Decorations on False Principles,” the first gallery was conceived as a tool to teach the basics of good design through the use of counter-examples. A total of eighty-seven objects made according to what the ­ museum authorities considered to be “false” or “wrong” principles of design were exhibited. This dogmatic display, which was indicative of both the didactic and moralizing ambitions typical of nineteenth-century museums, soon became known as the “Chamber of horrors” (Frayling 2010). Paradoxically, this unflattering nickname, which had probably been suggested by the then director of the institution Henry Cole (1808–82) himself, condemned the objects in a way that revealed the true nature of their agency. Indeed, this title directly referred to another well-known “Chamber of horrors” of the time, located in Madame Tussaud’s wax museum where the effigies of convicted felons were on display. The connection between the objects exhibited in the Museum of Ornamental Art and Madame Tussaud’s criminals—which somehow foreshadowed architect and design theorist Adolf Loos’s  1910 association between ornament and crime (Marchand  2014:  44)—pointed to the socially threatening power of “bad design.” This idea was pushed even further by Henry Morley in a short satirical novel entitled A House Full of Horrors (1852: 141; 266–70). In the novel, following an enlightening visit to the Museum of Ornamental Art, Mr. Crumpet realized that he lived surrounded by horrors. The situation became so unbearable that, while dining at a friend’s house where he was confronted with ill-designed goods, he got into a “state of mental apoplexy” (270): bad design became health-threatening.

The display was closed after a few months, in part due to complaints from the manufacturers who had produced the publicly pilloried objects (Frayling 2010: 67–8). More than a mere anecdote, this unusual curatorial strategy is an early example of the sometimes paradoxical articulation between the agency of systems and institutions of design (in this case the museum) and the agency of the designed object. Today, it seems unlikely that a museum would acquire and display an object with the aim of castigating it in such an obvious and controversial way. Yet, this doesn’t mean that there are no tensions between the agency of the institution and that of the objects. In accordance with (largely unacknowledged) Eurocentrist, patriarchal, and capitalist principles, to say nothing of enduring colonial issues, museum objects have been hierarchized based on criteria that are always partial and far from transparent. The objects considered to be the most important have been granted pride of place in the galleries while others have been relegated to dark corners or forgotten in storage, when they have not simply been left aside. At each step of this ongoing process through which human production—and by extension humans themselves—are being legitimized or discredited, the role and degree of agency is being confronted, revealed and obscured, activated, and thwarted. Far from being specific to museums, this power struggle is found in a variety of systems and institutions exerting agency within the realm of design as evidenced by the chapters assembled in the second part of this volume. Through their insightful case studies, analysis, and reflections, the authors explore how agents of design navigate such structures and how the latter impact the ways in which design has been conceived, defined, understood, used, and dealt with at particular moments in history. In so doing, they interrogate how design is shaped as a discipline and its broader implications for students, teachers, practitioners, and historians. The nine compelling chapters presented in the following pages deal with spheres as diverse as mass media, business and office cultures, governmental agencies, colonial systems, and education. By tackling such a wide range of contexts, the authors clearly demonstrate the scope of the field of action covered by the systems and institutions of design and their stakeholders. As they raise issues relevant to marketing, propaganda, social reform, disability, gender, and history, the authors dissect the multilayered relationships between agency and design. Just as in the first part of this volume, the disparity of the topics that are addressed reveals how pervasive, diverse, and complex the notion of agency is. Together, the following chapters point to the urgent need for in-depth analysis and critical appraisals that both unveil the power relationships born at the point where design and agency intersect and provide methodological tools to challenge the status quo. In “The Dry Goods Economist and the Role of Mass Media in the Creation of a Global Window Design Aesthetic at the End of the Nineteenth Century,” Anca I. Lasc examines the work of the American “window dresser” Frank L. Carr Jr. Her analysis is based on a detailed review of period newspapers and shows how, expressing his agency as a designer, Carr took advantage of trade journals such as the Dry Goods Economist to further develop his international career. Yet, as Lasc skillfully

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demonstrates, this was not a one-way relationship insofar as this publication also acted as an agent in itself. Among other things, the journal established and promoted aesthetic standards with regard to window design, built networks that connected designers and potential employers, and affected what Lasc identifies as a “store’s business potential.” In so doing, the Dry Goods Economist and mass media more broadly directly impacted the realm of design across industrialized countries around the world at the dawn of the twentieth century. From the international marketing of dry goods, we move to the local farming of vegetables with Sara Nicole England’s chapter “National Cash Register Company’s Boys’ Garden: Shaping Working-Class Childhoods and Future Workers,  1897– 1913.” Here, an Ohio-based factory resorts to gardens as a means toward social improvement. Taking into consideration the political agenda behind the National Cash Register’s welfare initiatives, England focuses on the boys’ garden where young men aged between eight and fourteen living in the neighborhood learnt productivity and discipline by growing vegetables. While the nationally recognized gardening program was meant to shape the boys’ clear sense of proper masculinity, help defining their identity according to middle-class virtues, and make them loyal workers, very little is known about the children’s actual experience and personal response to their work in the fields. Furthermore, as England explains, since the company’s initiative to cultivate “better citizens” targeted immigrant, poor, and working-class people, it also revealed widespread anxieties regarding these social groups and can be interpreted as an attempt to control their potentially threatening agency. Work in the field is replaced by work in the office in Lynn Chalmers’s chapter “Women as Agents of Change in the Design of the Workplace.” In an analysis informed by a concern for gender, Chalmers traces the contribution of women to the design of the office, a realm most often understood as, and observed from, a masculine perspective. As she notes, the traditional organization of the office with open-space secretarial pools for women and closed offices for men directly impacted the degree of agency both women and men could—or could not—exert. Adopting a historical perspective, Chalmers sheds light on the role women played in the transformation of the office from a space that mirrors the hierarchies and division of power within a company to an environment that now increasingly encourages inclusiveness and cooperation. To do so, she brings to the fore the work of two influential women: Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) who studied the mechanisms of management and promoted collaboration rather than the use of coercive power over employees during the first decades of the nineteenth century and the architect and designer Florence Knoll Bassett (née Schust) (1917–2019) who, as the head of Knoll Planning Unit, transformed the spatial organization of North American corporate interiors after the Second World War. As I already pointed out at the outset, museums are institutions where agency and design maintain a complex, and at times ambiguous, relationship. As they explore the implications of this connection and how it informs our vision of the world, the authors of Chapters 13 and 14, respectively, demonstrate how design can be used

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in museums to convey an idealized version of the past and an optimistic vision of the future. In “Stand-In or Act-Out: Period Rooms as Spaces of Agency,” Änne Söll and Stefan Krämer use the notion of agency to further our understanding of domestic interior-like settings exhibited in museum galleries better known as period rooms. Although period rooms are found in countless Western museums, their potential agency has been barely acknowledged by scholars so far, let alone rendered visible by traditional curatorial practices. To explore the overlooked agency of period rooms, Söll and Krämer critically examine the use of mannequins within such displays. Taking into consideration the fact that mannequins played a significant role in the work of subversive artists including Dadaist and Surrealists, they probe the effects of their humanoid presence on both visitors and period rooms themselves. As they compare historical and more recent examples, Söll and Krämer address the paradoxes of exhibiting “living history” in the museum and the contribution of mannequins to what they cleverly call “a display of the living dead.” In the following chapter entitled “Agent Bruce Mau and the Audacity of Design,” Rachel Gotlieb offers a critical reappraisal of designer Bruce Mau’s work as a curator and exhibition designer. Borrowing from Alfred Gell’s conceptualization of agency, Gotlieb envisions the interactions between Mau and the museums for which he conceives exhibition as a “patient/agent” relationship. As she questions Mau’s curatorial strategies with regard to the display of design objects, she explains that he largely borrows from the rhetoric of spectacle characteristic of great exhibitions and international fairs since the mid-nineteenth century. In so doing, Mau promotes the optimistic truism according to which design has the power to transform the world and provide a better future for all. Yet, as Gotlieb demonstrates, this approach gets very problematic in the context of museum institutions insofar as it does not leave much room for critical thinking, raising pressing issues concerning the actual agency of the parties involved. In “From Indian to Indigenous Agency: Opportunities and Challenges for Architectural Design,” David Fortin explores the agency of Indigenous peoples with regard to the built environment. While he examines Canadian examples, Fortin raises issues that echo the challenges faced by Indigenous communities whose lands have been colonized, whether on Turtle Island (North America) or anywhere in the world. Fortin demonstrates that although Indigenous peoples’ rights to design sovereignty and active involvement in building and designing their own environment are recognized by political authorities, existing systems perpetuate power relationship that impede the assertion of their agency. As he underlines, contemporary design culture is fraught with colonial implications and building codes are “mostly founded on non-indigenous methods, expertise and training.” Even co-design initiatives that aim at respecting Indigenous traditions and seem to foster decolonization, often insidiously sustain colonial patterns. By attending to the question of design sovereignty, Fortin provides a vital and enlightening assessment about the current state of Indigenous self-determination in the realm of design and the architectural profession.

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Working from an autobiographical perspective, Anne Massey takes risks and acts as an agent of design with her chapter “Design History and Dyslexia.” While it is only common sense that everyone will profit from design for disability, this inclusive approach is far from standard practice. Looking back at her journey over the past forty years within the field of design history in the higher education system—first as a student until now as a researcher and teacher—Massey sheds light on the multiple daily challenges faced by dyslexic people. She notes that 30 percent of the students enrolled in art and design programs at the postgraduate level at the Royal College of Art (UK) are dyslexic, compared to 15 percent in the general population. To make sense of this disproportionate percentage, she suggests that dyslexics may be attracted by the art and design fields because of their particular skills in visual analysis and creative thinking. Yet, this impressive number does not necessarily translate into an improvement of the services and facilities offered; quite the contrary. As Massey highlights the difficulties inherent to routine activities performed by students and scholars including reading, writing, and doing research, she also suggests potential solutions that can benefit everyone involved in design history and higher education more broadly. Staying within the educational system, Jessica Hemmings examines the ­challenges of reconciling theory and practice in the design field. In “Textual Agency: Pitfalls and Potentials,” she builds on the fact that the value generally granted to texts tends to cast a shadow over the agency of other vehicles of knowledge and communication, even in the material-based fields of art and design. As Hemmings convincingly shows, the predominance of the written word is all the more paradoxical when it comes to studio and practice-based education at the graduate level. Yet, rather than ruminating over this fracture between theory and practice, she is concerned with the development of alternative strategies that would be more consistent with the specific knowledge produced by design and art practitioners. Among the examples she discusses are the works of artists who, exerting their own agency, elected to use the written word in ways that challenge the usages prevailing within the academic and museum systems. In her plea for the awareness “that the agency of text does not need to be at the exclusion of other forms of communication,” Hemmings recognizes the value of alternative learning patterns in a way that echoes Massey’s call for a more inclusive design. Rather than focusing on a specific case study or tackling a limited number of significant examples, the concluding chapter of this volume adopts a broader perspective and addresses the relationship between design and agency from a theoretical point of view. In “Design’s Performative Agency: Thoughts and New Directions for Materiality, Ontology and Identity-Making,” Ece Canli invites us to rethink both the terms of the interrelation between design and agency and the ways in which we approach their mutual connection. Canli begins by taking a critical look at the underlying bias of recent studies emerging from the material turn, including the enduring prevalence of the anthropocentric view and the colonial presuppositions and hierarchies they (tacitly) convey. Arguing that materiality and humanity “co-constitute” one

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another, she explains how design—including its objects, agents, and systems—has traditionally contributed to the construction and reinforcement of normative identities, while conveying an image of the human being as a monolithic entity impervious to the world that surrounds him or her. Canli borrows from the theories of ontological design and performativity to challenge this situation and fosters a collective reflection on the very conditions of agency and the status of design as an “open-ended phenomenon.”

Bibliography Frayling, C. (2010), Henry Cole and the Chamber of Horrors. The Curious Origins of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London: V&A Publishing. Marchand, M. (2014), “L’impossible ‘Chambre des horreurs’ du Museum of Ornamental Art: une archéologie du design criminel,” RACAR: Revue d’art canadienne/Canadian Art Review, 39 (1): 40–51. Morley, H. (1852), “A House Full of Horrors,” Household Words. A Weekly Journal Conducted by Charles Dickens, 6: 141; 266–70.

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10 The Dry Goods Economist and the Role of Mass

Media in the Creation of a Global Window Design Aesthetic at the End of the Nineteenth Century Anca I. Lasc

On April  6,  1901, a fire started in a window belonging to the John Martin & Co. ­ department store in Adelaide, South Australia (The Advertiser, Adelaide, April 8, 1901: 6). The window’s theme was “Rock of Ages” and the display belonged to Mr. Frank L. Carr Jr., “‘The’ Window Dresser of the World,” as an advertisement for the department store Craig, Williamson of Melbourne, called him. The tableau, of which no image seems to survive, was said to show a cross on mossy rocks and a wax dummy of a child; it made undoubted references to a  1763 Christian hymn that had reached the height of its popularity in the mid-nineteenth century, especially when public personalities such as Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, reputedly had it played for him on his death bed. The display window burned due to the heat from a light source that had ignited the fabric. Soon the whole western side of the building was alight and the street windows shattered. Most of the stock was destroyed. A “Great Fire,” “An Official Enquiry,” “Interesting Evidence,” read the headlines (The Advertiser, Adelaide, April 10, 1901: 7). Embarked on a “tour of the world” that included the United States, Europe, and Australia, Carr portrayed himself as THE “American Decorator,” “Winner of the First Prize in the ‘Dry Goods Economist’ International Window Dressing Contest,” the recipient of no fewer than fifteen window dressing medals, and the bearer of praise letters from Her Majesty Queen Victoria and the American Presidents Cleveland and McKinley, who reportedly appreciated his designs (Craig, Williamson ad, no date). While on his tour, Carr arranged windows for various department stores, replicating on demand some of his most successful designs from back home. He had previously installed Adelaide’s “Rock of Ages” in Brooklyn, San Francisco, Melbourne, and Sydney, and would install it again in Brisbane after the Adelaide fire (The Brisbane Courier, May 15, 1901: 7; The Queenslander, July 27, 1901: 199). The Sydney display in the windows of Messrs. David Jones and Co. showed “a figure with flowing hair clinging to a cross under an arch supported by Corinthian columns, and surmounted by flying doves bearing olive branches” (Australian Star, October 4, 1900: 2). In the windows of Messrs. Finney, Isles, and Company of Brisbane, Carr’s “Rock of Ages” displayed “a marble canopy,” in whose “centre a snow-white cross rises boldly

from its base of rock, around which the angry waves have lashed themselves into foam” and where “clinging to the cross is the figure of a woman in an attitude of supplication” (The Queenslander, July  27,  1901:  199). As he mounted the same windows in different venues, the decorator mixed props with merchandize particular to each store. “All the material” used in the Adelaide window that caught fire “was taken direct from the company’s departments, and placed in the window, and was the property of the company,” Carr stated during an interview (The Advertiser, Adelaide, April  8,  1901:  6). This included the figure’s costume, the background mirrors, the wooden floor that was covered with drapery for a “rocky effect,” “boxes covered with the same drapery,” and “a little green work” (The Advertiser, Adelaide, April 10, 1901: 7). Despite such differences, Carr’s series of “Rock of Ages” windows were predicated upon an impression of “sameness” as information about them circulated in newspapers at the time. Referenced by their title only and seldom reproduced as visual illustrations, the decorator’s windows achieved the status of three-dimensional yet portable designs in their own right despite any differences that might have crept up in the displays. Their circulation as replicable installations and seemingly reproducible material products much like two-dimensional prints, drawings or photographs points toward a nascent modern global window design aesthetic at the cusp of the twentieth century. More importantly, it also points toward the agency of newspapers and trade journals in disseminating and defining this aesthetic and the “appropriate” shape that “wide-awake” window design should take at the time.1 While scholarship might lean toward associating the origin of successful designs with the name of one particular “star” designer, Carr’s windows are living proof of how modern commercial window design at the turn of the twentieth century was the brainchild of collaboration between one such “star” designer and mass media.2 On his part, Carr proudly “signed” all his windows, acting as an agent and coordinator not least through how he had them promoted in various newspapers, trade journals, and illustrated books. But it was the illustrated trade journal Dry Goods Economist, an “American dry goods newspaper” boasting “the largest and most expensive editorial staff in trade journalism” and dedicating a weekly column since June 1892 to “Window and Interior Store Decoration” that helped hurl Carr’s ideas to the general public first and foremost, fully supporting his design aesthetic (Dry Goods Economist, June 4, 1892: 23; Dry Goods Economist, June 18, 1892: 11). At five dollars a year or about ten cents a week, the Dry Goods Economist was purportedly “the highest priced trade journal in the country.” Importantly, however, it claimed to be “absolutely independent,” free of any political or commercial interests, and “exclusively owned by the newspaper men who make it” (Dry Goods Economist, June  4,  1892:  23). Seemingly unbiased, it claimed and occupied a unique position in the retail and commercial display literature of the time, building a reputation and a following that, as shown below, will help solidify Carr’s window design aesthetic as good and desirable for an entire generation of window display men. The Economist was thus an equal, if not more significant, agent in the definition and dissemination of a modern global

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window design aesthetic. For Carr, it was an honor to promote himself as “Winner of the First Prize in the ‘Dry Goods Economist’ International Window Dressing Contest” while on his 1896 and after international tour.

The Quintessential Display Man, Frank L. Carr Jr., and Mass Media Frank L. Carr Jr. had, in fact, come second in the Dry Goods Economist’s International Window Dressing Contest of  1894, following Mr. Harding of Harding’s London Warehouse, who took home the first prize (Dry Goods Economist, March 10, 1894: 59). Despite this silver medal, Carr would nevertheless achieve iconic status as preeminent window dresser in the United States. As the much-praised window decorator of the Wechsler Brothers & Co. department store in Brooklyn—located in the Offerman Building since  1891—his work was often referenced in newspapers of both local and national readership, including The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and, respectively, the Dry Goods Economist trade journal. Carr’s ideas about window design as well as sketches and photographs of many of his windows were further reproduced in The Wide-Awake Window Dresser, a trade manual published in 1894 under the auspices of the Dry Goods Economist, which he would also author (Carr 1894). Indeed, Frank L. Carr Jr.’s career soared following the Dry Goods Economist’s International Window Dressing Contest of 1894. The competition required that participants submit images of six windows that they had trimmed between September 1, 1893 and February 1, 1894 (Dry Goods Economist, September 7, 1893: 45). Both drawings and photographs were accepted, either in black and white or in color. These were accompanied by written descriptions or plans illustrating how the windows had been created. A cash prize of fifty dollars and a gold medal designed by Tiffany’s were promised to the winner, who would be selected by a jury composed of three anonymous members appointed by the magazine and whose names would only be revealed when the winner was announced (Dry Goods Economist, March 10, 1894: 59). The Economist embarked on an aggressive campaign to mobilize both US and international window dressers for its competition and, in doing so, it garnered a widespread audience eager to learn of the results. The journal suggested repeatedly that winning the contest would not only help cement a window dresser’s reputation in the field and thus enhance his prospects for better pay, upward mobility, and worthier e ­ mployer— the last of which could easily materialize, it suggested, with the help of the Economist itself, bent on facilitating connections between stores in search of good dressers and dressers in search of good design work—but would also improve a store’s business potential and its place within the larger retail field. Advertisements read: “Who Is the Best Window Trimmer in the World? Who Are Some of Those Who Are Worthy to Stand Next [sic] the World’s Champion, and Be Counted in the Same Class with Him? […] Mr. Merchant, zealous for the reputation of your store, Mr. Window Dresser, zealous for your own professional interests, Are You ‘In It?’” (Dry Goods Economist, December 16, 1893: 39).

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For the first time, innovative window designs that had been keenly awaited were published and displayed as a group within a trade journal’s pages.3 Not only did these have the blessing of one of the most authoritative publishing agents in the field, but they were selected by an impartial jury that guaranteed their preeminent place within the larger pool of submissions. Undoubtedly they were the latest and the best that window decorators had to offer. Although second in the competition, Carr’s designs, in fact, had been close to winning the Dry Goods Economist’s first prize. As the jury explained, the submissions were “subjected to several careful examinations, which finally resulted in sifting the number of those considered worthy of consideration for the first prize down to two; these two were then carefully considered in every detail, and the first prize was finally awarded to Mr. Harding. The other competing set of designs was so close in point of excellence to the winner of the first prize that it easily took second place; the author being Mr. Carr” (Dry Goods Economist, March  10,  1894:  59). Indeed, part of the Economist’s request when entrusting the competition entries to the jury was that they evaluate them based not least on their “practicability and adaptability for practical show-window dressing” (Dry Goods Economist, March  10,  1894). Carr had made sure that his intentions as well as construction methods were clearly explained through letters to the jury. But Harding accompanied his submission with sketches illustrating the placement of each merchandize item inside the windows and, unlike Carr, did not rely on lengthy textual descriptions. The jury might have simply appreciated the seamless ease of composing windows based on such visual instructions over the extensive verbiage that Carr had chosen. Regardless, both decorators received equal praise and all of their submissions were faithfully reproduced for the Economist’s readers. Carr’s first window represented an “Autumn Scene in Central Park” [Figure 10.1]. It was meant to advertise the fall of  1893’s opening of ladies’, misses’, and children’s suits sale at the Wechsler Bros. & Co. store in Brooklyn. Carr had merged two store windows into one by removing the middle partition. He thus secured a space 32 feet long, 21 feet high, and 16 feet in depth. Lace curtains and mirrors separated the scene from the space of the store, while “green moss, pebbles and gravel to simulate the grass and the paths” added to the effect (Dry Goods Economist, March 24, 1894). Silver-mounted harnesses for the horses, a coachman in livery suit, his mistress, and two children provided the background for the autumn stroll that other young ladies enjoyed. The dresser’s emphasis on realistic effects was such that he reported to the jury he had reproduced in three dimensions a photograph that he had personally taken: The inspiration (if I may so call it) … came to me on a perfect fall day in ’93, as I was admiring the handsome turnouts in beautiful Central Park, just such an equipage as this, horses, driver, mistress, master and miss, made its impression on me. In an instant I had my Kodak camera to bear, pressed the button, and the plan for the center-piece of this window was on the sensitive film, to be added to and further embellished by after-thought and study, for I study my windows and make careful drafts on paper, of how they are to be, subject always to such

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Figure 10.1  Frank L. Carr Jr., Autumn Scene in Central Park, 1893, Window No. 1 Submitted for the Dry Goods Economist International Window-Dressing Contest (Dry Goods Economist Supplement, March 24, 1894), photogravure. (New York Public Library, public domain)

modifications as the actual work of dressing may suggest or necessitate. (Dry Goods Economist, March 24, 1894: n.p.)

Carr made sure to emphasize here his direct role as agent in the creative process, from the selection of the scene deemed worthy for reproduction to its further development in studio to match the advertising needs of the store that employed him. Yet neither of these processes he defined as contradictory to a faithful imitation of an ordinary occurrence as he worked under the assumption that his job was to create an artwork, perhaps viewed as an alternate reality to the one his viewers inhabited, and not merely a blatant pitch sale. To further accentuate both the truthfulness and the artistic appeal of the window, the designer hand-colored the photograph submitted for the contest, thus also underscoring the actual hues of the objects that he had in actuality displayed in it. The second window that Carr submitted represented an indoor scene referencing the school supplies and stationary department of a store just like Wechsler Bros. & Co.’s. The window took advantage of the school year’s new beginning, opening in September to advertise all items that children might require for their studies. A young lady in the back had just completed her purchase; while the saleswoman was “in the [very] act of sending the check and cash away through the cash system to the cashier.” Never shying away from praising his windows, Carr explained in the letter accompanying the photograph that “judging from the throngs of children that surrounded this window and thronged our stationery department, it was a pleasing one to the little ones, and children are apt to be good critics, at least, truthful ones” (Dry Goods Economist, March 24, 1894). His other submissions included a corset display, with Wechsler Brothers’ initials prominently repeated throughout the window; a Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty ensemble built entirely of spool cotton and juxtaposed against a giant spider’s web with its inhabitant proportionately rendered in

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the middle, the most difficult of all six windows to produce, according to Carr and undoubtedly meant to celebrate a decade since the bridge had opened; a “Botany Dress Goods Exhibit” advertising the variety of colors and dress goods materials available at the Botany Worsted Mills in Passaic, NJ; and, finally, a “Japanese Handkerchief Display” [Figure 10.2] which the dresser singled out as his favorite among the six submissions: “This window, I am free to confess, is my favorite out of the present collection. There may be, and doubtless are, far more artistic and perhaps more difficult window displays brought to your notice, but for originality, I am vain enough to think, this takes the palm” (Dry Goods Economist, March  24,  1894). A canopy composed entirely of handkerchiefs towered above a Japanese lady holding in her hand “a handkerchief made in her distant home.” The mannequin was clad in a silk embroidered gown, “such as she would have worn at home,” according to Carr, and revolved on a disk powered by electricity. Flowers made from handkerchiefs filled the rest of the window and mirrors occupied both the floor and the background to reflect the whiteness of the cloth. While proving a “dual success” according to the dresser both as attention-grabber and as selling point—demonstrated “by an increase

Figure 10.2  Frank L. Carr Jr., Japanese Handkerchief Display, 1893, Window No. 6. Submitted for the Dry Goods Economist International Window-Dressing Contest (Dry Goods Economist Supplement, March 24, 1894), photogravure. (New York Public Library, public domain)

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of 50  per  cent, during the week it had been on exhibition”—the scene had nothing to do with the reality of Japanese handkerchief production at the time (Dry Goods Economist, March 24, 1894). This was done in factory-like settings, locally, in the United States, as illustrated in the same paper just a few months earlier (Dry Goods Economist, January 6, 1894). Carr’s windows proved immensely successful. Their success was attested not least by their further use as imagery to advertise the very products that had displayed. For example, the Botany Worsted Mills would include Carr’s window in an ad arguing that “A Botany Dress Goods Window of similar construction to the one here reproduced as a curtain raiser … is the best trade-creating provocative that you could think of” (Dry Goods Economist, February 24, 1894) [Figure 10.3]. The goods that

Figure 10.3  Botany Worsted Mills, Advertisement Featuring Frank L. Carr Jr.’s Botany Dress Goods Exhibit, 1894, Window No. 4. Submitted for the Dry Goods Economist International Window-Dressing Contest (Dry Goods Economist, February 24, 1894), photogravure. (New York Public Library, public domain)

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the Botany Worsted Mills manufactured (a necessary precondition for the creation of Carr’s window) thus became attractive for their window display potential rather than solely for their role in the creation of real dress goods. The same was true for Gilbert’s combed yarn washed dress goods, another company that would employ Carr’s windows for Wechsler Bros. featuring its products to advertise its wares. One of its ads read: “The beautiful window here reproduced has been the most successful trade-creating display of wash dress materials ever produced in the annals of wideawake retailing in Brooklyn. Every retail store from Toronto to Corpus Christi, from Eastport to San Diego, and from Victoria to Tampa, ought to make a similar display of our several popular lines” (Dry Goods Economist, April 7, 1894). Carr’s windows became associated with good advertising to such an extent that their replication as repeatable installations around the country was immediately called for. Manufacturers keen on selling their products emphasized these objects’ “presentability” as window dressing props in order to convince retailers to secure their lines. And trade journals such as the Dry Goods Economist cemented Carr’s reputation by agreeing to reproduce product advertising of this kind. Before their circulation in trade publications such as the Economist, Carr’s designs had already achieved a following wider than the clientele frequenting Wechsler & Bros.’ store in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, a local magazine with broad readership, had reported on Carr’s Brooklyn Bridge display before the decorator had submitted it for the Dry Goods Economist contest and while it was still installed in the store’s windows (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October  1,  1893:  20). And on June 1, 1893, The Eagle had reported on an even earlier window that had caused furors when exhibited: Wechsler Bros. drew aside the curtains this morning on two remarkably attractive window displays, or rather one occupying two windows. The scene in the first  window shows an illustration of the blue room of the White House at Washington, with President Cleveland and Mrs. Cleveland greeting the Infanta Eulalie on her arrival in the capital. […] Adjoining the blue room and in another window is the red room. Both apartments are richly furnished, from designs obtained in Washington by Frank L. Carr, jr., the window decorator of the house. (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 1, 1893: 10) [Figure 10.4]

Much like other pre-cinematic mediums in spaces of leisure and entertainment, including panoramas, dioramas, and wax museums, Carr’s window actively sought to animate and reproduce the latest news in three dimensions.4 Here, this happened through Carr’s collaboration with the New York-based wax sculptor Gustave Schmidt, who created the Spanish princess’s likeness based on “the latest photographs obtainable.” Carr himself had reportedly embarked on a trip to the White House to record and then reproduce as accurately as possible the two rooms where the meeting would take place, thus allowing The Eagle to proudly state in an article titled “The Princess in Brooklyn” that the scene “to be opened to-­morrow morning is an exact reproduction of the Reception tendered to the Princess and her suite by

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Figure 10.4  Frank L. Carr Jr., The Reception of Princess Eulalie. Window executed for Wechsler Bros. & Co., Brooklyn, New York, reproduced in Frank L. Carr Jr., The WideAwake Window Dresser (New York: The Dry Goods Economist, 1894), photogravure. (Columbia University Libraries, public domain)

Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland in Washington” (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 31, 1893: 2). The magazine reported large numbers of people stopping to see the installation during the one week that it was displayed (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 1, 1893: 10). But many more would learn about it from the paper or would see it reproduced in Carr’s Wide-Awake Window Dresser, a publication that he would author at the invitation of the Dry Goods Economist the following year. Through their description or outright reproduction as photographs or engravings in mass-produced media such as trade journals, newspapers, and books, Carr’s three-dimensional window designs of a limited life span achieved national and international renown. These publications were influential and essential agents in popularizing the designer’s work and, through their endorsement of it, active contributors in the creation of a national, soon global, window design aesthetic. The Economist’s ability to act as such, in particular, was a direct result of its efforts to create an international, professional network whose chief occupation was the circulation, retail, and display of dry goods.

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Newspaper Men at Work: Building the Dry Goods Economist ’s International Reputation As a matter of fact, Frank L. Carr, Jr. was part of a generation of decorators and retailers who were just beginning to understand and turn to their best advantage the benefits of a bourgeoning mass media culture. Published since 1852 (albeit under a different name) by the Textile Publishing Company, the Dry Goods Economist capitalized on this trend. Among the trade journal’s staff in an  1892 illustration can be seen Mr. Chas. G. Phillips, a former manager in the Massachusetts store of C. F. Hovey & Co. and winner of three literary competitions organized by the Economist. As a result of his success in publishing, Phillips left his retail career in order to take on responsibility for what would become the Dry Goods Economist’s “Wide-Awake Retailing” weekly column, a page-long section dedicated to the latest trends. This included but was not limited to store organization and display, staff management, bargain counters, market specials, and successful advertising. As the newspaper put it, “He had a distinct gift of seeing and saying [emphasis added] what was of value to all dealing in dry goods” (Dry Goods Economist, February 6, 1892). From a successful seller Phillips would turn into an even more successful writer and journalist. Referring to himself as the “Wide-Awake Retailer,” Phillips would inspire the creation of other equally successful magazine columns such as the “Wide-Awake Advertising” or “Wide-Awake Wholesaling,” to the extent that all those associated with the Economist came to be referred among the newspaper pages as “wide-awake retailers,” or “wide-awake clients.” Carr, too, proudly adopted the denomination of the “Wide-Awake Window Dresser” in response to the invitation launched by the Economist to compile and author a publication of innovative window designs following the international competition referenced above. He would further pay homage to the Dry Goods Economist by creating in 1894 a window displaying Phillips about to receive “a telegram from Chas. T. Root, the president of the Textile Publishing Co., informing Wechsler Bros. & Co. that the jury had awarded the silver medal in the DRY GOODS ECONOMIST International Window-dressing Contest to their window dresser” (Lasc 2018: 31). In fact, the Economist would itself publish a reproduction of the same window, which glorified Philips, Carr, Wechsler Bros. and the newspaper office at the same time. Carr was thus part of a closed-in yet wide enough network of retailers, designers, and other members of the dry goods trade who subscribed to the Economist or the benefits the latter offered. In this way, he slowly but steadily began to acquire international fame as a window dresser even more so than through his displays for the Wechsler Bros. & Co. store in Brooklyn for which he was still responsible. People from around the world subscribed to the Dry Goods Economist to find out the latest in the dry goods market, retail, and advertising but they also did so in order to receive certain concessions. In addition to the New York office at 78 & 80 Walker Street, the journal boasted offices in Philadelphia, Washington, and Paterson

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as well as Berlin, Chemintz, Alsace, and Paris in  1892. It additionally supported a number of authorized agencies in locations as varied as Vienna, Austria, and Bremen, Germany (Dry Goods Economist, August  1,  1891). On the occasion of the  1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition, the Economist acted as an agent for the members of its “World’s Fair Club,” offering to help them find accommodations in the city for the duration of the event. For two dollars and fifty cents, membership was guaranteed “for a man or man and wife” and no effort was spared in finding for them cheaper rates than anywhere else in the city. Additionally, through its rented headquarters in the Masonic Temple building at State and Randolph St. and its office on the fair’s grounds, it afforded club members the opportunity to mingle with people of their own -or related- profession (Dry Goods Economist, January 28, 1893: 42). Similarly, in New York City too, the journal soon created a Dry Goods Exchange that encouraged the circulation of goods and ideas between retailers, traders, advertisers, and other store employees on business in the city. “Do you buy any Goods in New York? Have you a New York Office?” headlines asked. If the answer to the last question was no, the Exchange promised to be the “office of its members” with “desk room, sample, rooms, meeting room, telephone and telegraph and mail facilities, messenger service,” among others (Dry Goods Economist, March  11,  1893:  56). These enticements helped assure a steady public for the Dry Goods Economist, which, until the arrival of L. Frank Baum’s The Show Window: A Monthly Journal of Practical Window Trimming in 1897 (renamed The Merchants Trade Record and Show Window in 1903), remained the top publication in its field. As the journal asked as early as 1892, “Clerks! You who have adopted dry goods as your profession and are going to be the merchants of the next decades, can you afford not to accept the education which is here offered you at such insignificant cost” (Dry Goods Economist, June 4, 1892, 23)? Heavily advertised within its pages, the Dry Goods Economist’s International Window Dressing Contest and the designs that were praised therein thus reached a wide audience at both the national and international levels, and easily came to be defined as the best that the window dressing profession had to offer. By further offering Carr, over Harding or any other contemporary window designer, the opportunity to author the Economist-sponsored trade manual The Wide-Awake Window Dresser (1894), the journal came even closer to identifying a new global window design aesthetic along the lines of this decorator’s imagination. With such support, Carr could thus proudly adopt the title of “‘The’ Window Dresser of the World” once embarked on his whirlwind tour after Wechsler Bros. & Co. closed in  1896. While undoubtedly responsible for the shape that turn-of-the-century window designs took, Carr’s second greatest merit was that he realized the media’s potential in popularizing his work and tapped right into it. Together, newspapers and trade journals such as the Dry Goods Economist and Frank L. Carr, Jr., equal design agents in their own right, were able to turn a Brooklyn-based window design aesthetic into a global phenomenon.

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Notes 1 I would hereby like to thank Kaz Cooke, who brought Carr’s travels in Australia to my attention for the first time. Additional thanks to Roger Horowitz, Jennifer Greenhill, Vanessa Schwartz, and Alex Taylor, the organizers of the Hagley Center’s Fall  2019 Conference, Commercial Pictures and the Arts and Technics of Visual Persuasion, as well as to Jason Hill, for their feedback on an earlier version of this paper. While acknowledging the Western, capitalist origins of the department store, I have referenced a "global window design aesthetic" throughout this chapter in response to recent studies, which show similar displays would be featured beyond the traditional, Western context. For more information, see Anca I. Lasc, Patricia Lara-Betancourt, and Margaret Maile Petty, eds. (2018). 2 Commercial window design innovations at the end of the nineteenth century are typically associated with the figure of L. Frank Baum, famed author of the Oz books and the 1900 The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and Interiors (Chicago, IL: Show Window Pub. Co.), editor of The Show Window: A Monthly Journal of Practical Window Trimming (1897–1902), and founder of the National Association of Window Trimmers of America (1898). See Leonard S. Marcus (1978); Simon J. Bronner, ed. (1989); William Leach (1993); T. J. Jackson Lears (1995); Cécile Whiting (1997), and Emily M. Orr (2018). Although Baum’s primary role has been disputed, especially in Leigh Eric Schmidt (1991) and, more recently, in Louisa Iarocci (2014), less agency has been given to newspapers and trade journals, and especially the Dry Goods Economist, in the production of a modern global window design aesthetic. 3 Trade journals such as Harman’s Journal of Window Dressing (first published in 1893) had showcased window designs somewhat earlier, but not part of an international contest. According to architectural historian Louisa Iarocci, Harman’s was the earliest known trade journal dedicated to store display in the United States (2013: 3). 4 For an account of such pre-cinematic displays see Vanessa R. Schwartz (1998). For an early direct connection between moving images and store windows see especially Anne Friedberg (1994).

Bibliography Australian Star (October 4, 1900), 2. Baum, L. F. (1900), The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and Interiors, Chicago, IL: Show Window Pub. Co. Bronner, S. J., ed. (1989), Consuming Visions: Accumulation and Display of Goods in America, 1880–1920, New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Carr, F. L., Jr. (1894), The Wide-Awake Window Dresser: A Treatise on the Art and Science of Show Window and Store Interior Construction, Economy and Decoration, Containing a Complete Exposition of the Laws of Color Harmony, Full Instruction in Fabric Draperies and Many Practical Ideas Concerning Proper Display Forms, Fixtures and Accessories, New York: Dry Goods Economist. Craig, Williamson ad, no date. Dry Goods Economist (August 1, 1891).

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Dry Goods Economist (February 6, 1892). Dry Goods Economist (June 4, 1892), 23. Dry Goods Economist (June 18, 1892), 11. Dry Goods Economist (January 28, 1893), 42. Dry Goods Economist (March 11, 1893), 56. Dry Goods Economist (September 7, 1893), 45. Dry Goods Economist (December 16, 1893), 39. Dry Goods Economist (January 6, 1894). Dry Goods Economist (February 24, 1894). Dry Goods Economist (March 10, 1894), 59. Dry Goods Economist (March 24, 1894). Dry Goods Economist (April 7, 1894). Friedberg, A. (1994), Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Iarocci, L. (2013), “Introduction: The Image of Visual Merchandising,” in L. Iarocci (ed.), Visual Merchandising: The Image of Selling, Burlington, 1–18, VT: Ashgate. Iarocci, L. (2014), The Urban Department Store in America, 1850–1930, New York and London: Routledge. Jackson Lears, T. J. (1995), Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America, New York: Basic Books. Lasc, A. I. (February 2018), “The Traveling Sidewalk: The Mobile Architecture of American Shop Windows at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” Journal of Design History, 31 (1): 24–45. Lasc, A. I., P. Lara-Betancourt, and M. Maile Petty (2018), Architectures of Display: Department Stores and Modern Retail, New York and London: Routledge. Leach, W. (1993), Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture, New York: Pantheon Books. Marcus, L. S. (1978), The American Store Window, New York: Whitney Library of Design. Orr, E. M. (2018), “‘The Age of Show Windows’ in the American Department Store,” in Anca I. Lasc, Patricia Lara-Betancourt, and Margaret Maile Petty (eds), Architectures of Display: Department Stores and Modern Retail, 109–24, New York and London: Routledge. Schmidt, L. E. (December 1991), “The Commercialization of the Calendar: American Holidays and the Culture of Consumption, 1870–1930,” The Journal of American History, 78 (3): 887–916. Schwartz, V. R. (1998), Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in fin-de-siècle Paris, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. The Advertiser, Adelaide (April 8, 1901), 6. The Advertiser, Adelaide (April 10, 1901), 7. The Brisbane Courier (May 15, 1901), 7. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (May 31, 1893), “The Princess in Brooklyn,” 2. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (June 1, 1893), “The Infanta Eulalie in Wax: A Reproduction of the Washington Reception at Wechsler Bros,” 10. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (October 1, 1893), “A Bridge Made of Thread. The Unique Exhibit of Wechsler & Brother,” 20. The Queenslander (July 27, 1901), 199. The Show Window: A Monthly Journal of Practical Window Trimming (1897–1902). Whiting, C. (1997), A Taste for Pop: Pop Art, Gender, and Consumer Culture, Cambridge (England) and New York: Cambridge University Press.

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11 National Cash Register Company’s Boys’ Garden: Shaping Working-Class Childhoods and Future Workers, 1897–1913 Sara Nicole England National Cash Register Company owner John H. Patterson was well aware of public concern for the effects of industrialization on the moral and physical development of workers when his company first undertook welfare work in the mid-1890s. The company implemented a diversity of welfare work initiatives (including the introduction of safety devices, drinking fountains, baths, lockers, and special provisions for women employees) but the National Cash Register’s (NCR) focus on landscaping and gardening remained the most significant and publicly lauded. Through this work, NCR gained the title of America’s model factory (Nelson  1974:  165). Located in Slidertown on the outskirts of Dayton, Ohio, NCR was situated on a broad stretch of farmland belonging to Patterson’s family. The factory landscape, replete with picturesque views and expansive vistas, was designed by the Olmsted Brothers who shared Patterson’s belief in the civilizing effects of park leisure and aesthetic appreciation. In addition to NCR’s landscape gardening initiatives, the company developed children’s gardens (organized into the Boys’ Gardens and later the Girls’ Gardens), and a civic garden campaign. Together, NCR’s three garden programs received international attention for their progressiveness and championing the direct connection between landscape design and gardening on individual’s moral and physical fitness. The company successfully argued that gardens and gardening were integral to the formation of not just productive and loyal workers, but ideal American citizens, during a time when the industrial environment was portrayed as the root of many social problems, particularly ineffectual citizenship. The belief that gardens and garden work shaped ideal citizens and workers was sold most potently through the Boys’ Garden, a program that brought together histories of garden design and social agency with children at the forefront. The Boys’ Garden, NCR’s educational gardening program for the local neighborhood boys of Slidertown, accepted boys, aged eight to fourteen, in a ten-block radius of the factory. In a two-year program, NCR taught them the methods of “scientific gardening” on company-owned land to the south of the factory (Townsend 1903: 29). “Scientific gardening” was based in the science of agriculture, and included knowledge about planting according to various climate conditions and topographies and lessons in raising two crops on the same ground. In addition to the land, the company

provided the boys with seeds, bulbs, and all the necessary equipment to raise a vegetable garden under the direction of an expert gardener hired by the factory. First initiated under the direction of Lena Harvey Tracy, former Deaconess and NCR’s first welfare director, the Boys’ Garden was one of the first of its kind in the United States and gained recognition across the country as a successful model for the American school garden. Despite its overwhelming recognition among reformers, industrialists, and educators, Tracy’s very engaged work (she even lived on factory grounds and club meetings were held in her residence) in histories of NRC and school gardens is often overshadowed by the celebrityhood of Patterson, to whom the success of the garden programs was attributed. This chapter addresses the various ways in which garden design and educational programs at NCR impacted the agency of various actors, particularly the participants of the Boys’ Garden. By examining the Boys’ Garden’s visual culture, physical design, and motivations, this chapter argues that the garden program significantly impacted the lives of the boy gardeners, precisely because it expanded their agency as then civic leaders and future citizens, and what constituted a working-class childhood. On the subject of landscapes, W. J. T. Mitchell asserts that we should ask “not just what landscape ‘is’ or ‘means’ but what it does, how it works as a cultural practice” (1994: 1). In the history of NCR, gardens and landscapes (as images, actions, and spaces) actively shaped and constituted new social contexts for working-class subjects and contributed to the development of a modern childhood at the turn of the twentieth century. Through images, factory publications, and census reports, the Boys’ Garden offers a case study to examine how the factory’s children garden programs—as part of children’s geography and material culture—impacted and shaped a working-class childhood, one which altered and organized the lives and agency of children along racial, class, and gendered lines. This chapter also contributes to the issue of agency in design history. The boy gardeners (and the girl gardeners, though their history is beyond the scope of this chapter) were influential in NCR’s global recognition as a leader in both corporate welfare and the school garden movement in the United States. The lesser known agents in NCR’s history, like Lena Harvey Tracy, women, and children, are often overshadowed by the individualistic narrative of John H. Patterson’s civic leadership. Until recently, histories of landscape design and gardening have largely ignored women’s contributions to the field, and children are rarely addressed as historical actors. This chapter aims to bring to light the labor and experiences of both social groups.

The Social Lives of Gardens The gardens enabled a new working-class childhood to take place in the factory neighborhood, both benefiting the image of the factory as a space hospitable to nature and children, and expanding boys’ responsibilities and spaces in ways both anticipated by the company and unintended. While children’s designed spaces and objects are often the engineering of adults, these spaces are not fixed and children, as

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social agents themselves, can construct and participate in their worlds in unscripted ways. To bring to light children’s positions as historical actors necessitates addressing how adult desires and control structure childhood (Sánchez-Eppler 2005: xvii). The motivations for the Boys’ Garden and the working-class childhood are revealing, but they tell us more about the anxieties and aspirations of the public and the factory management than those of the children participants. How did children interpret their experiences in the Boys’ Garden? Did they differ from the intentions of those who designed the program? The lived experiences of the children who participated in the Boys’ Gardens, and other gardens within the school gardening movement, are often overshadowed by the rhetoric of reform and positive outcomes in historical documents (Warsh 2011: 66). While children’s responses to their own experiences are often absent from the historical record, Marta Gutman’s assertion that “physical spaces are not a backdrop for childhood; rather, space and childhood are mutually constitutive” opens new avenues for interpreting children’s experiences through the spaces they occupied, their designs, and potentials (2014: 29). From this assertion, this chapter positions gardens as agential spaces that have the “socially-mediated capacity to act” in ways that influence and shape human experience (Hoskins 2006: 74). At the same time, this chapter addresses how gardens, as designed spaces, come to bear on the question of the boy gardeners’ agency within histories of NCR.

NCR’s Civic Gardening Campaigns in Slidertown While Patterson orchestrated the grander scheme, garden work was executed by women and children, who beautified the factory and neighborhood and positioned the factory as the leader in aesthetic and cultural standards and civic affairs. Gardens and other “factory beautification” efforts were believed to inspire social transformation and reflected a national interest in harnessing the perceived moral and physical benefits of nature to cultivate better citizens, particularly for immigrant, poor, and working-class citizens who were the subject of middle-class anxieties about the nation’s future. How an ideal citizen was defined and produced, for NCR, was guided by middle-class virtues and shaped by design principles found in gardening and landscaping. With the hire of America’s preeminent landscape architecture firm, The Olmsted Brothers, NCR’s factory grounds were landscaped in the image of the “gentleman’s country estate” with expansive vistas set off by clusters of shrubbery (National Cash Register Company c. 1903: 7). Inside, thousands of ornamental plants grown on company grounds decorated the factory interior. The company believed a beautiful environment uplifted its workers and encouraged residents and employees to beautify their own yards following NCR’s aesthetic principles (inspired by the Olmsteds and Liberty Hyde Bailey): first, leave open spaces; second, plant in masses; and third, avoid straight lines (National Cash Register Company  1904). NCR believed that “delightful association with nature and ­enthusiastic devotion to work are among the most powerful influences that go to develop strong and intelligent citizens” (Townsend  1903:  30). NCR reinforced

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neighborhood participation in landscape work by selling seeds and bulbs for a nominal charge, providing consultation of a factory-hired landscape gardener, and later forming a community garden. If homeowners did not willingly undertake home landscaping, the company would do it for them, free of cost, with the expectation that the residents would keep it in order. On the transformation of the neighborhood and its residents, American publication Keith’s Magazine on Homebuilding wrote thus: Slidertown, once a neighborhood of “disreputable, tumble-down houses, with saloons and homes of iniquity interspersing,” has been transformed into “a bower of woods and flowers without duplicate in all the land” (Koch 1919: 302). The suburb’s renaming to South Park completed the transformation. The transformation of residential yards in Slidertown was well documented by NCR in photographs known as “before-and-after” images, or perhaps more aptly categorized by factory garden historian Helena Chance as the “name-and-shame” (2017: 110). These images publicly exposed residents’ homes and created a narrative of transformation—not only of the neighborhood yards but the residents, too [Figures 11.1 and 11.2]. Depicting a simplified narrative of social progress, these images linked the visual paradigm of middle-class domesticity to

Figure 11.1  Worker houses and gardens before landscaping. Photograph by Frances Benjamin Johnston, National Cash Register, Dayton, Ohio, c. 1896. Glass lantern slide. (Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, DC)

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Figure 11.2  Worker houses and gardens after landscaping. Photograph by Frances Benjamin Johnston, National Cash Register, Dayton, Ohio, c. 1905. Hand-colored glass lantern slide. (Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs, Division Washington, DC)

the image of an ideal citizen (Brown 2008: 46). NCR used aesthetic principles and the design of gardens, yards, and interiors as a managerial strategy to raise a more productive and loyal workforce while extending control and surveillance of employees (and their families) to nonwork hours and spaces. As images, residential gardens served as representational portraits of their human collaborators in that the garden represented their capacities as laborers and as citizens. Gardening (according to NCR’s principles) was a display of loyalty and obedience to the company because it aligned the worker, and the workers’ family, to the company’s values. A properly landscaped yard was also believed to provide greater home contentment and renew workers’ capacity for labor (Tolman 1899: 443–4). The transformation of Slidertown into a garden suburb implied that the residents had also transformed through the civilizing effects of gardening. Instead of partaking in the evils associated with idleness, citizens of South Park were busy planting gardens and beautifying their yards.

Shifting Definitions of Childhood The Boys’ Garden was part of a broader nationwide initiative to organize programs and institutions dedicated exclusively to children. Drastic changes in

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the  1890s and early  1900s including “industrialization, migration from countryside to city, rising average incomes, and shrinking family sizes” altered children’s social roles and led to an intense focus on children’s development and unique needs (Macleod  1998:  1). As individual wage-earners replaced a family economy, childhood became defined and idealized as a life phase separate from the realms of paid labor. The middle class thought of children as “a precious gift to be nurtured and protected” and conceived of childhood as a sheltered upbringing without financial responsibility (Gratton and Moen 2004: 356). This economic shift was more of an ideal than a reality for poor, working-class, and rural families that still relied on children’s contributions. Children who did not fit within this race and class-based definition of childhood were the objects of national anxieties about the nation’s future and poor and immigrant parents were often blamed for the blight of children (Hendrick 2003: 7–11). Children were viewed as threats to moral order, a stable social structure, and religious purity. While humanitarianism played a role in the reform movement, the fear that children would grow up to become “ineffectual citizens” and possibly harm the future of the nation (or, for NCR, business) was a significant influence (Hendrick  2003:  8). Many reformers believed that programs that brought children in contact with nature could resolve the problems associated with industrialization and urbanization. Nature-study, gardens, and country vacation programs for urban youth arose across the United States in the  1890s, seeking to prevent criminal and immoral behavior, qualities thought to be developed in childhood, and instill virtues that contributed to productive citizenship. This was the starting place for the Boys’ Garden program, first organized between 1897 and 1898 for the local neighborhood boys of Slidertown. It continued into the first two decades of the twentieth century until the municipality developed its own school garden to which the company donated its gardening supplies (Tracy 1950: 140). Slidertown was notorious for immoral and unsanitary conditions and was home to unruly boy gangs who participated in unregulated street play. Patterson, amid landscape design work and the completion of a modern glass-clad factory building, feared the boys would damage the factory grounds and discourage NCR workers from moving closer to the factory. In turn, this would hinder Patterson’s aim to keep a closer eye on his employees, which he was able to do through the company’s neighborhood landscape gardening initiatives (Wertenbaker 1953: 125). The idea of a Boys’ Garden emerged as a way to protect NCR’s property and improve the image of the neighborhood by channeling the boys’ misplaced energy toward something productive: the cultivation and maintenance of a vegetable garden [Figure 11.3]. Boys’ Garden aimed to resolve anxieties about the nation’s children and restore hope in the future by designing the conditions in which an ideal childhood for future working-class citizens could take place. These conditions were defined by middle-class gender values but guided by the economic realities of the working class.

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Figure 11.3  Boys’ Garden. National Cash Register Company, c. 1907. (Photograph courtesy of Dayton Metro Library)

Raising Children for Industry The Boys’ Garden was divided into standardized individual lots to inculcate behaviors beneficial in an industrial economy. Each gardener was responsible for an individual plot to fix “personal responsibility” and individual interest and make evaluation time easier for company-elected judges (Crosby 1903: 10). Instead of emphasizing family contributions, individual plots encouraged competition among the gardeners, a tactic also used in Patterson’s innovative sales training system for company salesman. The individual award system helped to distinguish the most promising children. The design of the Boys’ Garden was not a complete departure from his European counterparts who began children’s gardening programs decades earlier. NCR owner Patterson even enjoyed the title of “America’s Froebel” as testified in one of the company’s tourist pamphlets (National Cash Register Company c.  1903:  14). Patterson, like Froebel, believed in the potential for gardens—arranged as individual plots—to cultivate personal responsibility and self-regulation; gardens instilled order through the laws of nature and obedience to those laws. Unlike Froebel’s gardens, viewed as idealized spaces separate from the current social and political climate existing in Germany, the Boys’ Garden was a form of early industrial training in which, as Herrington in her analysis of garden programs in the United States

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writes, “the hidden nature of a child [was] secondary to shaping their characters to fit American standards” (Herrington 2001: 37). The capacity for individual plots to “issue blame or praise towards a child” was a significant motivation for the introduction of school gardens in the United States (Herrington 1998: 333), and particularly for NCR, who valued competition among workers and rewarded employees for good work through the annual dinner held at the prestigious Officers Club (Townsend 1903: 28). The garden program expanded the boys’ agency to provide for their families and earn independently. The program encouraged boys to measure against their peers rather than family needs, like later 4-H style programs that taught commercial agriculture to American rural children (Macleod 1998: 118). The boy gardeners brought home their harvest, and some were purported to have enough to provide vegetables for their family for the entire season. They were encouraged by the company to sell the remainder and use their earnings as they pleased. The highest achievement of a student of the Boys’ Garden, as outlined in a presentation on school gardens hosted in Boston at the time, was a boy who provided for his family all season with additional money leftover ($5), won first prize for his work and earned position at the factory once he became of age. In employment, he quickly received an advance for his industriousness and usefulness—all this attributed to his years at the garden. (Townsend 1903: 29)

To teach the boys to “combine pleasure with profit,” the Boys’ Garden was incorporated under the laws of Ohio (“Distribution of Garden Prizes” 1902: 1004). They acted as shareholders of the garden, elected officers and a board of directors, and held regular meetings in the “House of Usefulness,” a cottage adjoining the factory and the residence of NCR’s first welfare director. Activities that benefited the moral and social well-being of the community took place at the House of Usefulness. It also served as an object lesson for “what could be done in homes with a small expenditure of money” and as “a social settlement on a small scale” (Patterson 1899: 39–40). There, the boy gardeners learned business and economic management in preparation for their expected future as NCR workers (National Cash Register Company 1920). The company gave the children tours of the factory floor and encouraged them to “grow up with the expectation of one day going out to sell cash registers” (“Distribution of Garden Prizes” 1902: 1005). Proponents of school gardens and boys’ clubs emphasized citizen training (Buck  1898:  114) in which the boys “became willing law-keepers” and removed the need of barriers and fences because the children were “their own police force” (Crosby 1903: 9–16). If the boys learned to exercise self-regulation and regulation of others through the lessons of the Boys’ Garden, it is these disciplinary actions that expanded notions of children’s agency as civic leaders. This observation highlights the disciplinary power of the garden programs performed through and by the boy gardeners. Foucault’s notion of the individual is particularly useful when interpreting the conditions of the Boys’ Garden because of the relationship between individuality and discipline: “It is the individual as he may be described, judged, measured, compared

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with others, in his very individuality; and it is also the individual who has to be trained or corrected, classified, normalized, excluded, etc.” (Foucault [1975] 1995: 191). The design of the garden enabled the boy gardeners to be measured both individually and quantifiably, and it is through these measurements that the boys were raised in the habits of industry.

The United States School Garden Movement Rather than the improvement of children’s development, as earlier children’s gardens boasted, the benefits of the Boy’s Garden were framed according to production. The Boys’ Garden measured the boys’ productivity systematically. The garden followed NCR’s principle of “system in everything.” NCR boasted: “A careful card record is kept of what each boy accomplishes, how much time and work he expends on his plot of ground, how much material is furnished him, and what product he wins from the soil. Failure to keep up his work results in a boy’s losing his garden” (National Cash Register Company 1905: 60). This focus on measurement and productivity over the learning experience differentiates NCR’s garden from earlier gardens and those taking place at the same time in the United States, which had their roots in the spiritual and Romantic values of garden education of earlier European n ­ ineteenth-century garden programs. Though Patterson drew a comparison between himself and Froebel (National Cash Register  1905:  59), he believed in the spiritual and physical benefits of gardening insofar as he valued these qualities in his workers. The Boys’ Garden capitalized on the “mythical geography of childhood as a more natural place” (Warsh 2011: 67) by using the image of the child in the garden as a promotional feature in factory material and tours but sought to prepare youth for a future in industrial work. While the first known American school garden established in  1891 in Roxbury, Massachusetts advocated nature study (education centered on natural phenomena and the witnessing of life processes) (Lawson 2005: 60–2; Kohlstedt 2008: 62–3), the benefits of gardens in school gardening movement in the United States went beyond ideas of individual growth and sympathy with plants and were adapted to address the diversity of America’s pressing social issues at the turn of the twentieth century (Trelstad 1997: 161–73; Herrington 2001: 39; Warsh 2011: 64–89). The Boys’ Garden was an early model of a broader trend in the American school garden movement, a loosely defined period between 1890 and 1920, which adapted earlier garden education to raise not just ideal citizens but a productive future workforce. These differences between European and American garden programs reflect distinct cultural values and illustrate how garden education and design were adapted to effectuate certain forms of social agency, be it the ability to exercise spiritual development or meet the demands of industrial society. Programs like the Boys’ Garden aimed to positively link America’s agrarian and industrial histories to form a narrative of social progress. While some children’s gardens, such as those aligned with the Country-Life Movement, were used as a form of agricultural training to keep families in agriculture, NCR’s gardens upheld the

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values of agriculture and rural life only for their application to an industrial economy. Agriculture in the United States came to signify a hard work ethic that was well suited to an industrial society. “Agrarianism was not viewed as solely a profession,” writes Laura Lawson, “it was considered the bedrock of American citizenship” (2005: 59). Furthermore, “the characteristics associated with agriculture—independence, hard work, honesty, and so on—were pertinent not only to the farmer but to the businessman as well” (Lawson 2005: 59). In the factory’s publication, Patterson wrote: “Much of the success of America is due to the fact that most of our inhabitants are born on farms, and are reared to habits of industry” (1902:  456). An NCR photograph taken in 1916 shows boys huddled around a sign in the garden which reads “Agriculture is the most useful and most noble employment for boys.” Gardens, more generally, were believed to bring out “what is best in the children” by teaching them “to work with their heads as well as their hands” and “[give] full play to all the motor activities; [broaden] his mind and [deepen] his thinking” (Townsend 1903: 30). Boys were encouraged to engage in preindustrial forms of labor to re-connect with a more authentic and simple way of life, supposedly once lived. This interest in rural life was also a response to fears in the decline of “white urban masculinities” and worry about the weakness in boys as a result of city life (Lowe 2017: 40). As Nancy Lesko states, “nation-building and raising-boys were cut from the same cloth […] Nervous masculinity could be remedied by nationalism, colonialist expansion, and manliness through dominance of the environment” (1996:  458–9). The boy participants in the Boys’ Garden were significant agents in a national project to secure a vision of the nation’s future as masculine and industrious. These national ideals about boyhood and masculinity contributed to the prominence and activities of the Boys’ Garden. It was the most publicly recognized activity at NCR because it reportedly resolved the problem of “street boys,” a grappling issue for reformers (Macleod 1998: 126). Featured in numerous articles and highly praised by school garden proponents and reformers, it was the most popular stop on the company’s factory tour (Tracy 1950: 152). Postcards of the Boys’ Garden circulated a vision of rural boyhood compatible with the industrial environment [Figure  11.4]. These images would have been particularly striking because of the devastating associations drawn between children and the factory environment in publicity about child labor (Pace 2002: 344–5); compared to the Girls’ Garden (later established in 1912), NCR considered the Boys’ Garden a worthier endeavor, and one of national priority because it taught boys how to become the kind of men society valued.

Defining Masculinity in Working-Class Childhoods The vegetable garden, and other children’s club spaces afforded to the children by NCR, delineated a distinctively working-class and gender-specific childhood. Unlike a middle-class childhood, defined by privacy, play, and remove from the spaces of work, NCR outlined a childhood that necessitated work (to prevent idleness and mischief) and publicity instead of privacy. Fear of the harm children could wreak

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Figure  11.4 Boys’ Gardens Postcard, Dayton Postcard Collection. (Courtesy of Dayton Metro Library)

on the factory neighborhood and financial benefits to the company motivated the childhood outlined by NCR, and its popularity was a reflection of broader national concerns about the societal dangers of children’s mal-development. While middleclass children enjoyed the benefits of play, working-class childhood formulated play “as preparation for work” (Gutman 2014: 126). The neighborhood boys were not expected to receive the moral benefits of a sheltered and domestic upbringing as would middle-class children. The working-class home could not be trusted with such responsibility. As the then YMCA director of physical education, Dr. T. H. McCurdy declared: “We are living in a new environment in which the home plays but a feeble part. The children must find their recreation outside the home” (Boyers 1912: 6). NCR asserted itself as a substitute for and model of all areas of proper domestic life. The factory even replicated aspects of the middle-class interior by adding potted palms, rugs, and pictures to women’s restrooms and arranging the tables of the women’s dining room in damask cloth and china. Despite the apparent differences between NCR’s working-class childhood and the middle-class ideal, the Boys’ and Girls’ Gardens were influenced by middleclass desires to preserve Victorian gender roles and trained children in them. The Boys’ Garden sustained Victorian gender ideologies of the “male power as natural and in­evitable” while the activities of the Girls’ Garden were distinctly feminine and directed toward maternal care (Bederman 1995: 26). In his 1906 study of industrial betterment programs, E.W. Cook declared that garden education was central to the nation’s future: “It is essential in our capacity-culture to develop the young in an all-round way. We need a nation of handy men” (29). Boys’ magazines, such

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as Camp and Plant, advocated that open air and country life conserve “the vital energies of manhood” (The Colorado Iron and Fuel Company 1902: 559). Speeches by NCR’s reverend at prize distribution ceremonies reminded boys of their national importance: “The best things in the home, in the city and in the country, should be given to boys because they [are] the material from which [is] to come the future manhood of the nation” (“Distribution of Garden Prizes” 1902: 1004). In an address to the boy gardeners, the company’s reverend stated: Boys, the strength of future generations, and the permanent welfare of South Park in this beautiful city of Dayton, rests upon your shoulders. You are not here to exist in idleness. Upon your efforts, your good character and your conduct, the strength of the community depends. The opportunity given you here will teach you the dignity of labor and the greatness of manhood. (“Distribution of Prizes” 1903: 719)

The boy gardeners’ social agency expanded through new responsibilities in civic leadership in South Park. Patterson valued children “because he saw in them great possibilities for later years in the city’s history” (“N.C.R. Is Ever Concerned” 1928). The future of the city and the nation depended on a proper boyhood to ensure a future nation of productive, vigorous, and virile working men. Similarly, in Gutman’s examination of the Children’s Aid Society program in which orphan children were sent to live and work on Christian families’ farms, she writes: “Doing a hard day’s work on a farm, rather than idling at night on a city street, would form the kind of citizen needed in a democracy: manly, courteous, white, and rooted in virtuous nature” (2014: 126). The celebration of whiteness is part of the Boys’ Garden insofar as it is mapped onto male superiority as an essential part of what makes a model citizen (Bederman 1995: 26).

Imagining Alternative Forms of Agency in the Boys’ Garden It is unclear whether these school garden programs, including NCR’s, provided “immigrants and lower-class children with vocational skills” or existed as “means of social control that reflected class dominance in an emerging capitalist economic order” (Bowles and Gintis 1976; Trelstad 1997: 165). Census reports matching the names of the ten graduates of the 1904 Boys’ Garden program show that the over half of the boys’ fathers worked at NCR. Roughly half of the parents were white and American-born with the other half born in Germany or elsewhere. Despite the company’s aim to raise loyal NCR workers, reports indicate that only three of the ten graduates were NCR employees between 1910 and 1940. This small sample size does not provide a full data set to draw conclusions about the Boys’ Garden, but it does suggest that the boy gardeners’ lived experiences of the program differed from NCR’s intended outcomes. Proponents of garden schools appreciated the productive relationship between work and play in gardens schools. Cook, for example, insisted that play should

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be directed to “more profitable channels” (1906:  32). In City Bountiful, landscape architecture historian Laura Lawson writes that gardens provided “entrepreneurial training under the auspices of education without the risk of exploitation” (2005: 57). Vacant-lot cultivation enabled children from low-income families to earn income “without the negative connotations of children’s wage labour in factories and industry” (Lawson 2005: 36). Dayton had its share of vacant-lot cultivation, to which one resident responded: “Who can doubt that this vacant lot garden movement pays real dividends to the community in civic comeliness, health, thrift, and even perhaps in the way of a slap at the common enemy, the high cost of living?” (Howland 1916). These details suggest that industrialism did not eliminate the family as an economic unit. Instead, children and families were forced to be more creative and resourceful with their labor while trying to uphold new cultural, class-based conceptions of childhood as distinct from the realms of work. Gardens could be benign sources of income and education for children without unsettling childhood as a phase distinct from adult life. As new social spaces within urban environments for children and new immigrants, gardens enabled greater participation in their neighborhood that may have, too, increased feelings of belonging. For the boys, it may have also engendered a homosocial environment that differed from the individualistic teaching methods in school education and, as Gratton and Moen’s study suggests, may have also strengthened their value within their own families by bringing home their harvest and earnings (2004: 369). For the boy gardeners’ families, the garden programs opened another means to exercise the company’s values and strengthen connections between factory life and family life. This connection may have increased parents’ stability in the workplace, but it could have been another area of workers’ lives managed and inspected by the company. Children provided a powerful means through which the factory could connect with their workers and access their domestic lives. The garden program expanded boys’ social agency, exemplified by their title as “apprentice citizens” (Cook  1906:  25). They were responsible for managing their crops and their earnings, they held positions in office and as stakeholders of their company, and finally, they were expected to act as model citizens, imparting the lessons of the Boys’ Garden to their parents, neighbors, and friends. The boys took their lessons home and transformed the neighborhood of Slidertown into a garden suburb. A 1906 issue of Gardening reported: “The success of the boys is emulated by the house-holders” and “very wonderful changes have been wrought in the outdoor appearance of the town” (“Horticulture Society of Chicago” 1906: 140). Cook wrote: “The effect on the morale of the boys, and indeed the whole neighbourhood, is such that property has increased 300 percent in value” (1906: 224). The company believed that in order to raise their workers, they must “raise all those among whom they dwell,” not least because “one untrained child may be a veritable plague spot, and infect not only a community but coming generations” (Cook 1906: 222). The Boys’ Garden, through its design and as a cultural practice, was a project of preparing boys to become men who embodied a preferred masculinity, possessing the qualities of industriousness, discipline, self-reliance, and the ability to provide for

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their families. Yet, the children of NCR’s garden actively participated in economic, community, and industrial relations despite their title as “apprentice citizens.” The garden was not just a project of preparing children for adult life; the childhood carved out in the garden was a model for working-class identity. Gardens are cultural agents, actively forming new social dynamics and labor relations, not only through their physical and experiential characteristics but the ideas expressed by gardens as spaces, images, and actions.

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Trelstad, B. (1997), “Little Machines in Their Gardens: A History of School Gardens in America, 1891 to 1920,” Landscape Journal, 16 (2), Fall: 161–73. Warsh, M. (2011), “Cultivating Citizens: The Children’s School Farm in New York City, 1902–1931,” Building and Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architectural Forum, 18 (1), Spring: 69–89. Wertenbaker, C. (1953), “Patterson’s Marvelous Money Box,” Saturday Evening Post, 226 (12): 125. Benjamin Franklin Literary and Medical Society.

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12 Women as Agents of Change in the Design of the Workplace

Lynn Chalmers The office has been understood and written about as a bastion of male domination and control (Whyte  1963; Kanter  1977; Spain  1992), from the architecture of skyscrapers to the regimented and regularized office plan, originally modeled on the organization of military units. It is however a relatively modern institution, having its origins in the development of the insurance and mail order industries relative to industrialization, and the growth and densification of cities in the late nineteenth century. This chapter seeks to understand women’s contributions and agency in the evolution of the office and its design. The development of increasingly social work environments since the 1990s marks the management and design of the new spaces of office work. Offices are now designed to embrace collaboration, flexibility and change, subjective knowledge, and the intrinsic value of supportive spaces and ­practices that enable the development of strong social networks and individual agency. It is quite a radical notion to suggest that women were the agents of this change. Their roles as designers, theorists, and subjects of the office remain elusive in the extraordinary transition of workplaces from regimented and hierarchical spaces dominated by men, to team and collaborative environments that reflect women’s preferred values of inclusiveness and cooperation (Belenky et al. 1986) where women outnumber men. This chapter will discuss the contributions of a number of significant women whose work has led to a reconsideration the values and agency of clerical workers and a parallel development of the interior design profession to consider and design for the growing number of women occupying the workforce. The influence and impact of women as agents of change within the essentially masculine nature of the office and its design has been ignored and largely overlooked. The outcome of the shift in the gender of office workers over the twentieth century and the emergence of democratic management philosophies changed the essential nature of the office. In North America change was facilitated by the development of the largely female profession of interior design, that by the  1980s was largely responsible for the planning and design of offices. The result was office environments that incrementally became more closely aligned with women’s preferred ways of working that emphasized collaborative working and shared responsibility in a more democratic workplace.

The Office as Gendered Space We need to reimagine the unseen but significant contributions of women to the management and design of the organization parallel with the gradual shift in the demographic of its occupants from largely male to largely female. Between 1900 and 2000 the demographic of female office workers in North America grew from  2  percent to 75 percent (Kessler-Harris 1982; Statistics Canada). This shift was facilitated by economic forces driving change and, most significantly for the purposes of this chapter, by the agency of women. An early pioneer in the human relations movement, Mary Parker Follett (1868– 1933) was a social worker and management consultant who graduated from Radcliffe College in  1898. Her writing over the first three decades of the twentieth century informed the evolution of more progressive and effective management strategies that reflected the creation of collective goals for management and workers. Management theory, influenced by Follett, brought the idea of the importance of social networks in the office into currency. Significant contributions were made by women whose agency served to emphasize collaboration and teamwork, and in ways that were previously not considered in the design of office environments. Florence Knoll Bassett, director of the Knoll Planning Unit from 1946 to 1960, developed a consultative planning process based on her architectural education that was adopted by the emerging profession of interior design. The millennial generation will experience the office as an environment designed for optimizing social networking through collaboration and teamwork, an environment that emphasizes “management with” rather than “management over” (Follett 1941). To explain this extraordinary transition, it is necessary to understand the history of the modern office.

History of the Office The history of the modern office begins with the growth of industrialized urban centers in the late nineteenth century and the growth of the insurance and mail order industries. In the 1890s women occupied subservient roles, assisting men to generate, organize, and manage the flow of paper that represented the work of the office. Work was strictly regimented and women and men were often separated in the interests of propriety, into discreet areas and functions. Women sat in supervised locations with little privacy or agency. Men were the managers and women performed support functions such as typing and filing. Management as a professional field for men was established at the Harvard Business School in 1908. For the first time power was to be exercised by those who were not business owners, and were legitimized by education. In an effort to establish authority for this new profession, an ideology of rational efficiency was promoted that justified “the unilateral exercise of power by management” (Moore  1962:  237). The origins of management theory were infused with masculinized and paternalistic

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values that established the centralization of management control in a hierarchical structure built upon titles and status levels that were implicitly masculine (Kanter 1977). The modern office was first conceived of in the early  1920s in response to a management theory that revolutionized the manufacturing industry, and generated a rapidly growing class of white-collar workers. Fredrick Winslow Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management (1911) proposed the careful study and definition of work tasks leading to the restructuring of work practices. Jan Granath proposes that the key principle of Taylorism was “that each task in a given production process should be defined and performed according to empirically founded knowledge and methods, not simply rules of thumb” (1991: 111). The intellectual component of the work was externalized and administered by supervisors and managers. The Modern office was a demonstration of Taylorist principles, with clearly defined tasks supervised and managed in a hierarchical structure, with the knowledge and power residing at the top of the organization. The growth and establishment of mail order businesses and the insurance industry in North America at the turn of the twentieth century was bolstered by the adoption of communication technologies developed in the previous century, such as the telephone, typewriter, and telegraph. The adoption of the typewriter led to an explosion of the clerical sector and many of these jobs were filled by women, who earned less than half the wages paid to men (Spain 1992: 192). “Between 1900 and 1920, the percentage of women in the labour force who were clerical workers zoomed from 2–12 percent” (Kessler-Harris 1982: 148). The first offices had been designed as a series of rooms based on organizational department structures and connected by corridors. With the introduction of Taylorism, the plan of the office changed to provide for the new division of power, with clerical workers positioned in open areas with clear sight lines for easier supervision and oversight. Managers were provided with an office, giving greater privacy and agency; and supervisors had some degree of separation from the clerical pool. The widespread adoption of commercial electric lighting and heating by the 1930s allowed the building plan to be expanded and office planning to respond more directly to the hierarchy of the organization.

The Human Relations Movement New managerial approaches led by Elton Mayo were being explored in the 1930s at Harvard Business School. The human relations movement attempted to shift the focus of research into organizations to include social relations, workers’ motivation and satisfaction, and move away from masculinized and paternalistic values inherent with the centralization of management control. The movement worked from the premise that people are motivated by social as well as economic rewards. Mayo demonstrated the importance of emotional, non-rational social relations that shaped behavior and influenced productivity. “In Mayo’s view workers were controlled by

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sentiment, emotion, and social instincts, and this phenomenon needed to be understood and taken into account in organizational functioning” (Kanter 1977: 23). The longest running Hawthorne experiment carried out by Mayo and his team involved the relocation of a group of six young immigrant women to a separate room to build relay assemblies. The women responded to the intimate atmosphere of the assembly room by developing friendships over time, as they were able to talk while they worked. Over the years of the experiment, the women’s productivity rose significantly. The individuals were observed to have become a team. “Mental attitudes, proper supervision and informal social relationships experienced in the group were key to productivity and job satisfaction” (Anteby and Khurana n.d.) [Figure 12.1]. Mary Parker Follett wrote a number of seminal texts advocating for the integration of non-coercive sharing of the power of management, based on the use of her concept of power-with, rather than power-over employees. She is credited with having first coined the expression “transformational leadership,” a term that defines leadership as interactional, where values are developed by teams and implemented through cooperation and collaboration. This form of leadership implies employees have agency to engage in defining the path of the business endeavor. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a Harvard professor and business theorist, suggests Parker Follett’s expertise and interest grew from her experience in the administration of social welfare organizations as local networks, where many women were able to develop collaborative

Figure 12.1  Mary Parker Follett. (University of Reading, Special Collections)

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managerial skills (1977: 23). Parker Follett’s work on adult learning in organizations (1924) continues to have relevance in current discourse around learning organizations. Parker Follett is hailed by management professor Peter Drucker (1995) as the prophet of management; and her book, Dynamic Administration (1941), published after her death in 1933, was rediscovered by Japanese industry in the 1960s. It was highly influential in the restructuring of Japanese businesses to incorporate teamwork. The successful rebuilding of Japanese industry brought Parker Follett’s theories to North American attention, informing subsequent managerial theories prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s in North America. The human relations movement brought a feminization to the masculine management ethic and encouraged new forms of organizations to emerge, such as team-oriented project management systems. However, “if the human relations school’s metaphor was the family rather than the machine of prior models, the organization was still thought to require a rational controller at its head” (Kanter 1977: 24) who was inevitably male. While men were being groomed for success in the corporate world, women were employed in greater numbers to play the supporting roles in routine office work and secretarial functions. We can see the influence of the human relations movement on the built form of the office in a subsequent project designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for his client Herbert Johnson. Constructed between 1936 and 1939 the Johnson Wax Building demonstrated the ideals shared by Wright and Johnson who believed in a new industrial democracy; one “inspired by Puritan idealism, social conscience and moral sentimentality” (Frampton in Lipman  1986: xi). Wright’s design philosophy fits best into the Gesamtkunstwerk movement emanating from Europe at the beginning of the century that saw the interior as part of a “total work of art,” in which the interior formed an integral part of the total project. The movement’s goals, as described by design theorist and historian Penny Sparke, “aimed to bring together architecture and the decorative arts into a new synthesis that would not only facilitate modern life, but that through the use of non-historicist forms inspired by the contemporary worlds of nature and the machine, would actually embody it” (2008: 38) [Figure 12.2]. The famous Great Workroom of the Johnson Wax building was “a top-lit hypostyle hall” supported on sixty-four lily pad columns (Lipman  1986). It established an aesthetic that combined the feeling of being in a forest of trees and within an ecclesiastic space. It was designed as the workspace for the female clerical workers of the Johnson Wax Company, while the floors above housed the men in managerial positions. The offices of the middle managers were located on the mezzanine, and the penthouse housed the senior executives and boardroom. True to Wright’s democratic ideals, the furniture developed for the Great Workroom established a design language that was common throughout the administration building, including the desk and chairs in Chief Executive Herbert Johnson’s office. They were feminine in form, being visually light and incorporating softer rounded forms. The desk system included nine variations according to task. The women clerical workers who

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Figure 12.2  The Great Workroom, Johnson Wax Building, Racine. (Getty Images / ullstein bild dtl / contributor)

occupied the Great Workroom are said to have “enthusiastically accepted being together in the large room” (Lipman 1986: 94) perhaps due in part to the consultative process that Wright used in the development of the design for the building (Lipman 2018). Sparke makes the argument that the new interior developed as a result of the Gesamtkunstwerk philosophy merged previously separate, public and private spheres, creating a new spatial vocabulary with women as its growing audience in the developing consumer society of the period (2008). Women were not just passive consumers. They formed a major component of the evolving class of ­white-collar workers. Social historian Thomas J. Schlereth notes that members of this new urban managerial class were “active participants in the era’s revolutionary changes in politics, leisure, education, and consumer culture” (1992: 29). They were paid less than the men and filled the assistant roles, but they found the work offered better pay and more freedom than domestic service or factory jobs (Mills 1951). Wright is often hailed as the most significant architect of the twentieth century, however, architectural historians when discussing his influence often overlook the office buildings he designed. This may be due to the sheer volume of innovative projects Wright designed, or because corporate architecture in North America subsequently followed a very different path influenced by the European Modernist architects.

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The Influence of European Modernism European interest in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright led to the German publication in 1911 of two portfolios titled Studies and Executed Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright. According to architectural historian Mauro Guillen, the European architects were the first to understand the significance of the industrial era and the possibilities of new materials such as steel and concrete. Architects in Continental Europe in the early 1900s actively advocated and planned for a transformation of society. The emerging Modernist architecture (movement) in Europe stood out in strong contrast to American architecture, in that it was avant-garde “it was revolutionary, that is, moving at the forefront of social and economic change rather than following it” (Guillén 2008: 9). Beginning with Peter Behrens in the 1900s and culminating at the Bauhaus in Germany in the 1920s, the European architects of the period embraced Taylorism and its call for order through the systematic application of method, standardization, and planning, embracing the idea of “technology as a social arbiter” (Maier 1970). New technology was to create social change and the projects that were the focus of Bauhaus architects tended to be affordable social housing. Hitler closed the Bauhaus School in 1933 and its teachers dispersed. As a result the Modernist movement didn’t have a great impact on office design in Europe. It did, however, influence the development of the North American office tower. As former members of the Bauhaus, such as Mies Van der Rohe and Walter Gropius, immigrated to America to escape persecution they established themselves in the American architectural scene. The tenants of the Bauhaus School and its preoccupation with a rational machine aesthetic were soon evident in the postwar building boom of the 1950s and 1960s in the cities of America.

The Speculative Skyscraper The development of the corporate office building took a different form in Europe from the type of development that became the norm in North America. In Europe office buildings continued to be designed by architects for the specific needs of particular organizations. In North America the speculative skyscraper became an efficient and cost-effective model for corporations. Office space constructed by developers was leased rather than owned, and as a result the buildings and interior spaces were more generic in character and generally more architecturally conservative. Florence Knoll Bassett notes “in the beginning, office buildings were desperately in need of interior design. For the most part, purchasing agents just ordered desks and chairs with little thought of planning. My background as an architect directed my efforts towards space planning, a little-known profession not yet practised in the 40’s” (Iorio 1994). Established in 1946, Knoll Associates Incorporated was the product of the marriage of Hans Knoll, a furniture manufacturer, and architect Florence Knoll (nee Schust). As the director of the Knoll Planning Unit, she established herself as one of the most important and influential interior planners and designers of the second half of the twentieth century. Believing that intelligent design “strikes at the root of living

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requirements and changing habits,” she established the practice of working closely with the corporate sector to determine the needs of the people who would use the spaces that she designed, developing a methodology that subsequently informed the processes used in the practice of interior design (Iorio  1994). Knoll Bassett embodied Sparke’s thesis of the new interior drawing on technological innovation, mass-produced product, and the synthesis of art, architecture, and decoration to facilitate and celebrate modern life. The Knoll Showrooms Knoll Bassett designed from 1946 through 1960 demonstrates this skill in combining mass-produced materials and commercial product in original and innovative ways with the incorporation of art, sculpture, textiles, and plants. Modernist buildings from the postwar period were designed on a structural grid to frame large open interior spaces with access to exterior views and natural light, afforded by areas of glass curtain walls. Acoustic ceiling tiles recreated the modular building grid in the interior with lighting and air conditioning integrated into them. The office interior was laid out with the executive offices against the perimeter window walls, often enclosed with timber paneling that excluded light from the central secretarial and clerical pools. The interior reinforced the intrinsic hierarchical and gendered structure of the corporation. The office building of this period is exemplified in the office set for the television series Mad Men (Weiner 2007–15). The story is located in an advertising agency on Madison Avenue in New York, and the exterior of the building is a composite of existing office towers. The series has been a critical success due in large part to a generous budget that has allowed for high production values and an evolving office set that has captured the detail of the period from the early to late 1960s. Richard Williams suggests: “It is the interior that stays in the memory, describing with marvellous clarity the complexities, subtleties, and sexual politics of the modern open plan office” (2013: 101). Daphne Spain asserts that women’s jobs can be classified as open floor, but men’s jobs are more likely to be closed door—that is, women’s work in offices was being carried out in more public spaces with much less control over the environment than men’s work. “This lack of spatial control both reflects and contributes to women’s lower occupational status by limiting opportunities for the transfer of knowledge from men to women” (Spain 1992: 206). She explains women were segregated in secretarial pools that separated them from the decision-making that went on in the managerial offices, denying them the opportunity to work without repeated interruptions. This impacted their capacity to make valuable contributions that could have given them greater status and better pay. The physical environment of the office at this time conspired to keep women in clerical roles with very little agency or capacity for taking on managerial positions. By the 1960s the design of corporate offices in North America was commissioned separately from the architecture of the building. The interior spatial planning was most often handled by an interior designer, or an interior design team in an architect’s practice to tailor the office to meet the specific needs of the organization. As the design typology of office tenancy emerged, a greater number of professional interior design

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teams and practices sprang up to meet the need. By 1982 author Judy Graf Klein advocates employing a design professional to those organizations considering new office space. She suggests designers offer a range of services in the planning phases that make their advice invaluable such as comparing rented spaces “to determine suitability and relative cost including construction or renovation,” analyzing existing operations and establishing space standards, and analyzing different strategies for “buying, building, or leasing space” (1982: 238).

Bureaulandshaft The open landscape concept, coming from European furniture manufacturers in the  1970s, required a commitment from management to a nonhierarchical organizational structure that was a radical departure for the North American corporation. In North America, despite attempts to develop this approach to planning, most organizations were too inherently hierarchical in their management structure to be able to employ the new office landscaping principles to great advantage. The approach, however, offered a challenge to conventional planning principles and inspired the language of the open office plan. A number of panel-based office furniture systems emerged in response to the idea of greater flexibility, which led to the design of the cubicle workstation. By 1989 the use of cubicle workstations in North American offices was so common that Scott Adams launched a comic strip called Dilbert satirizing the plight of micromanaged white-collar workers and their marginal lives in “cubicleland”; however with the upholstered cubicle panel came the first opportunity for those in the open office to claim personal space and the agency that accompanied it. Employees were also changing; they were better educated. The furniture manufacturer Steelcase suggested in their  1974 publication, Planning Principles for Effective Office Interiors, “the bulk of office workers of the future may no longer be young ladies marking time between high school and marriage. They may be instead, intelligent, aggressive male and female junior executives on their way up the corporate ladder” (Steelcase  1974). Changing management attitudes were increasingly informed by psychology, and the development of fields such as environmental psychology and human relations. Second-wave feminism had broadened the debate to include workplace inequality, reproductive rights, and families. But it was not until the late 1980s that the office interior started to show evidence of aspirations to more democratic ideals, as corporations tried to reinvent themselves after the stock market crash of 1987. Organizations restructured to be leaner and more cost-effective, many male managers lost their jobs, and women were now positioned to contribute to the design of the new office environment and its management.

Women’s Ways of Knowing Second-wave feminism grew out of the women’s liberation movements in  1960s and 1970s and built on the achievements of the suffrage movement. Feminism in this

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period addressed sexuality, reproductive rights, women’s roles, labor in the home, and patriarchy. It was critical, as Women’s Studies departments were established in universities, that women had authoritative texts written by women addressing issues of importance to women. One such text was written by a group of American sociologists formed by Mary Field Belenky, Blythe Mcvicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, and Jill Mattuck Tarule (1986) who researched the epistemology or ways of knowing of 135 rural and urban women, aged sixteen to sixty, from diverse racial, economic, and educational backgrounds with a focus on identity and intellectual development. Their work was grounded in the research of William Perry (1970) whose conclusions about the epistemological foundations of knowledge and learning were based on all-male students from Harvard University. Belenky and colleagues’ findings were significantly more far-reaching and considered the impact of gender (Belenky et al.1986), they are therefore useful in understanding women’s values and ways of knowing. Karen Franck, architect and academic, applies Belenky and colleagues’ women’s ways of knowing as a framework to the practice of architecture, in an attempt to understand most specifically women’s contributions to the discipline. The qualities Franck (1989) develops as characteristic of women’s ways of knowing draw upon Belenky and colleagues’ five ways of knowing or knowledge perspectives, dependent on conceptions of self, relationships with others, and understanding the origins and identity of authority, truth and knowledge (1986). Franck following Belenky and colleagues asserts women’s self-identity is formed through connection to and identification with everyday experience. As a consequence, women tend to look for connections rather than dichotomies; “boundaries between categories such as public/private, work/home, and male/female tend to be broken down in women’s ways of knowing” (Havenhand 2004: 39). Franck explains the desire for inclusiveness characteristic is reflected in a design approach that blurs distinctions between client and designer, designer and user, and programmatic distinctions such as spatial typologies and subjective and objective knowledge. We can recognize Florence Knoll as using this strategy in developing her formative approach to the programming of corporate interiors projects. Franck also proposes that the ethics of care is more likely to inform decisions made by women, with men tending to make decisions informed by the ethics of justice. “Women and girls draw upon a reflective understanding of care requiring that no one be hurt and that one respond to the need of others, whereas men and boys are concerned that everyone be treated fairly” (Gilligan, cited in Havenhand 2004: 296). A design process that acknowledges the ethics of care would tend to consider the individual and the subjective needs of the user before applying universal design standards. The focus of women’s contribution to design reforms has consistently been motivated by a valuing of everyday life, examples would be social and urban reformers such as Clare Cooper Marcus and Jane Jacobs, and designers such as Eileen Gray and Florence Knoll who brought design attention to the mundane details of living through their design projects and theory. A good example would be Jane Jacobs book, The Death and

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Life of Great American Cities (1961), where Jacobs argues for planning that works with and respects local communities with their corner stores, laundromats, stoops, and vibrant diversity. She became an advocate for a planning process that involved local communities and respected local experience. This acceptance of subjectivity and feelings as a strategy manifests itself for women as an acknowledgment of the value of personal feelings and subjective knowledge; in contrast to men’s more rational and scientific ways of understanding the world. Acceptance and desire for complexity are also characteristic of women’s ways of knowing; they could undermine hierarchical control by giving agency to multiple stakeholders with divergent views (Franck 1989). Also valued by women is the acceptance of change and the desire for flexibility (Franck 1989). This might manifest itself in the design process as an openness to alternative solutions and a recognition of the need for change, resulting in robust and flexible spaces that serve multiple purposes.

The Interior Designers’ Role Lucinda Havenhand discusses the problem of interior design as a profession dominated by women and gay men (2004). She asserts that interior design has yet to examine its marginal, feminine, and other position, and calls for a reconsideration of the feminine through second-wave feminist standpoint theory. The framework is not without flaws as it suggests a set of gendered universal values associated with women’s ways of knowing that might be seen as an instrumental or essentialist view (Allcoff 1988). However, it provides a subjective and embodied entry point for the reexamination of office space from the perspective of gender that is otherwise difficult to construct. Havenhand makes the connection between second-wave feminist knowledge perspectives and the interior designer’s role in the creation of close space. She notes how “interior designers focus on the intimate movements, needs, and emotional concerns of the users of interior space, as individuals and in connection with others. Good interior design creates a kind of ‘second skin’ or prosthetic that facilitates or reflects not only the functional needs of its ‘wearer’ but their emotional, personal and spiritual needs as well” (Havenhand 2004: 40). Franck’s observations about women’s contributions to the architectural profession apply directly to interior design. The framework that Franck develops becomes a tool to better understand the gendered nature of the office environment through analysis of office interiors and plans, furniture configurations and organizational structures in response to women’s practices and values. To understand how the workplace has slowly moved from a site of regimented and hierarchical control (management-over), toward a democratic and socially responsive enterprise (management-with), it is necessary to understand the shift in of the composition of clerical office workers over the century and the ways of knowing that women bring to thinking and designing the places of work. Organizational theories that have influenced management have been increasingly informed by women’s

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values since the 1980s, along with political and financial forces for change. The result is evident in current workplace theory and office design that increasingly embraces change and diversity allowing for the transition from spaces of organizational control to spaces of individual agency and choice.

Bibliography Allcoff, L. (1988), “Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 13 (3). Anteby, M. and R. Khurana (n.d.), A New Vision: Part Six: Women in the Relay Assembly Division. Harvard Business School, Baker Library Historical Collections, Available online: http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/hawthorne/06.html#six (Accessed June 2018). Belenky, M. F., B. Mcvicker Clinchy, N. Rule Goldberger, and N. Mattuck Tarule (1986), Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice and Mind, New York: Basic Books. Drucker, P. (1995), in P. Graham (ed.), Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Florence Knoll Bassett Papers (1932–2000), Smithsonian Archives of American Art: Collection: Box 1, Folder 1: Portfolio: A Chronology of Florence Knoll Bassett from 1932 Onward, … Pp. 28—Knoll Showrooms 1945–1960, https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/ florence-knoll-bassett-papers-6312 (Accessed January 2019). Follett, M. P. (1924), Creative Experience, New York, Longman Green and Co. Follett, M. P. (1941), Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett, H. Metcalf and L. Urwick (eds), London: Pitman. Frampton, K. (1986), “Introduction,” in J. Lipman (ed.), Frank Lloyd Wright and the Johnson Wax Buildings, xi–xiv, New York: Rizzoli. Franck, K. A. (1989), “A Feminist Approach to Architecture: Acknowledging Women’s Ways of Knowing,” in E. Perry (ed.), Architecture: A Place for Women, 201–18, Berkeley, CA, and London: Smithsonian Institute Press. Granath, J. A. (1991), Architecture, Technology and Human Factors: Design in a SocioTechnical Context, Goteberg, Sweden: Chalmers University of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning. Guillén, M. F. (2008), The Tailorized Beauty of the Mechanical: Scientific Management and the Rise of Modernist Architecture, Princeton: Princenton University Press. Havenhand, L. (2004), “A View from the Margin,” in Design Issues, 20: 4 (Autumn), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Iorio, M. E. (1994), “Pieces of the Dream,” in Cranbrook at 90: Celebrating the Spirit Cranbrook Journal (Fall), Archives of American Art, Florence Knoll Bassett Papers, box 3, folder 1, http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/container/viewer/KingwoodCranbrook-Academy-of-Art–224309 (Accessed March 1, 2015). Jacobs, J. (1961), The Life and Death of Great American Cities, New York: Random House. Kanter, R. M. (1977), Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books. Klein, J. G. (1982), The Office Book: Ideas and Designs for Contemporary Work Spaces, New York: Facts on File Inc. Kessler-Harris, A. (1982), Out of Work: A History of Wage Earning Women in the United States, New York: Oxford University Press. Lipman, J. (1986), Frank Lloyd Wright and the Johnson Wax building, New York: Rizzoli.

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Lipman, Jonathan (2018), personal conversation with the author on August 11, 2018. Maier, C. S. (1970), “Between Taylorism and Technocracy: European Ideologies and the Vision of Industrial Productivity in the 1920s,” Journal of Contemporary History, 5 (2) (April): 27–61. Mills, C. W. (1951), reprinted (1976), White Collar: The American Middle Classes, New York: Oxford University Press. Moore, W. (1962), The Conduct of the Corporation, New York: Vintage Books, Random House. Weiner, M., Mad Men TV Series, New York and Los Angeles, CA: AMC. 2007–2015. Whyte, W. H. (1963), The Organizational Man, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Williams, R. J. (2013), Sex and Buildings: Modern Architecture and the Sexual Revolution, London: Reaktion Books. Spain, D. (1992), Gendered Spaces, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Sparke, P. (2008), The Modern Interior, Bodmin, Cornwall: MPG Books. Steelcase Brochure (1974), Planning Principles for Effective Office Interiors, Grand Rapids: MI: Steelcase Publications. Schlereth, T. J. (1992), Victorian America: Transformations in Everyday Life 1876–1915, Harper Perennial: New York. Statistics Canada. Women as a Percentage of Clerical and Administrative Positions, www. statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-503-x/2010001/article/11387/tbl/tbl012-eng.htm (Accessed September 2015). Taylor, F. W. (1911), Principles of Scientific Management, New York: Harper and Brothers.

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13 Stand-In or Act-Out: Period Rooms as Spaces of Agency

Änne Söll and Stefan Krämer As a form of museum display, period rooms aim to convey a coherent picture of lifestyles of the past. Usually arranged as a potentially livable interior, period rooms evoke an immersive atmosphere similar to a theater or film set, which offers the museum visitors a foil for their imagination (Katzberg 2009: 61–96). Therein they involve visitors in a different way compared to systematic museum displays chronologically organized by style or material. In fact, in period rooms visitors are given the opportunity to interact with these scenes of material culture by virtually inserting themselves within them. Therefore, in period room installations, the visitor is conceived as some form of virtual actor whose role it is to immerse himself or herself into history. The idea of history and how it comes about through re-living it are issues that the contemporary Israeli artist Omer Fast deals with in a two-channel video installation from 2005. In Godville, Fast sets up interviews with a range of so-called interpreters who live and work within Colonial Williamsburg, bringing to life a highly controversial version of the colonial era of the United States (Fast 2005). At first these interviews seem to be about the condition of the interpreter’s jobs, but after a while it is not quite clear whether the interpreters are talking about their own life, the life of the person they are impersonating, or circumstances quite unrelated to both of these. By editing the interviews afterwards, Fast mixes contemporary biographies with historical ones, resulting in a state of limbo, where fact and fiction, history, and present merge into one. Through this mixture, Fast challenges the idea of a clear dividing line between reenacting history and living a life in the present. He suggests that there might be continuities as well as breaks between what is being impersonated and what is lived. Fast asks: Where do we draw the line between historical fiction and historical facts? How do these facts become alive through that kind of fiction? What role do actors play in this colonial drama and how does their present life influence acting out the historical character? What kind of agency do the actors have within this colonial make-believe? Clearly, by letting the actual life of the actors emerge and therefore merge with historical performance, Fast aims at disrupting the clean and ordered display of the colonial narrative at Williamsburg. His point is clear: history can only be told from and through our present life and sociopolitical conditions. History is always shaped through and with the present and vice versa. This applies also to the traditional concept of the period room which is not only meant to function as

a window into the past, but that, at the same time, speaks of the present in which those museum rooms were actually curated and produced (Pilgrim 1978: 8). The concept of living history or the idea that history can be re-lived or reenacted, which Colonial Williamsburg subscribes to, has of course been criticized. According to Scott Magelssen, “It implies, on the one hand, that other forms of history are ‘dead’, on the other, that one can bring history back to life by way of performance” (Magelssen 2007: XX–XXI). Quoting the museologist Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Magelssen defines living history museums and their techniques as “resurrection theatre” because, similar to the term living heritage, the idea of living history “endows the dead and the dying with a second life, an afterlife, through the instrumentalities of exhibition and performance” (Magelssen 2007: XXI). Rather than presenting actual pasts or historic actualities, these institutions deal in—using Jean Baudrillards term—“simulacra” that Magelssen defines as “images that are better and more real than any lived events or spaces by virtue of the institutional authority that legitimizes them” (Magelssen 2007: XXI). Potentially critical agency, considered as an active, even political engagement that requires a form of intent, possibly initiating critique or even change, so far does not play a significant role neither in the arena of reenactment, living history or, for that matter, the period room, nor in the research concerned with it. As Mark Sandberg (2003) has shown, this type of animated display stems from a ­late-nineteenth-century tradition involving panopticons, wax museums, and national history museums, where the history on display traditionally is conceived of as historical facts, or as close as possible to them, which are brought to life for the visitor to re-live, to experience through the interpreter or, in some cases, even to reenact (Fischer-Lichte 2012). Being addressed as some form of virtual actors, as mentioned above, visitors are invited to witness a smooth, coherent, and seemingly factual version of history. Rather than getting critically engaged with the conditions of making history visible in the present, their role is thought of as quite passive consumers of a particular vision of the past. Annie E. Coombes (1988) has described this process of passive consumption and has shown how cultural as well as political identity can be produced by means of museum display in order to manifest and stabilize sociopolitical conditions. Based on the example of ethnographic collections in Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century, Coombes describes how the staging of a particular historical narrative, created by elitist groups, is used in terms of nation building. In this respect, the visitors, who educate their view of history through these narratives and of course the museum curators, inventing these displays, could be called agents. Traditionally, though, this type of agency is not made visible, but remains unmarked. In this chapter, however, agency is defined as a visible and critical intervention in established narratives, marking each historical museum display as an interpretation of the past.1 The concept of agency, as it was conceived of in the writings of anthropologists Alfred Gell (1998, 2012; Tanner et al. 2007) and Bruno Latour (Bellinger et al. 2006; Hensel et al. 2012), who—both in their different ways—stressed the social networks of things and living beings to both actively produce meaning together, has, as

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previously mentioned, no significance as yet for the theoretical engagement with living history sights or the period room display research. Nevertheless, we think it is profitable to connect both and explore how concepts of agency can illuminate the workings of the period room. Gell starts out his inquiry into the relationship of art and agency with the example of the children’s doll, which he defines as “an emanation or manifestation of agency (actually, primarily the child’s own), a mirror, vehicle, or channel of agency” (2012: 338). Gell claims that “‘things’ such as dolls and cars can appear as ‘agents’ in particular social situations” (337). He distinguishes between primary and secondary agents. The latter are “artefacts, dolls, cars, works of art, etc. through which primary agents distribute their agency in the causal milieu, and thus render their agency effective” (338). Gell continues: “The origination and manifestation of agency takes place in a milieu which consists (in large part) of artefacts, and that agents, thus, ‘are’ and do not merely ‘use’ the artefacts which connect them to social others” (339). Gell’s ideas make it apparent that period rooms have the potential to be transformed from seemingly passive windows into the past into active spaces of agency. This is especially the case when period rooms are equipped with mannequins or even real actors. But not every installation of mannequins sets of the same type of agency. Whose agency is it that mannequins embody or set in motion? How far does this agency go within historical museum displays? What does it entail?

Early Examples of Mannequins in Museums Let us start with our first example. In  1924, a woman in an eighteenth-century costume and wig was sitting at a small table decked out with a silver tea service in one of the American period rooms of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She was not a mannequin but a real woman who might just be about to stir sugar into her beverage and drink it. The appearance of an actor or actress is quite a rare instance in the Metropolitan Museum’s documentation of their period rooms. All of the other rooms are shown empty, so the visitor can imagine himself or herself being alone within the historical setting actually doing the acting himself or herself. Placing mannequins or real-life actors into period rooms was clearly inspired by their use in nineteenth-century international fairs and trade fairs, in dioramas in museums of natural history as well as in national history museums. Significant examples for this display strategy can be found in Stockholm: in the Nordiska Museet one could find an array of displays representing peasant life from various regions of Sweden, and in the famous Skansen open air museum, where Artur Hazelius in 1891 established a wide range of displays using actors within them not only showing off historical clothing but also illustrating historical techniques and manufacturing (te Heesen 2012: 82–5). Consequently, the mannequins or puppets in these nineteenth-century displays2 enabled the visitors to think “of themselves as simultaneously inside and outside the world of representation, and of bodies on display as both convincingly present and conveniently absent” (Sandberg  2003:  3). In this capacity the use of mannequins within period rooms paradoxically does not only bring to life history, but rather brings

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to life the nature of history as dead and therefore as unrepeatable.3 Through the use of mannequins, the period room also becomes (to our eyes today) even more apparent as a display of the living dead. Placing mannequins or even actors within period rooms while supposedly making history come alive, thus paradoxically equally embodies the finality of history, the impossibility of actually re-living, acting within, or even changing it. Period rooms, in this sense, don’t show history, but produce an improved image of history, that is “better and more real than any lived event or space by virtue of the institutional authority that legitimizes them” (Magelssen 2007: XXI).4 In this regard, the same applies to the period room as it does to historiography, whose supposedly objective narrative of historical facts is—as Hayden White (1975) has shown and whose ideas are in part transferred to the analysis of museum narratives by Stephen Bann (1984)—always based on a poetic construct. Looking at these display strategies today, they have a clearly old-fashioned, almost retrograde and spooky air about them that leans into the absurd. Considering that mannequins, puppets, and dolls have been the target of the Dadaists and the Surrealists (Müller-Tamm et al. 1999a; Mraček 2004; Munro 2014) and have continued to play an important role in contemporary art such as in the disturbing works of the Chapman Brothers, Charles Ray, or recently in the work of Jordan Wolfson for example, a serious, non-ironic usage of puppets or mannequins within the museum is rare and always in competition and contrast with a reflexive and distanced use. Additionally, mannequins within the museum always reference the use of them in the commercial shop windows, intensifying the link between the art world and the world of consumerism.5 These are the reasons why, rather than to include mannequins, most museums and also the Metropolitan Museum, prefer to leave traces in the period room that indicate the former presence of an alleged inhabitant: an open book, a deck of cards, or glasses on a table suggest that the visitor has just interrupted something ongoing [Figure 13.1].

Fashion Exhibitions: Period Rooms as Historical Stages Using mannequins or even actors in period rooms was and still is an exception, such as in this instance, when in 1963 the Metropolitan Museum put on a show with the title Costumes: Period Rooms Re-Occupied in Style. Rather than alluding to a human presence through a trace or a hint such as an open book on a table, this setup uses mannequins as a stand-in for human presence. The mannequins not only show off the fashion of that era, which on the surface seem to be their main function, they also suggest a drama, a story that has just unfolded or is about to unfold within the period room and in front of the visitor’s eyes. In this way, the period room turns into a veritable theater stage, offering an arena where stories are told that go beyond the art historical tale of changing styles. The combination of mannequin and interior not only made the point that fashion and interior decoration was thought of as belonging together by corresponding with each other. Here, it is also used to suggest social interactions, such as the eighteenth-century tradition of polite conversation

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Figure 13.1  Mannequins in the Hotel de Boullongne wearing mid-eighteenth-century suits and dresses, exhibition view: Costumes: Period Rooms Re-Occupied in Style, November 27–December 22, 1963, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (© bpk / Metropolitan Museum of Art)

and learning. It was also used to stage a form of flirting over the dinner table or the arrangement of figures is hinting at early modes of female consumption. Organized mainly by the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum, this exhibition clearly used period rooms as an appropriate, historically more or less accurate setting for historic fashion [Figure 13.2]. Forty years later, in 2004, the Metropolitan Museum re-embarked on a very similar project called Dangerous Liaisons. Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century: a very successful exhibition that again paired the display of eighteenth-century fashion with the Metropolitan Museum’s French interiors of the same period. Compared to the exhibition in 1963, this presentation was much more elaborate, involving eleven scenes with numerous mannequins wearing stunning French eighteenth-century costumes from the Metropolitan Museum’s own collection as well as the Kyoto Costume Institute, special lighting, and a whole array of accessories such as easels or broken vases. In this exhibition cards were played, conversations were held, music was played, women were seduced, women fainted, and women dressed themselves

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Figure 13.2  The Late Supper: The Memento, Room from the Hôtel de Crillon, Paris (c. 1777–80), exhibition view: Dangerous Liaisons. Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century, April 29–September 6, 2004, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (© bpk / Metropolitan Museum of Art)

and were (unwillingly?) undressed. As Mimi Hellman put it, the show was supposed to be as much about the dress as it was about the furniture, because objects such as chairs and tables were active protagonists in an elaborate game of cultivated sociability [in eighteenth-century France]. Through their luxurious materials and strategically designed forms, they facilitated a process of alluring self-presentation and elegant communication that was central to the formation of elite identities. At the same time, however, the effective use of furniture presented certain challenges that, if not met gracefully, could seriously compromise a person’s social seductiveness. (Hellman 2006: 15)

According to Hellman, eighteenth-century French interiors were as much spaces of seduction as places where the “cultivated individual was thus required to maintain a constant state of social vigilance—surveying shifting circumstances, assessing relevant variables, and adapting actions accordingly” (19). The figures (by this she means the mannequins) “seem to take on a knowing, conspiratorial air—poised for our admiration, inviting us to join the game, daring us to take a seat” (23) [Figure 13.3]. Comparing both exhibits, we can see that two different types of mannequins were used. In 1963 the hard-shell mannequins had facial features (even though very stereotypical) with a skin-colored surface and simple wigs. The mannequins in Dangerous

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Figure 13.3  The Broken Vase. A Consoling Merchant, The Sèvres Room, French (c. 1770), exhibition view: Dangerous Liaisons. Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century, April 29–September 6, 2004, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (© bpk / Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Liaisons looked more like malleable dolls than store window mannequins, their abstracted, almost blank faces left space for interpretation. Covered in white fabric they wore much more elaborate wigs. Directly applied to the head, they suggested more vividness. Also, these mannequins had quite clumsy hands and the softness allowed a fuller range of motion and more “natural” gestures and postures. Costumes help to mask the mannequin’s artificial, dead state, making them more appealing and “sexy.” Both mannequins and dolls are of course inanimate but at the same time they appear lifelike, which causes their ambivalent, uncanny character. To come back to the works of the Surrealists, dolls and mannequins “offer to come to life through the human imagination and therefore [can] develop a magical, threatening, disturbing and irritating effect” (Müller-Tamm et al. 1999b: 67). In this way, the mannequins in the Metropolitan Museum’s period rooms stand-in for a possible presence in history, a potential reenactment, but at the same time, they also embody the impossibility of re-living, acting within it, or even changing it. The mannequins can clearly act out common fantasies about the past (in this case the eighteenth century), and through their uncanny air, make the imaginative part of this staging of history manifest. Not surprisingly, Dangerous Liaisons and especially the use of the mannequins within it, also solicited critique. Peter McNeil (2009:  158) notes that the exhibition showed a “very limited narrative of historical dress, one dominated

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by rococo stereotypes. Yes, it was fun, but many of the public went away with their worst suspicions of this period confirmed.” Rightly so, the exhibition was faulted for representing a “fictionalized past that is wholly congenial and sanitized” (Gaskell  2004:  623). Ivan Gaskell also criticizes the exhibition for “sanctioning wealth, privilege and class status quo by allowing donors and visitors alike legitimation of their respective desires, strengthening current inequalities and inequities” (2004:  321). The role of the mannequins was seen to enhance “the supposed ‘reality-effect’ of the room, and the implicit claim that what one sees bears an unproblematic equivalence to an e ­ xtra-museological reality” (Gaskell  2004:  617). In this sense, the mannequin—much like the doll6 in Gell’s example—is a “vehicle, or channel of agency” through which the primary agents (who in this case are the curators) “distribute their agency in the causal milieu, and thus render their agency effective” (Gell 2012: 338). Simply put, in this instance, mannequins act for the fairly conservative curators showing us a view of the eighteenth century as a century of playful desire of the upper classes. By ignoring the social conditions of wealth and production of luxury, the visitors are offered the already mentioned “sanitized” image of the French aristocracy which functions as an identificatory foil for the contemporary elite (and aspiring elite), of course conveniently ignoring the French Revolution as a consequence (Gaskell 2004: 623).

Figure  13.4  The Gentlemen’s Club, Dining Room from Lansdowne House, London (1766–9), exhibition view: AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion, May 3–September 4, 2006, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (© bpk / Metropolitan Museum of Art)

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To broach the issue of social and material manifestations of the cultural identity of the French aristocracy, the exhibition presented the interiors, fashion, and mannequins as a harmonious entity and a closed system. Two years later, the exhibition AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion, held in the English period rooms of the Metropolitan Museum in  2006, put this relationship in a completely different way. Although some of the identity-generating social contexts similar to the Dangerous Liaisons exhibition were recognizable, the scenes were by no means harmonic but rather highly ironic. This was mainly due to the wild, sweeping wigs designed by Julien d’Ys, which were clearly not designed to make the mannequins look lifelike. The wigs completely covered the faces of most mannequins, making social interaction impossible. With their sculptural quality, the wigs brought a ­fairytale-like, utopian element into the period rooms that clearly identifies the setting as constructed and artificial. In The Gentlemen’s Club, installed in the Lansdowne Dining Room (1766–9), the setting went even beyond an ironic statement: hordes of mannequins, some of them wearing suits, others dressed like punks, occupied the room and settled where once William Petty Fitzmaurice, second earl of Shelbourne, dined [Figure 13.4]. They moved furniture, stood on tables or laid on the floor, their postures were cool, casual, and provocative. The fine arrangement of the English interior was turned upside down. This fits in with the exhibition concept, as the self-confident “behavior” of the mannequins reflects the position of English designers of the past decades, who also confidently refer freely to historical styles and amalgamate various influences in their works (Bolton 2006: 13). Furthermore, unlike the previous exhibitions, the mannequins here clearly do not serve to re-stage history. Through the contrast of modern clothing to the historical interior, and through their provocative attitude, they disrupt the harmonious period room display and use it as a historical backdrop. Although this display strategy indicates the critical potential of mannequins as agents in period rooms, its potential is barely used here, since the disruption only occurs on a superficial level. Asserting stereotypical ideas of English life in the eighteenth century, such as eccentricities of the upper class, and reifying gender divisions each of the three mentioned exhibitions, show no major changes in the displayed version of history, which is actually only updated and literally re-dressed.

Disrupting the Order: Yinka Shonibare’s Interventions in Brooklyn and Newark The contemporary British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare MBE employs this potential more radically. With an installation in some of the Brooklyn Museum’s period rooms, he follows the path of the Surrealists by aiming at inserting multiple viewpoints, unsettling the idea of giving a coherent view on history by looking at period rooms or even the possibility of reenacting it through mannequins. As Marie-Ève Marchand has shown, the period room interventions of contemporary artists such as Valerie Hegarty address “the shortfalls in the version of history” (2016: 234) that period rooms project. Shonibare’s use of headless child mannequins in his installation Mother and Father

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Worked Hard So I Can Play (Hobbs 2008; Lewis 2009; Söll 2017) works in very much the same way and questions the period room’s clean narration of the development of American private life and of the “civilized America” that has at its core the family unit. The sites of his intervention are the Cane Acres Plantation House, the Moorish Smoking Room, and the Trippe House—­representative American interiors from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, built for and inhabited by representatives of a white male upper class, their families and servants. The clothes of Shonibare’s mannequins, which are made of African Wax Cloth, stand for West African culture (although designed and mostly produced in Europe). These clothes introduce the controversial American colonial history into the period rooms as well as pointing to the fact that history—and of course identity as such—is always a hybrid construct. Especially Shonibare’s skipping girl mannequin in the Moorish Smoking Room highlights the fact that this orientalized room is a stylized and a highly artificial construction made from a Westernized view of the orient, adapted to fit the needs of the West [Figure  13.5]. The mannequins and their playful gestures also disturb the settled and sedate atmosphere of these rooms, suggesting that history can be played with and therefore is not stable. Their missing heads also leave room for interpretation: Have they lost their heads? Can they put it on and off at their leisure? The missing

Figure 13.5  Installation view, Moorish Room, Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play: Yinka Shonibare MBE, Brooklyn Museum, June 26–September 20, 2009. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, © Yinka Shonibare MBE, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019)

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heads of the mannequins—seen as the living dead—emphasize the idea that making history come alive equals playing with the dead. Thus, period rooms, in the case of Shonibare’s interventions, are not fixed spaces of “resolution, but of negotiation” (Hernández 2010: 95). In that sense, these children’s games challenge the idea that history can be fixed through period rooms. They suggest that the display of history is contingent and reliant on the way it is staged through the agency of different historical and contemporary “actors,” especially in the period room.

Conclusion Let us finish with a last example, which is again one of Shonibare’s works. The installation Party Time. Re-imagine America was staged between 2009 and 2018 in the Newark Museum’s Ballantine House from 1885. The mansion was built for Jeannette and John Holme Ballantine, son of the founder of the famous Ballantine beer brewing company, Peter Ballantine, and is part of the museum since 1937. Some of the numerous rooms of the intact building on Washington Street are used as exhibition space, while other prestigious interiors (e.g., the parlor or the library) serve as period rooms, providing a historical view on a high-class interpretation of “ideal living.” With his installation in the mansion’s mahogany-paneled Dining Room, Shonibare goes beyond the idea of making the period room setting come alive with an alternative view on standardized historical narratives. Here, the visitor is again not looking at a reassuring set of reenactments that make us comfortable with a version of history that can be easily identified with. Instead, through the obvious loss of decorum of his mannequins that slouch, have their feet on the table, and fill up on delicatessen, he paints the picture of nineteenth-century Victorian culture out of control. This way he offers an alternative to the stereotypical idea of strict Victorian morality and behavior, and references “the discrepancy of wealth generated by ­ turn-of-the-century enterprise” and provokes to compare “this scene of self-indulgence (…) with our contemporary culture of greed and material excess” (Newark Museum). In the words of the New York Times critic Benjamin Genocchio, the historic house setting becomes “dynamic and even relevant, the setting for a discussion of cultural politics rather than just a window into the past” (Genocchio 2009). Comparing Shonibare’s Party Time installation in Newark to the Gentlemen’s Club in the AngloMania exhibition, some obvious similarities can be noted, such as the mannequin’s extravagant outfits, which disturb the well-arranged staging of the noble interiors on a visual level, or their inadequate and presumptuous “behavior.” With regard to what we defined at the beginning as a visible and critical form of agency, however, crucial differences become apparent. The “punks” in the Metropolitan Museum perform as one would expect it from them. The staging of the revolting nonconformity with the iconic Mohawk haircut has become an essential part of English history. The mannequins, equipped by famous designers such as Vivienne Westwood, show that the former underground movement is now an established style based on historical models for which the museum’s English period rooms provide the appropriate background. In contrast, Shonibare’s

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intervention reveals that history in the museum is always interpreted and in this way it can be shaped and modified. Mannequins with so-called wax cloths extend the period room’s narrative by shifting the sociopolitical contexts. Popular in West Africa today, these supposedly African clothes are in fact an international product which is inspired by patterns widely used in Indonesia and mainly produced in Europe. Concerning the Ballantine House, the question arises to what extent these interiors, defined as American, are also based on cultural exchange. How is identity staged? What is the basis for the wealth of the industrial magnates in the nineteenth century? Whose party is it? In this sense, Shonibare’s mannequin agency—in the words of Alfred Gell (2012:  338)—“render (…) effective” his critique of a romanticized view on nineteenth-century culture, opening up the debate on colonialism, excess, and exploitation. Apart from the mannequin’s potential for a visibly political form of agency, both, Yinka Shonibare’s interventions and Omer Fast’s work, clearly make the point that history can only be told through the present. Through mixing up the life of the interpreters and their roles at Colonial Williamsburg, Fast creates different levels of fiction and truth, illustrating that acting and fiction are intrinsic parts of creating or even reenacting history. Looking at the Metropolitan Museum’s early exhibitions, it has become apparent that making history and period rooms “come to life” with the help of mannequins paradoxically does not bring to life history, but instead can show its nature as bygone and therefore as unrepeatable, only being resuscitated through our imagination.7 The use of mannequins in AngloMania, on the other hand, shows that intervening with mannequins does not automatically entail critical agency, but the resurgence of historical stereotypes. As Shonibare’s interventions illustrate, the ambivalent and uncanny nature of mannequins as dead-matter and human substitute can also be used to question the illusion of period rooms as coherent spaces and stories. All uses of the mannequin show though how history and with it the period room is reliant on the politics of fantasy and desire, the driving forces of our identities and foundations of subjectivity. Thus, looking closely at agency within the period room means looking at the agenda of all things and all bodies involved, including the living-dead.

Notes 1 We would like to thank John Potvin and Marie-Ève Marchand for their comments and Marie-Ève Marchand for pointing out Annie E. Coombes (1988) publication. 2 According to Sandberg, mannequins, much like effigies, “were but one tangible manifestation of a wider array of circulating corporeal traces and effects that worked to ‘body forth’ at seemingly insignificant ontological cost to the original body and helped form the late nineteenth century’s reputation as the era of a newly mobilized body. This broader sense of ‘effigy’ helps us understand the means by which these bodies were circulated, capturing as it does both the presence effects that made them convincing and the absences that made them portable” (Sandberg 2003: 5).

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3 This is the main reason why this display strategy has become so rare. 4 Magelssen refers to Baudrillard (1994: 6). 5 As Neil Harris (2012) has pointed out, the emergence and establishment of the period room display in American art museums at the beginning of the twentieth century is closely linked to developments of the world of consumerism, creating new demands regarding the design of shop windows and department stores. 6 The distinction between the terms doll and mannequin is not relevant to the topic of this chapter, therefore they are used synonymously. 7 In his study Time and Narrative, Paul Ricœur (1984) argues that there are common structural elements in both fictional and historical narratives. In his argumentation, fictitious elements and the imagination of the recipient are essential components of any narrative structure.

Bibliography Bann, S. (1984), The Clothing of Clio. A Study of the Representation of History in Nineteenth Century Britain and France, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Baudrillard, J. (1994), Simulacra and Simulation, trans. Sheila Faria Glaser, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Belliger, A. and D. J. Krieger, eds (2006), ANThology: Ein einführendes Handbuch zur Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie, Bielefeld: transcript. Bolton, A. (2006), “Preface,” in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (ed.), AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion, 12–13, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. Coombes, A. E. (1988), “Museums and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities,” Oxford Art Journal, 11 (2): 57–68. Fast, O. and J. Rasmussen, eds (2005), Godville, exhibition catalogue Midway Contemporary Art (Minneapolis), Frankfurt am Main: Revolver. Fischer-Lichte, E. (2012), “Die Wiederholung als Ereignis. Reenactment als Aneignung von Geschichte,” in J. Roselt and U. Otto (eds), Theater als Zeitmaschine. Zur performativen Praxis des Reenactments. Theater- und kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven, 13–52, Bielefeld: transcript. Gaskell, I. (2004), “Costume, Period Rooms, and Donors: Dangerous Liaisons in the Art Museum,” The Antioch Review, 62 (4): 615–23. Gell, A. (1998), Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gell, A. (2012), ‘‘Things’ as Social Agents,” in S. H. Dudley (ed.), Museum Objects: Experiencing the Properties of Things, 336–43, London: Routledge. Genocchio, B. (2009), “The Rich Were Different (and Perhaps Still Are),” New York Times, July 10, Available online: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/nyregion/12artsnj.html (Accessed July 28, 2018). Harris, N. (2012), “Period Rooms and the American Art Museum,” Winterthur Portfolio, 46 (2/3): 117–38. Hellman, M. (2006), “Interior Motives. Seduction by Decoration in Eighteenth-Century France,” in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (ed.), Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century, 15–23, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press.

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Hensel, T. and J. Schröter (2012), “Die Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie als Herausforderung der Kunstwissenschaft. Eine Einleitung,” Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, 57 (1): 5–18. Hernández, F. (2010), Bhabha for Architects, London: Routledge. Hobbs, R. (2008), “Yinka Shonibare MBE: The Politics of Representation,” in R. Kent (ed.), Yinka Shonibare MBE, 27–41, Munich and London: Prestel. Katzberg, L. M. (2009), Cultures of Light: Contemporary Trends in Museum Exhibition, Amsterdam: School for Cultural Analysis. Lewis, S. (2009), “Yinka Shonibare at the Brooklyn Museum,” Artforum International, 48 (2): 226–7. Magelssen, S. (2007), Living History Museums: Undoing History through Performance, Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Marchand, M. È. (2016), “Le passé recomposé: repenser la period room à travers l‘art actuel,” in S. Costa, D. Poulot and M. Volait (eds), The Period Rooms. Allestimenti storici tra arte, collezionismo e museologia, 231–7, Bologna: Bononia University Press. McNeil, P. (2009), “Libertine Acts: Fashion and Furniture,” in J. Potvin (ed.), The Places and Spaces of Fashion, 1800–2007, 154–65, New York: Routledge. Mraček, W. (2004), Simulierte Körper. Vom künstlichen zum virtuellen Menschen, Vienna: Böhlau. Müller-Tamm, P. and K. Sykora, eds (1999a), Puppen, Körper, Automaten. Phantasmen der Moderne, exhibition catalogue Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Cologne: Oktagon. Müller-Tamm, P. and K. Sykora (1999b), “Puppen, Körper, Automaten. Phantasmen der Moderne,” in P. Müller-Tamm and K. Sykora (eds), Puppen, Körper, Automaten. Phantasmen der Moderne, exhibition catalogue Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 65–93, Cologne: Oktagon. Munro, J., ed. (2014), Silent Partners: Artist and Mannequin from Function to Fetish, exhibition catalogue Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and Musée Bourdelle, Paris, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. Newark Museum, “Information on the Exhibition ‘Party Time: Re-imagine America’ on the Website of the Newark Museum,” Available online: https://www.newarkmuseum.org/ party-time-re-imagine-america (Accessed July 28, 2018). Pilgrim, D. H. (1978), “Inherited from the Past: The American Period Room,” American Art Journal, 10 (1): 4–23. Ricœur, P. (1984), Time and Narrative, Volume 1, Chicago, IL, and London: Chicago University Press. Sandberg, M. B. (2003), Living Pictures, Missing Persons: Mannequins, Museums, and Modernity, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Söll, Ä. (2017), “Wilde Muster. Yinka Shonibare und der Period Room,” in G. Schröder and C. Threuter (eds), Wilde Dinge in Kunst und Design. Aspekte der Alterität seit 1800, 118–35, Bielefeld: transcript. Tanner, J. and R. Osborne (2007), “Introduction: Art and Agency and Art History,” in R. Osborne and J. Tanner (eds), Art’s Agency and Art History, 1–27, Malden, MA: Blackwell. Te Heesen, A. (2012), Theorien des Museums: Zur Einführung, Hamburg: Junius. White, H. V. (1975), Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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14 Agent Bruce Mau and the Audacity of Design Rachel Gotlieb In the first quarter of the twenty-first century, Canadian-born, Chicago-based Bruce Mau has served as a key agent in reviving the exhibition/spectacle format as a tool for idealistic design propaganda. In this role, he has won design excellence awards from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum (2016) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2015). “What makes you wealthy,” “massive change,” and “prosperity for all” represent just some of the missives that guide Mau’s curatorial premises of his expo-like displays to convey that social change and progress are achieved through contemporary design practices. Staged in commercial venues and museums alike including the Vancouver Art Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Interior Design Show, Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Design Exchange (the last three venues all in Toronto), these expositions deliberately blur the boundaries between exhibition design and content, fulfilling Marshall McLuhan’s famous prophesy that the medium is the message (1994: 7). Mau deliberately invokes the authoritative and knowledgeable voice to promote the optimism of design. From Mau’s perspective no less than emancipatory change will happen or has happened when design is effectively integrated with commerce and culture, internationalism and humanitarianism, and development and environmentalism. As the past expos, “World of Tomorrow” (New York,  1939), and “Man and His World” (Montreal, 1967), so well illustrate, for example, utopic impulses are tied to the specificity of time and place, and represent visionary thought of a historical moment (Haag Bletter 1985). Thus, expositions signify less about the future and change and more about the need for and perception of change at that time, which I maintain is true of Mau’s exhibitions. This chapter seeks to problematize the type of didactic design exhibition comprising advocacy, rhetoric, manifesto, and spectacle which Mau so favors. For Mau the concepts of advocacy, rhetoric, and manifesto are closely aligned and all serve to achieve spectacle. Spectacle was the title of a book he wrote with American architect David Rockwell (2006), which catalogued modern and contemporary events and places from around the world. He and Rockwell define spectacle as largerthan-life events involving communal participation that emphasize the benefits of sharing and connecting (2006:  21). Rockwell further explains that a spectacle is “an event loaded with magical possibilities, one that inspires awe” (2006: 20). The form and content of Mau’s exhibitions are, to paraphrase Rockwell, impressive in scale, visually exuberant, and ephemeral. In Mau’s world, exhibition and spectacle

(embracing rhetoric, manifesto, and advocacy) are one and the same. Interestingly, Mau adopts French philosopher Guy Debord’s style of delivery: creating short manifesto statements or theses to advocate ideas. However, his positive interpretation of spectacle contrasts with Debord’s well-known critique, published in 1967, that dismisses spectacle as mass-consumption leading to alienation and degradation of human life (Debord 1994). The foundation of my analysis draws upon British social anthropologist Alfred Gell’s concept of relational agency. Gell argues: “For any agent, there is a patient, and conversely, for any patient, there is an agent. To be an ‘agent,’ one must act with respect to the ‘patient;’ the patient is the object which is causally affected by the agent’s action” (2012:  340). I propose that Mau represents the “agent” and the museum represents the “patient,” while acknowledging that the agent–patient interactions are not entirely passive (Gell  2012:  340). Adopting Gell’s perspective can usefully shed light on the subject of design exhibition building because it provides a conceptual lens and outlines a theory process that facilitates the analysis of the structures and protocols of curatorial practice in contemporary design (Cheetham 1995: 130). This topic is underdeveloped especially in comparison to art curation, where there exists library shelves-full of books on the subject. I also argue that Mau’s exhibition work falls within French literary theorist Roland Barthes’s concept of mythologies. As Barthes states, “What must be firmly established at the start is that myth is a system of communication, that it is a message” (2012: 217). For Barthes myths are built upon language, photography, painting, posters, rituals, objects, and images. Therefore, “a myth is a mode of signification, a form” (2012:  217). Mau conjures up the myth of good design improving the world and advancing economic and social progress, be it corporately, or individually conceived. He constructs exhibitions/spectacles that rely heavily on textual and pictorial r­ hetoric, what art historian Heather Dawkins calls “scripto-visual” (2009: 81). Put another way, his “scripto visual” spectacles employing the tools of rhetoric, manifesto, and advocacy become aesthetic forms or signifiers serving to build the signified concept or myth of design agency. I begin the chapter with a brief overview of Mau’s practice and his complicated relationship with the business of running a design studio, followed by a discussion of some of the historical and traditional problems of exhibiting design in a museum. I then turn to examine his two exhibitions Massive Change (2003) and Prosperity for All (2017), both originating in Canada, organized by the prominent Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Design Exchange, a national design museum (as opposed to commercial trade shows). Here I argue that agent Mau adopts the paradigm of exposition—the bastion of the industrial-age logic of progress, problem-solving, and market consumption economies—to promote the agency and audacity of design. However, I posit that within his exhibition spaces there is little opportunity for skepticism, ambiguity, and speculation and query why do museums embrace an approach that returns to the master narrative and boosterism by simply preaching the benefits of good design.

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Agent Bruce Mau Mau grew up on a farm outside of Sudbury, a rural mining town in Northern Ontario, Canada, with few amenities and no running water in the winter. He credits his passion for art and design to an influential high school teacher who convinced him to complete an extra year of high school to qualify for art college (Bland 2015). Mau studied at the Ontario College of Art (now known as Ontario College of Art and Design University) in Toronto for one year, but never graduated and instead joined the design studio, Fifty Fingers. In the early 1980s he moved to London, where he briefly worked with the international graphic design firm, Pentagram. Returning to Toronto, he formed the tri-partnership studio, Public Good Design, signaling his interest in socially responsible design but soon parted ways establishing his eponymous studio in 1985. His studio focused on designing books for the newly minted academic publisher Zone, edited by Jonathan Crary and other notable intellectuals. Mau’s neo-modernist designs won critical acclaim for their sensitive juxtaposition of fragmented images and text, catching the attention of such architectural and art luminaries as Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaus, and Claus Oldenberg. Gehry, in particular, nurtured Mau, and importantly for this investigation, introduced him to exhibition design hiring him to design the 2001 Frank Gehry retrospective exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum and commissioned his studio to complete the way finding graphics for the Los Angeles, Disney Concert Hall in 2003. The reason for Mau’s success, according to the critic and historian Hal Foster, is that he integrates information and architecture, signage systems and interiors, inspiring clients come to him “in search of image design and brand equity” (2002: 23). As Mau’s reputation grew and corporate clients increased, the tasks of running a commercial studio, meaning tracking billable hours, designing for corporate brands, like Coca-Cola, Indigo, and so on, conflicted with his objectives to work on projects that contribute both socially and artistically to society in a meaningful way. Publications, such as the mammoth S, M, L, XL (a collaboration with Dutch architectural guru Rem Koolhaus, 1995) or his own massive monograph, Life Style (2000), consumed endless non-billable hours for the studio. Increasingly, Mau preferred to work less on things and objects and more on transformational events and experiences related to social activism (Berger 2009: 36). Importantly, he dropped graphic as a descriptor of his practice calling himself simply a designer to reflect his broader mandate. What is also significant about Mau’s shift in his practice is that it reflects his own challenging and often contradictory relationship with design: as a design agent he serves as a stylist and a form giver, a problem-solver for business and a thinker of social change for public good. Design commentator Alice Rawsthorn observes that while these various competing roles are typical for most professional designers, they are often difficult, even impossible to reconcile (Rawsthorn 2013). Mau’s growing desire to create content, as well as form broke with the traditional business model of running a profitable design office because unlimited research inevitably goes over budget, as with the Koolhaus

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publication, which clocked up sixteen-hour days for the studio (Novosedlik  1994). Ultimately, this reoccurring tension between the studio run as a profitable business and as creative research centre led Mau to leave the studio altogether in  2010.1 He went on to found Massive Change Network, which he co-directs with his wife, Bisi Williams, in Chicago. Since  2015 he has served as Chief Design Officer for Freeman, the American event and trade show company. Mau’s ambivalence about the commercial aspects of design, I maintain, is reflected in the exhibitions Massive Change and Prosperity for All.

Museum as Patient Mau’s application of advocacy, rhetoric, and promotion in his exhibitions to promote the social benefits of design stems from a long tradition originating in ­nineteenth-century museum practices. As museum studies scholar Susan Pearce points out, “there have always been social implications about design exhibitions,” and this started at the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum, V&A) in London, which was the offspring of the 1851 Great Exhibition, the world’s first international exposition (1992: 4). Design reformers Henry Cole, Richard Redgrave, and Owen Jones used the profits from the Great Exhibition to purchase products for the Museum of Ornamental Art, as it was then called, and they selected objects that illustrated the principles of fitness for purpose and honesty of construction to improve public taste and to educate designers and manufacturers (Conforti 1997). Cole, the South Kensington Museum’s original director, believed that the museum should serve workingman and offer a “powerful antidote to the gin palace” (Pearce  1992:  4). However, some twenty years later, Cole publicly acknowledged the limitations of exhibiting design: “When an artist paints a picture, unless he gets anybody to help him, he begins and ends it himself, and then it is called Fine Art; if on the contrary, an artist makes a design, and it is repeated by another process, even so closely that nobody can tell it from the original, that is repudiated as ‘base and mechanical.’” Cole’s observation reflects his frustration with the public’s hierarchical ordering between art and design, which continues to this day (Cole 1990: 46). In the next century, design reform continued famously championed by New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Curators often collaborating with department stores and manufacturers organized exhibitions, competitions, and collected products for the purpose of illustrating good design based upon aesthetics that correctly displayed the form following function ethos (Staniszewski  1998). Design museums and design exhibitions, therefore, have been more firmly entrenched in the commercial marketplace—notwithstanding the galleries and museums’ reliance on blockbuster exhibitions, celebrity collectors, and starchitecture capital projects to draw in the crowds, actions that many argue compromise their cultural not-for-profit integrity (Janes 2009: 13; Hodson 2017: 154). As Cole pointed out, contemporary design objects, however, are different than artworks for the obvious reasons that they are functional and are often widely available.

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Echoing Cole’s lament, design historian Elise Hodson notes that the objective for a design curator is to “encourage the museum visitor to look at mass culture and the everyday with a distance normally reserved for the exceptional and the unique” (2017:  142). Similarly, Paola Antonelli, MoMA’s Senior Curator of Architecture and Design, acknowledges that design’s commercial components make it a challenge to exhibit within the walls of her fine art institution. To avoid the “trade fair effect,” on the one hand, and fine art connotations on the other, she conceptualizes her objects to provide a narrative and give context (Simpson 2006: 87). It is not simply that design is functional, commercial, and social that makes it problematic to exhibit, another important factor is that much of it is not intended for a gallery/museum display. Art historian Michael Baxandall argues that there is an important difference between objects conceived for visual interest, made for “visual exhibition on display” which have “exhibitability” and those objects that are not intended by the maker to be shown in a gallery/museum (1992: 40). According to Baxandall, the maker, the exhibitor, and the visitor (the latter who seeks knowledge) are all separate agents. There exists a mutual understanding among them but only when the intention of the maker, the first agent is present and this is rarely the case with design (36). Finally, Gareth Williams, from Middlesex University, adds to this discussion, observing that “museums have a chequered relationship with design, at various times seeing it as the poor relation of architecture as commercialized fine art, as evidence of social technological history, or as the antithesis of crafts skill” (in Charman 2015). He adds that design has long been in the blind spot of museums, meaning that it is ignored or secondary (in Charman 2015). It is for these reasons, at once simple and complex, that mainstream and avantgarde protocols and conventions of curatorial practice do not always apply to exhibiting design objects. Design is social, commercial, functional, and not necessarily intended by its makers to be exhibited in a museum/gallery. Curators and directors see their institutions as patients in need of treatment to overcome the illness of exhibiting design. In need of a remedy, they turn to Mau as an agent, myth maker, and prophet curator of the spectacle to lead the way.

Massive Change In  2002, curator Bruce Grenville of the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) invited Mau to work on a show about the future of design and, most significantly from Mau’s perspective, to curate the content rather than simply design the labels, way finding signage, exhibition cases, and branding. Mau turned to the modality of expositions and spectacles, embracing how these prior didactic international fairs presented content related to cultural and scientific innovation, albeit within nationalist and imperialist frameworks. He is a great enthusiast of Montreal Expo ’67, and an avid collector of Expo ’67 ephemera, such as books and brochures. The world’s fair was a particularly momentous event for Canada in part because it coincided with the country’s centennial birthday. Mau was only eight when the fair took place and he

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did not have the opportunity to visit in person but he remembers seeing television footage of the Expo grounds and it “blew his mind” (Mutrie 2017). Mau attempted to recreate the sense of optimism and wonder of the fair’s international pavilions showcasing multicultural exhibits and scientific innovations in Massive Change and later EDIT: to inspire the public to see a brave new world achieved by the promise of design. Mau agreed to curate for the VAG on the condition that the exhibition explored beyond the proverbial objects on risers and, in his words, “take aesthetics off the table” (Berger 2009: 90). Placing objects on plinths prompts visitors to see the work as fine art and Mau wanted to avoid this pitfall of showing design’s form and style and instead chose to emphasize its social impact; the VAG willingly agreed. In this way, he challenged the traditional agency of the museum that it imposes on the objects on display by dismissing the white walls and risers, the proverbial gallery tools that consecrate fine art to a higher canon (O’Doherty 1986). In search of a new approach, Mau asserted that he had an epiphany—and yes it happened doodling on a cocktail napkin, a favorite trope employed by designers to foster myths of how great design mysteriously comes forth in a eureka moment (Berger 2009: 90).2 The doodle comprised two identical circles except for the placement of the word Design; in the first it is in the centre surrounded by outer rings labeled Business, Culture, and Nature, while in the second Design is moved to the outside ring enclosing the other three themes. The latter diagram demonstrates that design is not merely a subclass of business, culture, and nature, but a driver of them. The sketch, according to Mau, became the theme of the exhibition: “Instead of being about the world of design, it would be about the design of the world,” he proclaimed (Berger  2009:  90).3 Once the concept was conceived, it took over two years to develop the exhibition; Mau worked closely with the newly established Institute Without Boundaries at George Brown College in Toronto, which he co-founded in 2003. He charged his eight students to get lost in their research—getting “lost in the woods,” is also what he advises his studio employees to do—and find him innovations from around the globe (Berger 2009: 52, 90). His students sought what Mau calls “fact-based” optimism stories that are intended to inspire activism, participation, and good feeling (Berger 2009: 52, 90). From this body of research the exhibition presented two floors of statistics and innovations ranging from bicycle ambulances, low-cost laptops, electric cars, Segways, Aerogel, life-straw water filters, and genetically modified featherless chickens, the last being one of the most controversial displays (Dawkins 2009: 87). In many ways, Mau’s method as a curator is conventional: working with his team of fact-finders, he seeks out, collects, and documents the latest individual innovations from around the world concentrating on the creator (change maker), material, process, final design object, and the service it delivers to the community. However, what is unconventional for a gallery/museum, but less so for an exposition, are the bold, brave new-world categories which Mau selected to organize the work: We Will Eradicate Poverty; We Will Enable Sustainable Mobility; We Will Bring

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Energy to the Entire World. Such mantras invited the viewer to participate and be part of the solution in a way that gives him or her the illusion of agency. They were part of a subset of the larger and overarching question: Now That We Can Do Anything What Will We Do? The statements and questions operate as individual manifestos projecting myths that technological and design innovations will change or have changed the community (Dawkins 2009: 86). Foster calls this type of individual slogan “media futurology,” a “critical term today can be a catchy phrase tomorrow, a cliché, (or brand) the next” (2002: 24).4 Further positioning Mau’s curatorial work in the expo camp and differentiating his practice from the museum/gallery sphere is the conspicuous lack of objects on display. Instead he depends upon floor to ceiling text and image, and props, such as inflated silver foil balloons to hammer home his missives [Figures 14.1 and 14.2]. The use of text and image has become his trademark in exhibition design and is widely replicated by his own studio and by other designers.5 Here, then, the medium is the message, and in the museum/gallery context, the medium and message have replaced the object. Foster explains that Mau erases the boundaries between image and space via digitizing images and makes them co-dependent with space resulting in deterritorialization, frenetic globalization disconnected from culture and context (in  reference to Deleuze and Guattari,  2004). Meaning Mau aestheticizes and

Figure 14.1  “Wealth and Politics,” Massive Change, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2003, photo by Robert Keziere. (Robert Keziere/Vancouver Art Gallery)

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Figure 14.2  “Image Economies,” Massive Change, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2003, photo by Robert Keziere. (Robert Keziere/Vancouver Art Gallery)

sanitizes global statistics and innovations into visual sound bites often independent of political and economic realities (Foster 2002: 24). His heavy use of didactics (Baxandall defines didactics as the “elements of naming, information, and exposition that aims to make a point,” 1992: 37–8) reveals the designer’s need to communicate form as content and content as form to the viewer. While Mau deliberately eschewed presenting an exhibition that focuses on styling or what he calls the “tyranny of the visual” (Milroy 2004), the exhibition, ironically, itself is highly styled. Dawkins coins the style “scripto-visual,” the “interaction between pictorial structures and language” to describe Mau’s visual strategy (2009: 81). The overarching message—that design is an agent of change—becomes diluted by the bombardment of the scripto-visual. Mau’s conflicting relationship between design as an aesthetic tool and an activator of social change is evident in the exhibitions themselves that he develops. The visual noise created by the layering of image and text in monumental-sized graphics emphasizes form over content and inevitably overwhelms the message. What is more, Mau’s exploitation of the expo/manifesto/ spectacle technique undermines the critical voice typically associated in contemporary art practice and positions the content as promotion while avoiding and ignoring the negative implications of design products and services deriving from military, scientific, and corporate research, for example.

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Massive Change toured the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Chicago Art Institute in 2004 and, despite mixed reviews (Laurence 2004; Milroy 2004), set the course for a run of socially minded exhibitions that focused on topical issues related to gender, health, and technology and presented with an abundance of image and text. Notably the Cooper Hewitt organized Design for the Other 90% (2007), while MoMA showed Design and the Elastic Mind (2008). Massive Change also became a platform for Mau to build upon for his next major exhibition in Canada, Prosperity for All.

EDIT and Prosperity for All In  2015, Shauna Levy, the president and CEO of the Design Exchange (DX) in Toronto, commissioned Mau to be the inaugural chief curator to curate Prosperity for All at Toronto’s first design biennial, appropriately titled EDIT, an acronym standing for Expo for Design and Innovation & Technology. The DX since its opening in 1994, has tread the course between a design promotional centre advocating the benefits of design services and a design museum supporting collecting and exhibiting activities (Gotlieb 1994: 69). Its tag line, Canada’s Design Museum, is stated on its website, banners, and letterhead. EDIT, however, pushes the institution firmly into the camp of design promotion. The ten-day fair opened in 2017, a notable year of celebrations for the country (albeit fraught with de-colonial reckoning) because it marked Expo ’67’s fiftieth anniversary (which Levy directly referenced as an influential precedent) and Canada and Ontario’s sesquicentennial (Bozikovik 2017). Unlike the VAG where the exhibition was housed in the museum proper, the DX located the program offsite in the 150,000-square-foot former Unilever soap factory, a raw, industrial space. Levy stated that the museum’s standard white cube galleries were not inclusive (Freed 2017). In the true exposition mode, she declared at an advance press conference that EDIT “poises itself to deliver an opportunity to see the future and we’re going to make it better” (Gignac 2017). “Museums are no longer a one-way form of communication. It’s not just about going in and reading didactic panels. It’s about having this interactive immersive experience and doing something with it,” she says (Freed 2017). DX created a festival with a purpose, one that would inspire positive change and be accessible to all audiences and not just elite museum visitors and design aficionados. Tapping into the exposition, fair, or festival model, where experience and engaging and participatory displays are emphasized, appears to be more democratic, nonjudgmental (Karp 1992: 279). Mau acting as a chief curator of sorts was the perfect prophet curator to guide the DX spectacle. Drawing upon the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) objectives for 2020, Mau and DX selected Shelter, Nourish, Care, and Educate, four of the seventeen Sustainable Developmental Goals to organize the content of show. Mau’s Prosperity for All functioned as the overriding theme of EDIT as well as his individual exhibition presented on the first of the five floors, which spanned 12,000 square foot—its prime location was arguably the best real estate of the fair since

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all visitors passed through it when they entered festival. Blow-ups of Magnum photographer Paolo Pellegrin’s haunting black-and-white pictures recording war, racism, migration, and environmental catastrophes formed the heart of the exhibition [Figure 14.3]. The display of images of “the world’s most challenging problems,” such as the Syrian War and Hurricane Katrina brought awareness of global crises in need of design solutions directly into the exhibition. Mau believed this was an important addition missing in Massive Change that provided a clearer context and rational for the showcasing of design innovations. As he explains: “I wanted to do something where you would really feel, in a powerful way, the opposite of design; the opposite of ‘Prosperity for All’” (Freed 2017) [Figure 14.4]. In another interview he predicted: “I think seeing what Paolo is documenting as a photojournalist who works in regions of crisis will have a really profound effect on visitors” (in Osborne 2017). However, when I attended the exhibition I saw elementary and high school students who appeared to be in a state of distraction not focused on the difficult world events captured by Pellegrin. The large number of images, combined with the billboard quality of the mounting, diminished, even undermined their power to affect. Similarly the absence of white gallery walls, the conventional setting in which to view art, which create cues for viewers to slow down, look, and reflect, further contributed to the disruption. Like Massive Change, Prosperity for All showcased what appeared to be an endless collection of eclectic innovations using the scripto-visual style of large didactic panels of text and image to prophesize how design moves societies forward and

Figure 14.3  Paolo Pellegrin, Prosperity for All exhibition at EDIT: Expo for Design, Innovation & Technology, Toronto, 2017. (Images courtesy of Design Exchange, Toronto)

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Figure 14.4  Bruce Mau speaking, Prosperity for All exhibition at EDIT: Expo for Design, Innovation & Technology, Toronto, 2017. (Images courtesy of Design Exchange, Toronto)

to illustrate the positive effects of good design. The remaining sections of the exhibition displayed such design projects as hypothetical compressors of air pollution housed in exquisite rings and cufflinks proposed by Dutch Studio Roosegaarde, and the community revitalization on Fogo Island in Newfoundland Labrador, spearheaded by Zita Cobb [Figure 14.5]. Mau’s method of rounding-up good news design stories from all over the world successfully looks back to the spirit of the world fair that he so admires. As Dawkins observes about Massive Change, which also applies to EDIT and Prosperity for All, these are postmodernist projects, because although they promote the modernist myth that good design is tied to economic, social, and political progress, Mau’s perspective is pluralist and global. The works selected are diverse, deterritorialized, and decentralized geographically to include high technologies, individuals, NGOs, community groups, universities, and corporations, among others. According to Dawkins, “The modernist belief in innovation and progress is conjoined with postmodern plurality, fragmentation, diversity, interdisciplinarity, and globalization” (2009: 86). To be sure, the multi-narrative approach creates a sense of pluralism: many voices and viewpoints are expressed rather than a single authoritative voice. But is this in fact the case? The grand narrative after all is that massive changes (good things) are happening through design and brings prosperity for all. These displays offer a summary of current social events but it is debatable if Mau’s strategy offers a meaningful paradigm shift for curating critical design. Agent Mau

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Figure 14.5  “Air Pollution Has a Design Solution,” Prosperity for All exhibition at EDIT: Expo for Design, Innovation & Technology, Toronto, 2017. (Images courtesy of Design Exchange, Toronto)

aids the museum patient in need of salvation by returning to the conventional trope of authoritative voice to be implemented in the exhibition/spectacle. The information, overpowered by the scripto-visual style, lacks criticality, a critique of the content, and in many ways the promotional tone makes the displays not far removed from commercial advertising. Certainly, Mau is no naïve Candide, however, his thinking parallels Stephen Pinker, Harvard psychologist and popular philosopher optimist, as both believe it is the best time in human history to be alive and working (Pinker 2011, 2018). Pinker publishes his philosophy in self-authored books, articles, and lectures but there is a difference when a museum, a public institution with public funding, turns to such heavy-handed messaging. Visual arts professor Irit Rogoff argues that a middle ground exists between optimism and negativism and that is criticality. “Criticality while building on critique wants nevertheless to inhabit culture in a relation other than one of critical analysis; other than one of illuminating flaws, locating elisions, allocating blame” (Rogoff  2006: n.p.). For Rogoff, the notion of criticality is to offer “a space for a multiple of viewpoints and experiences that remains open to contestation and adjustment” (2006: n.p.). While Mau avoids the imperialist and nationalist gaze that the competing nations typically brought to international fairs (Greenhalgh 1988) EDIT and Prosperity for All are, like agent Mau, himself, rife with contradictions when facing commercial and corporate demands. According to Freeman’s company website, which fabricated Mau’s displays, everything was made with reused or recycled materials ( https://www.freeman.com/news/press-releases/freeman-and-bruce-mau-showcase-how-design-is-solving-the-worldsgreatest-problems).

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However, the fair distributed disposable plastic cups at water dispensers, and the fairground included sponsorship displays by corporations, such as the Disney Mickey Mouse Dream Home of the Future. As Foster notes, Mau “seems confused in his role—is he a cultural critic, a futurist guru, or a corporate consultant?” (2002: 24).

Conclusion This chapter employs the concept of Gell’s agent–patient relations to argue that art museums and design museums (the patients) are often at a loss as to how to exhibit design in the competing world of spectacles and so look outside their institutions for guidance. They choose Mau (the agent) who shows design’s audacity and promise of hope for the future, conjuring myths of design innovation and sustainability told in stories mediated by text and image without criticality. As Dawkins suggests, Mau’s “scripto-visual rhetorical constructions may succeed with mainstream audiences and institutions, because that realm finds optimism reassuring, warranted or not” (2009: 90). Mau’s spectacles project myths about what we hope the future will bring: sunny ways leading to health, wealth, and happiness.6 A final cautionary thought: Mau’s Prosperity for All proclaims that the world needs design to save it from its self-inflicted destruction; however, his exhibition did not have the  agency to contribute to the host’s institution’s own sustainability. EDIT was a state-endorsed exhibition receiving $1.75 million dollars to launch the biennial from the Province of Ontario, as part of its 150 community funding program (https://www. ontario.ca/page/ontario150/). This is no small thing, since other arts organizations were also vying for funding their anniversary projects. The DX receives little, to no operating grants from government, and EDIT, despite the high attendance of 35,000, did not bring prosperity for the patient. Two months after the fair closed, DX implemented staff layoffs and the president reduced her workweek to four days for further cost measuring.7 What is more, the museum later deaccessioned its permanent collection of design in 2019 because it does not have the human and financial resources to take care of it properly. So here is the rub, despite the boundless optimism and the audacity of Mau’s proselyting myths about the benefits of positive design thinking in the exhibition spectacle/expo format, his design agency poses problems and creates restrictions for curation in its attempt to offer salvation for museums rather than criticality and sustainability.

Notes 1 Hunter Tura has been President and CEO since Mau’s abrupt departure in 2010. The Toronto-based firm, with offices in New York City and London, is trying to rebrand itself to the more anonymous acronym BMD to dissociate itself from Bruce Mau its founder. It is co-owned by the holding company, MDC Partners. 2 For instance, Canadian graphic designer Alan Fleming designed the CN logo on a cocktail napkin as did Milton Glaser for the wordmark, I Love New York, https://logojoy.com/ blog/5-famous-logos-that-were-sketched-on-napkins/ (Accessed July 20, 2018).

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3 This diagram continues to guide Mau’s work process and is posted on his website, http://www.massivechangenetwork.com/how-we-work/ (Accessed July 1, 2018). 4 Mau used rhetoric and manifesto as part of his practice before he began curating exhibitions. His 1998 “An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth,” forty-three steps on how to be creative, went viral on the web and, according to his website, has been translated in fifteen languages because it inspired critical thinking, see http://www.manifestoproject.it/bruce-mau/. His current studio Massive Change Network is guided by twenty-four principles, see ­https:// static1.squarespace.com/static/579e0d66cd0f685ac1c2a761/t/57dc3fd3d482e9d2d55e8ad8/1474052055871/24hrs2mc-Principles.pdf (Accessed August 1, 2018). 5 Mau used text and image as exhibit tools in Too Perfect: Seven New Denmarks, Power Plant (2004); Work on What You Love: Bruce Mau Rethinking Design, Philadelphia Museum of Art (2015). In 2018 Craft Ontario adopted the visual manifesto style in their Citizens of Craft campaign, see http://citizensofcraft.ca/manifesto. 6 In 2015 Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected for his positive politics and sunny ways. 7 Shauna Levy resigned as President and CEO in November 2018.

Bibliography Barthes, R. (2012), Mythologies, trans. R. Howard and A. Lavers, New York: Hill and Wang. Baxandall, M. (1992), “Exhibiting Intention: Some Preconditions of the Visual Display of Culturally Purposeful Objects,” in S. Lavine and I. Karp (eds), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, 2nd edition, 33–41, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Berger, W. (2009), GLIMMER: How Design Can Transform Your Life and Maybe the World, Toronto: Random House Canada. Bland, J. (2015), “Why We Love the Art We Love: Designer Bruce Mau on the Influence of a Teacher,” The Globe and Mail, December 11, Available online: https://www. theglobeandmail.com/arts/art-and-architecture/why-we-love-the-art-we-love/ article27714022/ (Accessed June 29, 2018). Bozikovic, A. (2017), “Toronto’s EDIT Exhibition Strives to Serve Global Goals through ­ ttps://www.theglobeandmail. Design,” The Globe and Mail, May 7, Available online: h com/arts/art-and-architecture/torontos-edit-exhibition-strives-to-serve-global-goalsthrough-design/article34915374/ (Accessed July 1, 2018). Charman, H. (2015), “Just What Is It That Makes Curating Design So Different, So Appealing?,” in L. Farrelly and J. Weddell (eds), Design Objects and the Museum,  137–48, London: Bloomsbury. Cheetham, F. (1995), “An Actor-Network Perspective on Collecting and Collectables,” in S. Dudley et al., Narrating Objects, Collecting Stories, 125–35, London: Routledge. Cole, H. (1990), “Lecture to Cole, Manchester School of Art on December 21, 1877,” in M. Goodwin, “Objects Belief and Power in mid-Victorian England: The Origins of the Victoria and Albert Museum,” S. Pearce (ed.), Objects of Knowledge, 46, London: The Athlone Press, 9–46. Conforti, M. (1997), “The Idealist Enterprise and the Applied Arts,” in M. Baker and B. Richardson (eds), A Grand Design: The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum, 23–47, New York: Harry N. Abrams.

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Dawkins, H. (2009), “Ecology, Images, and Scripto-Visual Rhetoric,” in S. Dobrin and S. Morey (eds), Ecosee: Image, Rhetoric, Nature, 79–95, Albany: SUNY Press. Debord, G. and D. Nicholson-Smith (trans.) (1994), The Society of the Spectacle, New York: Zone Books. Deleuze, G., F. Guattari, R. Hurley, M. Seem, and H. Lane (trans.) (2004), Anti-Oedipus, London: Continuum. Gotlieb, R. (1994), “Reason for Being: The Design Exchange and a Brief History of Design Promotion,” in N. Rodger (ed.), Designing the Exchange: Essays Commemorating the Opening of the Design Exchange: 69–83, Toronto: Design Exchange. Foster, H. (2002), Design and Crime: And Other Diatribes, London: Verso. Freed, J. (2017), “The Eternal Optimist,” The Globe and Mail, May 30, Available online: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/design/bruce-maus-newexpo-to-highlight-how-design-can-save-us-fromourselves/article35160089/ (Accessed February 10, 2018). “Freeman and Bruce Mau Showcase How Design Is Solving the World’s Greatest Problems,” September 28, 2017, Available online: https://www.freeman.com/news/ press-releases/freeman-and-bruce-mau-showcase-how-design-is-solving-the-worldsgreatest-problems (Accessed July 20, 2018). Gell, A. (2012), “‘Things’ as Social Agents,” in S. Dudley (ed.), Museum Objects: Experiencing the Properties of Things (Leicester Reader in Museum Studies), 336–43, London: Routledge. Gignac, J. (2017), “EDIT Expo Seeks to Inspire World Change through Design,” Toronto Star, September 27, Available online: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/09/27/ edit-expo-seeks-to-inspire-world-change-through-design.html (Accessed July 15, 2018). Greenhalgh, P. (1988), Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions, and World’s Fairs, 1851–1939, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Haag Bletter, R. (1985), “The World of Tomorrow: The Future with a Past,” in L. Phillips et al. (eds), High Styles: Twentieth-Century American Design, 111–12, New York: Whitney Museum of Art. Hodson, E. (2017), “‘I Could Have Visited Ikea for Free”: Design Museums and a Complicated Relationship with Commerce,” in A. Myzelav (ed.), Exhibiting Craft and Design, Transgressing the White Cube Paradigm, 1930–Present, 140–60, London: Routledge. Janes, R. (2009), Museums in a Troubled World: Renewal, Irrelevance or Collapse? London: Routledge. Laurence, R. (2004), “Massive Change,” November 4, Available online: https://www. straight.com/article/massive-change (Accessed August 1, 2018). Karp, I. (1992), “Festivals,” in S. Lavine and I. Karp (eds), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, 2nd edition, 279–87, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. McLuhan, M. (1994), Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Milroy, S. (2004), “Massive Aim, Minor Stumble,” The Globe and Mail, October 7, Available online: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/massive-aim-minor-stumble/ article1138256/ (Accessed August 1, 2018).

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Mutrie, E. (2017), “Bruce Is Designing Away Our Worries,” Sharp Magazine, September 25, Available online: http://sharpmagazine.com/2017/09/25/bruce-mau-is-designing-awayour-worries/ (Accessed July 25, 2018). Novosedlik, W. (1994), “The Producer as Author,” Eye, Winter, Available online: http://www. eyem/agazine.com/feature/article/the-producer-as-author (Accessed August 1, 2018). O’Doherty, B. (1986), Inside the White Cube, Culver City, CA: Lapis Press. Osborne, C. (2017), “Bruce Mau on How Design Can Solve the World Biggest Problems,” Azure, May 8, Available online: https://www.azuremagazine.com/article/bruce-maudesign-solutions-world-problems/ (Accessed February 1, 2018). Pearce, S. (1992), Museum Objects and Collections: A Cultural Study, Leicester: Leicester University Press. Pinker, S. (2011), The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, New York: Penguin Books. Pinker, S. (2018), Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason and Science, New York, Viking. Rawsthorn, A. (2013), Hello World, Where Design Meets Life, London: Hamish, Hamilton. Rockwell, D. and B. Mau (2006), Spectacle, London: Phaidon Press. Rogoff, I. (2006), “Smuggling—An Embodied Criticality,” n.p., Available online: http://eipcp. net/transversal/0806/rogoff1/en (Accessed March 1, 2018). Simpson, B. (2006), “Design and Architecture Paola Antonelli Interviewed by Bennett Simpson,” in P. Marincola (ed.), What Makes a Great Exhibition?, 86–90 Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Centre for the Arts. Staniszewski, M. (1998), The Power of Display: A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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15 From Indian to Indigenous Agency: Opportunities and Challenges for Architectural Design David T. Fortin

There is an intriguing duality to the idea of agency, particularly as related to the design of the built environment. On one hand it emphasizes the degree to which an individual can make choices and act freely within an overriding structure. Yet it also can be used to describe an administrative entity tasked with making choices on another’s behalf, thereby minimizing their individual or collective agency. For many in Canada inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action that were announced in 2015,1 there is optimism that contemporary Indigenous agency might eventually supplant the patriarchal relationships entrenched by the government Indian agencies that historically monitored and dictated all aspects of life, including the built environment, during the colonial project. Furthermore, the relatively recent global emergence of the “Indigenous” descriptor has had an empowering effect, facilitating an increasingly international discussion about the value of Indigenous knowledge in the design process. However, despite the termination of the “Indian Agent” job title and ongoing attempts to reconcile with Indigenous communities across Canada through what is increasingly defined as Indigenous co-design, the path toward design sovereignty for Indigenous peoples remains a toilsome one. This chapter will explore how contemporary design practice ultimately preserves a reliance on commercial building processes and the accompanying need for “design” expertise, and how this represents a critical obstacle to Indigenous agency moving forward. To better understand this challenge, the unique rights of Indigenous peoples are highlighted in relation to the inherent disconnect between the vast majority of people and building design in a mostly industrialized and capitalist global system, with an emphasis on the sinister capacity for “design” to preserve and enhance existing power relationships. Examples of colonial overtones embedded in contemporary design culture will provide a context to consider the recent emergence of an Indigenous-led design discourse that is resisting the more dominant ones that assert their metrics for success as both authoritative and universal. The relationship between design process and Indigenous individuals, designers, and communities thus continues to evolve in a critical shift toward increased self-determination.

A Right to Design “Active Involvement”? Multiple questions surface when considering the role of Indigenous peoples in the contemporary architectural “design” context. First, there is often a concerning equivalency perceived between, for instance, Indigenous rights to self-determination, and the human rights of all people within a globalized and convoluted sociopolitical condition, one that includes increasingly complex juxtapositions, such as simultaneous surges in both multiculturalism and xenophobic nationalism. Yet it is essential to recognize within this milieu what Marxist geographer David Harvey has notably identified, that capitalism, through the power vested in its heralded wealthy class, ultimately builds “a world in its own image” (2000:  23). This world inevitably fosters uneven spatial development and as Nishat Awan, Tatjana Schneider, and Jeremy Till acknowledge in Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing Architecture, the perceived futility to resist has often led to an unfortunate “withdrawal of architecture from a critical engagement with societal structures” (2011:  31). Spatial Agency’s central thesis instead argues that design can depart from a position of clear and transformative intent, with the capacity to produce work that is both political and ethical, transforming pragmatism from a form of passivity to one of active resistance. Over the past few decades, there has emerged an increasingly visible “social” practice for designers along these lines, whereby design thinking skills are applied to challenge larger social questions and thus move toward other possible outcomes. Spatial Agency offers a comprehensive range of such socially oriented design initiatives from Hasan Fathy, Teddy Cruz, Francis Kéré, and Constant Nieuwenhuys, to Rural Studio, Arcosanti, Elemental, and the political act of squatting. Urban-Think Tank and Anna Heringer are other examples of designers who have been credited with embracing such principles (Lepik 2010). Yet while such a design ethos has rightfully emerged as essential within mainstream architectural discourse, it has unique limitations when it comes to discussing Indigenous agency in design. At the core of this difference is the relationship between “agent” (as an independent actor within a social system) and “structure” (the constraining organization of that system) (Awan et al. 2011: 30). Within the globalized context, agents can be any citizen of any society exercising their rights within a sociopolitical and/or economic structure, which inevitably applies to Indigenous societies as well. However, it is essential to emphasize that Indigenous peoples (individuals, communities, nations, etc.) cannot be considered as equivalent to any other citizen occupying a colonized state given that they are members of sovereign nations and often have treaty rights that must be honored. To add further clarity, it is worth considering the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), as well as Canada’s subsequent endorsement by the minister of CrownIndigenous Relations, Carolyn Bennett, who proclaimed that Canada would be a “full supporter … without qualification” (Fontaine 2016). While there are a number of significant challenges for Canada’s national adoption of the forty-six articles included in the UNDRIP, a few have direct implications for Indigenous design. First, Article 11, number 1, states the following:

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Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archeological and historical sites, artefacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature. (United Nations 2007)

Though not including architecture explicitly, the idea of “protecting” and developing “future manifestations” of “artefacts,” “designs,” “technologies,” and “visual arts” certainly implies a role for Indigenous peoples to exercise their sovereignty over design processes related to cultural expression in the built environment. Furthermore, as Article 23 states: Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development. In particular, Indigenous peoples have the right to be actively involved in developing and determining health, housing and other economic and social programmes affecting them and, as far as possible, to administer such programmes through their own institutions. (United Nations 2007)

This article clearly implies that Indigenous communities can exercise their right to be “actively involved” in the design of buildings on their lands. However, with increasing numbers of Indigenous peoples now living in urban centers there is added complexity to this directive. How, more precisely, are Indigenous peoples to be “actively involved” in “developing and determining health, housing and other economic and social programmes affecting them,” both on their lands and within the urban context? And is design included in “developing and determining”? Furthermore, the articles suggest that Indigenous peoples are collectives to be consulted with in all related matters. As active contributors to the design of contemporary buildings, however, they inevitably become part of a complex architectural design process largely driven by entrenched methods of drawing and communication, code compliancy, material manufacturing, advanced building assemblies and technologies, cost constraints, and local construction capacity, all of which are mostly founded on non-indigenous methods, expertise, and training. Furthermore, the majority of materials are acquired and assembled away from the location of the building, creating an inevitable disconnect from an Indigenous perspective. As Pierre Frey writes: The construction industry, by rationalizing and optimizing its processes, at one and the same time renders them uniform and causes a massive displacement of the centres of decision-making. By the end of those processes, the building site can no longer be described as the place where the building is produced. It is merely the place where components designed and built elsewhere are assembled. (Frey 2013: 29)

Christopher Alexander similarly critiqued the relationship between ­decision-making and housing production during the  1980s, which holds its relevance related to contemporary Indigenous design as well. As he writes:

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The production systems which we have at present define a pattern of control which makes it almost impossible for things to be done carefully or appropriately, because, almost without exception, decisions are in the wrong hands, decisions are being made at levels far removed from the immediate concrete places where they have impact. (Alexander 1985: 40)

Furthermore, the level of disconnect between cultural relevancy and the design and building process increases exponentially the further remote the community is. Thus, when considering design within the constraints of the existing systems, overwhelmed by layers of bureaucracy and embedded inefficiencies at the governmental level and the prioritization of profit margins from the commercial side, what is meant by the “active involvement” of Indigenous communities in design, and what can ultimately be expected of them?

Indigenous Co-Design Many well-intended non-Indigenous designers, planners, and architects have responded to this challenge by promoting a process that prioritizes community input through what is increasingly described as an “Indigenous co-design” process, and this continues to evolve across the country (MacTavish et  al.  2012; Brook  2014; McCartney 2016; Royal Architectural Institute of Canada 2017: 28–32; Atkins and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada 2018; Nejad and Walker 2018). Auckland, New Zealand, has made significant progress in this area by adopting the Te Aranga Design Principles,2 including the importance of consultation with Mana Whenua (Elders) throughout the design process because they collectively feel “Māori culture and identity highlights Aotearoa New Zealand’s point of difference in the world and offers up significant design opportunities that can benefit us all” (Ministry of the Environment  2019). Similarly, while impossible to determine the level of community input (or “active involvement”) that led to all of the designs included in Malnar and Vodvarka’s New Architecture on Indigenous Lands (2013), the book provides a comprehensive collection of projects that ambitiously strives to express and enhance Indigenous cultures through design. Meanwhile, Daniel Millette (2012) celebrates the “tremendous opportunities” for researchers to document what he describes as a vernacular First Nation architectural landscape where traditional and contemporary approaches are creating an emergent form of culturally appropriate and environmentally sensitive design across Canada. Thus, it is essential to recognize that architecture on Turtle Island (North America) is currently manifesting an unprecedented collective effort to respect Indigenous traditions and cultures while celebrating their progress through the co-design process. However, in the majority of these projects it must also be emphasized that colonial power relationships are ultimately preserved whereby non-Indigenous “experts,” out of the perceived need for their “spatial intelligence,” as Awan et  al. (2011:  26) describe it, make the majority of decisions regarding Indigenous design “development.” Carroll Go-Sam and Cathy Keys (2018:  360) compliment the increasing

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levels of Indigenous control over building projects in North America, representing another important aspect of design agency through various other means (i.e., as advocates, contributors, employees, activists, project leaders, clients). Yet despite these important shifts, as Cree scholar Wanda Dalla Costa writes, “The majority of built structures, both on and off reserve, have been inspired by, and implemented by, non-Indigenous professionals” (2018:  200). Thus, while the idea of Indigenous ­co-design is a significant step forward in terms of communities being empowered to voice their ideas and opinions to a design team through sustained engagement processes, it is also necessary to be mindful of the historical relationships between Indigenous communities and settler design processes.

Designing “for” Indigenous Communities It is now well-documented that the attempted cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples by the Canadian government was mobilized through various means, and the residential school system and the legacy of the resulting intergenerational trauma inflicted on their families and communities have become a national conversation (Vowel 2016: 172). But within this discourse, it must also be emphasized that design played a pivotal role. The architects of residential schools did not necessarily act maliciously, but they were undeniably acting as agents of the structural system being implemented. In this case, the actions and intents of the architects were what Awan and colleagues would describe as at their worst, whereby “individual action in the spatial field is … completely determined by the overarching societal structures” (2011:  31). But like Robert Jan van Pelt’s powerful research into the role of the architect in the design and drawing of the Nazi concentration camps, first through his book titled The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial (2002) and subsequent exhibit called “The Evidence Room” with Donald McKay, Anne Bordeleau, and Sascha Hastings (Bordeleau et al. 2016), it is necessary to similarly consider the role of the architect in this case. Magdalena Milosz’s research into the architecture of assimilation in Canada, for example, exhibits a drawing of a generic residential school with an added notation in the upper corner that reads “Chapleau Bldg School” (2016) [Figure 15.1]. Such a hauntingly placeless approach to design is antithetical to the spiritual and existential connectivity between all things that is central to Indigenous value systems. For example, Dalla Costa (2018: 196) describes “Architecture as Place” as the primary catalyst for Indigenous design, while Māori academic Hirini Matunga argues “the moniker ‘of this place’ is the central pivot around which Indigenous architecture rotates” (2018: 308). Blackfoot scholar and author Leroy Little Bear similarly writes, “The Earth cannot be separated from the actual being of Indians” (2000: 78). Thus, while the residential schools clearly offer the most extreme example of non-Indigenous approaches to architectural design, they nonetheless lead Milosz (2016:  9) to conclude that such evidence will invite new questions “about the visible and invisible intentions of architecture—and what purpose the architect ‘serves.’”

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Figure 15.1  R. M. Ogilvie and R. G. Orr, Plan of Indian Boarding School, 1919. Source: Library and Archives Canada/Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development fonds/Item # 302–311. (© Government of Canada. Reproduced with the permission of Library and Archives Canada [2018])

These examples, including the subsequent government housing for Indigenous peoples implemented across the country without any regard for their traditions or values, elucidate Robin Evans’s keen observations on the unassuming power of the architectural drawing. As he writes: Drawing in architecture is not done after nature, but prior to construction; it is not so much produced by reflection on the reality outside the drawing, as productive of a reality that will end up outside the drawing. The logic of classical realism is stood on its head, and it is through this inversion that architectural drawing has obtained an enormous and largely unacknowledged power: by stealth. (Evans 1997: 165)

This kind of architectural power was inherited from a European-based process of design and production that had, for centuries, placed the architect’s livelihood (and societal stature) in the hands and directives of the patron, almost always a person or political entity of significant economic and political power. Similarly, the residential schools were integral to the production of a projected spatial reality only intended to benefit the colonizers in their pursuit of land, resources, and accumulation of wealth. For Indigenous peoples, the existing reality outside of those drawings, however, was

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vibrant and robust, one of balance and harmony between land, people, and culture. Thus, from the moment government-funded buildings, designed “for” the betterment of Indigenous peoples, were drawn, an attempt to sever them from their culture, their built environment, and their land was initiated. While this was ultimately a failed effort, evidenced by the resilience of Indigenous peoples around the globe, it did have serious impact for many individuals and communities in terms of their perceived spatial agency. An example of this is described by a Métis elder living in one of Alberta’s Métis Settlements: You get a home. You get a package. You get a dollar amount that you are going to spend on that home and the building codes dictates on how that building is built and what kind of insulation, what kind of vapour barrier, and the vents and everything. (Fortin 2015: 16)

Yet while it could be assumed that such overtly patriarchal approaches to design with regard to Indigenous cultures have been transcended given such progress in the social design realm celebrated by Spatial Agency, it is worthwhile to highlight a few recent examples that suggest otherwise.

Designing without Indigenous Input In  2015, the Arctic Design Group, a research institute at the University of Virginia, hosted the Arctic States Symposium which brought together “an international consortium of leading designers and colleagues from allied disciplines to posit the role of design in the rapidly transforming region” (Arctic Design Group  2015). Yet despite there being  400,000 Indigenous people currently living in the Arctic (Ferris  2015), with thousands of years of traditional knowledge among them, the website offers no recognition or evidence of their participation in, or influence on, the event. Similarly, in 2016, the Centre for Canadian Architecture (CCA), which Awan et al. (2011: 114) include as a spatial agent due to its capacity to provide “free and democratic access to highly specialized knowledge,” chose housing in Indigenous communities in northern Quebec as the central topic for a student design charrette. During the livefeed launch of the competition, titled Reassembling the North, a speaker described the following: “This design charrette seeks to legitimize the existing self-build solutions in the North and to draw attention to a demonstrated sustainable yet often ignored design tradition” (Canadian Centre for Architecture  2016). The implication of the statement is that the involvement of non-Indigenous urban academics and students somehow “legitimizes” the way Innu communities are currently dealing with their severe infrastructural and material challenges, and interjects the student as a spatial agent to “design” in response to this context. Furthermore, students were encouraged to “step into the shoes of residents of northern communities, even seek them out and partner with them to foster self-expression and self-realization,” despite being given only three days to submit their final designs from their southern urban centers (Canadian Centre for Architecture 2016). When an audience member asked

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the guest Innu presenter, and competition collaborator, to offer more insights about this scenario, her response was revealing. I am someone who comes from the High North, someone who has grown up there … and thinking that you are going to be designing buildings that have to serve that place, that have to serve the people there, who live differently than here [Montreal] … So you aren’t there, you don’t know the communities, and I feel a bit concerned (laughs) by this. So I am here to try and tell you but in a half hour I can’t tell you everything there is in the North. (Canadian Centre for Architecture 2016)

While her “concern” about the design process is dismissed with laughter, the content is akin to a hackneyed scenario whereby Indigenous community members are often expected to package their worldview into some accessible format, usually through a foreign language, so that a design team can generate a diagram, or meaningful concept, to work from. In the case of the CCA charrette, the winning entry included an email dialogue between the design team and two non-Indigenous contacts who had some limited lived experience in similar northern communities, but with no direct contact with the community whatsoever. Another submission by Carleton University students Evan Taylor, Ryan Lewis, and Andrej Iwanski, however, chose to express a provocative response to the competition itself. “Post-Colonial Dreams Part 1: Colonial Machine” presents an image of “[the] post-colonial machine … constructed with community detritus … [that] roams from community to community picking up debris, reconstructing it, and re-creating new architectures from the collected components” (Figure 15.2). “Post-Colonial Dreams Part 2: Inuit Myth Machine” instead depicts a heroic and resilient collage of Inuit iconography while exposing the machine for its destructive invasiveness. As the team writes, the machine has “begun to ravage the existing aboriginal communities” by leaving “remnants of alien buildings from an alien culture.” Instead, the “collective powers of cultural myths, legends, and traditional ways of life fight back against the advancing machine to take back their solemn land” (Figure 15.3). While not receiving any recognition whatsoever, the submission effectively highlighted the colonial premise for the competition itself. In another example, the Canadian chapter of Architecture without Borders also selected Indigenous housing for an open-call competition in  2017 with minimal opportunity for community engagement, though similar to the CCA charrette, involved Indigenous input in the design and jurying of the competition. The winning team in this case included students who had participated in the research conglomerate Habiter le Nord, a multi-year project involving sustained community engagement and positive relationship-building, which offered them a community-informed perspective. However, despite being aligned with Spatial Agency’s call for doing architecture in a different way, such competition formats, particularly for housing, inevitably preserve colonial approaches to design, whereby the “spatial intelligence” of professionals and young architectural students is perceived to bring value to the uniquely complex cultural context and systemic challenges of Indigenous housing, without any lived experience or opportunity for meaningful community engagement,

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Figure 15.2  Colonial Machine. Drawing by Andrej Iwanski, Ryan Lewis, and Evan Taylor. Azrieli School of Architecture, Carleton University, 2016.

Figure 15.3  Inuit Myth Machine. Drawing by Andrej Iwanski, Ryan Lewis, and Evan Taylor. Azrieli School of Architecture, Carleton University, 2016.

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and with little to no direct benefit to the community in the process. Competitions thus fail to understand the essential need for relationship-building with Indigenous communities through principles of reciprocal benefit, a central tenet to such forms of community-based research (Dalla Costa 2018a). It is also worth noting that design inspired by, yet completely disconnected from, Indigenous cultures is not uncommon in professional practice. For example, a recent proposal by the Montreal-based Saucier + Perrotte for a $215-million urban development on the western edge of Edmonton includes a large circular building inspired by “a Cree medicine wheel and the irrigation circles common in southern Alberta” (Stolte 2017). Meanwhile, the Toronto-based design firm Bortolotto recognizes the importance of “cultural context” in their work by highlighting a school design “inspired by the aboriginal medicine wheel, which emphasizes the view of the world in a circular fashion” (Bortolotto 2018). Their webpage further describes how the directional Indigenous colors informed the interior finishes. Yet, the highlighting of Indigenous values through design, “in honour” of 150 years of colonial occupation,3 is at odds with many Indigenous groups who chose to ignore the occasion altogether. A quick web search leads to other Indigenous inspirations without any apparent community input or engagement, with examples ranging from a tipi-inspired treehouse in China to a contemporary version of a pit house in the United States. Milosz’s question, then, still resonates. In these cases, what purpose does the architect ultimately “serve”? Or perhaps we should ask—who do they “serve”? Tuck and Wang (2012: 10) argue that settler scholars working on or with Indigenous topics in an attempt to “decolonize,” for example, may “gain professional kudos or a boost in their reputation for being so sensitive or self-aware,” but are ultimately self-serving, aiming only to rid themselves of guilt without having to sacrifice anything whatsoever. Indigenous Hawaiian Poka Laenui similarly outlines five stages of colonization that include the following: denial and withdrawal, destruction/eradication, denigration/ belittlement/insult, surface accommodation/tokenism, and, finally, transformation/ exploitation. This final stage of colonization, however, is the most unsettling when considered in the design context discussed above. As Laenui describes: The traditional culture that simply refuses to die or go away is now transformed into the culture of the dominating colonial society … Indigenous art that has survived may gain in popularity and form the basis for economic exploitation. Indigenous symbols in print may decorate modern dress. Indigenous musical instruments may be incorporated into modern music. Supporting Indigenous causes within the general colonial structure may become the popular political thing to do, exploiting the culture further. This exploitation may be committed by Indigenous as well as non-Indigenous people. (Laenui 2000: 151–2)

Thus, if the “active involvement” of Indigenous communities throughout a design process is ultimately limited to sharing traditional knowledge that is then translated by non-Indigenous design teams, with varying levels of reciprocal benefit to the community but with clear gains for the designer(s) (i.e., financial gain, an enhanced cultural

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design portfolio), this can be effortlessly related to this final stage of colonization described by Laenui, rather than being seen as an early stage of decolonization, as it might first appear. It is in this tenuous zone between the two that contemporary Indigenous architecture seemingly negotiates. As Cree designer Jake Chakasim emphatically notes, “Creating an architecture of reconciliation is not a business model” (Royal Architectural Institute of Canada 2017: 56). In this way, if architecture “inspired by,” “for,” or even “with” Indigenous communities no longer serves the assimilating structures of a colonial genocide project, yet still preserves power relationships whereby Indigenous people do not have control over all levels of design decision-making regarding the development affecting them, what progress has ultimately been made?

Toward Design Sovereignty To address this, it can be argued that advances in Indigenous architecture can only be measured by the level of control that Indigenous peoples maintain over the entire design and building process. For Australian Indigenous architect Kevin O’Brien, for instance, the only way to avoid “Aboriginal architecture” becoming anything more than a “commercial category for academic and professional exploitation” is “one where the architect of the project from the beginning to end is an Aboriginal person” (O’Brien  2018:  25–6). Māori academic Deidre Brown likewise notes that in New Zealand, “the story of contemporary Māori architecture is largely one that involves a progressive and insidious erosion of Māori control of their built world” (2018: 120). Instead, she heralds a Māori-led architecture, similar to previous eras, when the Māori determined “the design, procurement, and use of their housing stock and community buildings” (120). To further posture this shift toward Indigenous design sovereignty, Brown makes a critical distinction between the pursuit of a bicultural society, which would include Indigenous and non-Indigenous people living within one nation, and nation-to-nation societies that recognize the importance of Indigenous sovereignty and rights. A question that emerges from this distinction is what impact this has on design discourse. Bicultural design would welcome Indigenous design principles into the mainstream architectural lexicon and vice versa, while a self-determined Indigenous conversation would ultimately evolve independently from its non-Indigenous counterpart. As Nisga’a architect and chair of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) Indigenous Task Force Luugigyoo Patrick Stewart suggests, there are incompatibilities between the two approaches to design that must be recognized. What do you say to a non indigenous journalist that is apologetic for not including any building you have designed in her latest article because it does not have “that look” that the non indigenous magazine editors and publishers are looking for … leaving you thinking that you have to justify your own existence to her. (Stewart 2018: 34)

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Stewart’s personal reflections on the tensions between alternative metrics for “good design” are enlightening. They question if the assessment of Indigenous-designed work too hastily adopts mainstream architectural metrics with expectations of “that look” without fully understanding the context for the work within communities and their specific requirements (including all aspects of design and cultural circumstances). Under the leadership of such experienced Indigenous architects, a s­ elf-determined Indigenous architectural discourse is clearly evolving. It significantly propelled “UNCEDED: Voices of the Land,” the winning submission to represent Canada at the  2018 Venice Biennale, a collective of Indigenous architects from across Turtle Island, under the leadership of Douglas Cardinal and co-curated by the author and Gerald McMaster (Fortin 2018). Arguably as important as the exhibit, however, it was during the months leading up to the exhibition opening that extensive online conversations among the group took place, questioning what Indigeneity, Colonization, Resilience, and Sovereignty meant to each participant and their communities. This was a unique moment for a collective of Indigenous architects to critically assess what design means to them and where it goes from here. For the inaugural International Indigenous Architecture and Design Forum in Ottawa in 2017, the Indigenous voice was similarly prioritized. Meanwhile, Stewart and O’Brien worked with Māori architect and academic Rebecca Kiddle to publish an all-Indigenous book called Our Voices: Indigeneity in Architecture (2018) as a kind of counter text to the more inclusive Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture (2018), with its combination of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars and practitioners. All of these initiatives suggest a shift toward Indigenous design sovereignty, with its own accompanying discourse, is clearly evolving around the globe.

Conclusion In summary, it is worthwhile to return to the question of what Indigenous design agency ultimately means to the architectural profession. For example, in December of 2018, a round-table event was hosted by the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) to discuss the Calls to Action proposed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada as they pertain specifically to the OAA business operations and its professional mandates. During this conversation, the author proposed that young Indigenous ­architects should be supported and encouraged to pursue owning and growing firms given the significant challenges involved in such a task. In response, a relevant question was posed by one of the participants in attendance—“Is ownership the only path?” There are currently approximately eighteen out of ten thousand registered architects in Canada (less than one fifth of 1 percent) who are Indigenous and only half of these own design firms, with only a few having the capacity to act as primary consultant for projects of a certain scale. Inevitably young Indigenous architects will choose to practice in non-Indigenous-owned firms and yet still be offered opportunities to design with Indigenous communities. Yet, as described earlier, Article 23 of

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the UN Declaration states that Indigenous peoples have the right “to determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development … and, as far as possible, to administer such programmes through their own institutions” (United Nations 2007). What would it mean to “administer” “programmes” through “their own institutions” from a professional design perspective, if not to promote Indigenous ownership of the entire design process? It will clearly be generations before Indigenous communities in Canada are able to restore this level of sovereignty over design in the built environment, and during these times Indigenous co-design with allied supporters will continue to be essential in helping build their capacity. But as Laenui argues, the most important phase of any hope for decolonization rests in Indigenous dreaming, “where the full panorama of possibilities is expressed, considered through debate, consultation, and building dreams on further dreams, which eventually become the flooring for the creation of a new social order” (2000:  155). Indigenous design agency in Canada will continue to blossom as higher numbers of Indigenous architects identify this to be their vocation—to dream. As Anishinaabe architect Ryan Gorrie captures through a shared interaction during the design of the Spirit Garden project in Thunder Bay, this new social order, one of comprehensive self-determination, will inevitably rely on Indigenous design agents along the way. At the completion of that first meeting, saying our goodbyes, an elder, whom I’d just met, hugged me, she told me she was so proud of me; that moment will be with me forever. I knew it was my responsibility to make sure the peoples’ vision was realized. There was no room for self doubt. (Brook 2014: 27)

Notes 1 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was constituted and created through the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the largest class action settlement in Canadian history to date. The Commission spent six years traveling throughout Canada to hear from Indigenous peoples who had been taken from their families and sent to residential schools, including over  6,000 witnesses. In the words of the final report, “[These] residential schools were created for the purpose of separating Aboriginal children from their families in order to minimize and weaken family ties and cultural linkages, and to indoctrinate children into a new culture—the culture of the legally dominant EuroChristian Canadian society” (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015: V). It is estimated that over 150,000 First Nation, Métis, and Inuit students passed through the system (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015: 3). The report included 94 Calls to Action “[in] order to redress the legacy of the residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation” (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015: 319–37). 2 The Te Aranga Design Principles evolved from a critique of the 2005 New Zealand Urban Design Protocol, as published by the Ministry for the Environment, without Māori voice and meaningful involvement. This led to a series of gatherings where Māori working

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across design disciplines, resource management sectors, and representatives of cultural organizations throughout the country, drafted the Te Aranga National Māori Cultural Landscape Strategy. A set of seven outcome-oriented design principles came out of this work and were published in the Kaitiakitanga of urban settlements in 2011 which provided the groundwork for the implementation of the process in urban planning practices (Ministry of the Environment 2019). 3 In  2017, while Canada celebrated  150 years since the creation of the Dominion of Canada, many Indigenous groups and individuals chose not to celebrate but instead remind Canadians that confederation can be viewed as the formalization of colonial operations, including Indigenous cultural devastation and genocide.

Bibliography Alexander, C. (1985), The Production of Housing, New York: Oxford. Arctic Design Group (2015), “Arctic States,” Available online: https://arcticdesigngroup.org/ ARCTIC-STATES-SYMPOSIUM (Accessed June 10, 2017). Atkins, L. and The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (2018), “Four Case Studies Exemplifying Best Practices in Architectural Co-design and Building with First Nations,” Available online: https://www.raic.org/news/raic-presents-case-studies-designingindigenous-communities (Accessed November 20, 2018). Awan, N., T. Schneider, and J. Till (2011), Spatial Agency: Other Ways of Doing Architecture, New York: Routledge. Bordeleau, A., S. Hastings, R. J. van Pelt, and D. McKay (2016), The Evidence Room, Toronto: New Jewish Press. Bortolotto. “Building for Context, Inspired by Canada’s 150 Year History,” Available online: https://www.bortolotto.com/News/Bortolotto-Blog/July-2017/Building-for-Context,Inspired-by-Canada-s-150-year-history (Accessed November 22, 2018). Brook, C, ed. (2014), The City and the Spirit Garden: Prince Arthur’s Landing, Thunder Bay, Thunder Bay: City of Thunder Bay. Brown, D. (2018), “Contemporary Māori Architecture,” in E. Grant, K. Greenop, A. Refiti, and D. Glenn (eds), The Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture, 107–25, Singapore: Springer. Canadian Centre for Architecture (2016), “Reassembling the North,” trans. author and Kat Kovalcik. Competition Launch, November 10, 2016. Dalla Costa, W. (2018), “Metrics and Margins: Envisioning Frameworks in Indigenous Architecture in Canada,” in E. Grant, K. Greenop, A. Refiti, and D. Glenn (eds), The Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture, 193–221, Singapore: Springer. Dalla Costa, W. (2018a), “Teaching Indigeneity in Architecture: Indigenous Placekeeping Framework,” in R. Kiddle, Luugigyoo Patrick Stewart, and K. O’Brien (eds), Our Voices: Indigeneity and Architecture, 146–53, Novato: Oro Editions. Evans, R. (1997), Translations from Buildings to Drawings and Other Essays,” Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ferris, E. (2015), “Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples, and Mobility in the Arctic,” Harvard International Review, May 20, Available online: http://hir.harvard.edu/article/?a=11386 (Accessed December 28, 2018).

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Fontaine, T. (2016), “Canada Officially Adopts UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” CBC News, May 10, 2016, Available online: https://www.cbc.ca/news/ indigenous/canada-adopting-implementing-un-rights-declaration-1.3575272 (Accessed December 18, 2018). Fortin, D. (2015), “The Assemblage of Kikino (‘Our Home’): Métis Material Culture and Architectural Design in the Alberta Settlements,” Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, 40 (2): 11–23. Fortin, D. (2018), “The Indigenous Voices of Architecture,” UNCEDED: Voices of the Land Exhibition Publication, 60–3, Available online: https://www.unceded.ca/downloads/ Exhibition%20Publication%20-%20EN.pdf (Accessed February 12, 2019). Frey, P. (2013), Learning from Vernacular: Towards a New Vernacular Architecture, Tours: Actes Sud. Go Sam, C. and C. Keys (2018), “Mobilising Indigenous Agency through Cultural Sustainability in Architecture: Are We There Yet?” in E. Grant, K. Greenop, A. Refiti, and D. Glenn (eds), The Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture, 347–80, Singapore: Springer. Harvey, D. (2000), Spaces of Hope, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Laenui, P. (2000), “Processes of Decolonization,” in M. Battiste (ed.), Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision, 150–60, Vancouver: UBC Press. Lepik, A. (2010), Small Scale, Big Change: New Architecture of Social Engagement, New York: MoMA. Little Bear, L. (2000), “Jagged Worldviews Colliding,” in M. Battiste (ed.), Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision, 77–85, Vancouver: UBC Press. MacTavish, T. et al. (2012), “A Participatory Process for the Design of Housing for a First Nations Community,” Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 27 (2): 207–22. Malnar, J. and F. Vodvarka (2013), New Architecture on Indigenous Lands, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Matunga, H. (2018), “A Discourse on the Nature of Indigenous Architecture,” in E. Grant, K. Greenop, A. Refiti, and D. Glenn (eds), The Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture, 303–30, Singapore: Springer. McCartney, S. (2016), “Re-Thinking Housing: From Physical Manifestation of Colonial Planning Policy to Community-Focused Networks,” Urban Planning, 1 (4): 20–31. Millette, D. (2012), “The First Nation Architectural Landscape: Considering a Neglected Architectural History,” Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, 37 (1): 57–66. Milosz, M. (2016), “Instruments as Evidence: An Archive of the Architecture of Assimilation,” Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, 41 (2): 3–10. Ministry of the Environment, Te Aranga Māori Design Principles, Available online: http:// www.aucklanddesignmanual.co.nz/design-subjects/maori-design/te_aranga_principles (Accessed January 3, 2019). Nejad, S. and R. Walker (2018), “Contemporary Urban Indigenous Placemaking in Canada,” in E. Grant, K. Greenop, A. Refiti, and D. Glenn (eds), The Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture, 223–51, Singapore: Springer. O’Brien, K. (2018), “Architecture and Consent,” in R. Kiddle, Luugigyoo Patrick Stewart, and , K. O Brien (eds), Our Voices: Indigeneity and Architecture, 20–9, Novato: Oro Editions.

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Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (2017), “Highlights Report: RAIC International Indigenous Architecture and Design Symposium,” Available online: https://www.raic. org/sites/default/files/highlightreport_english.pdf (Accessed December 12, 2018). Stewart, Luugigyoo Patrick (2018), “Architecture as Indigenous Voice Soul and Spirit,” in R. Kiddle, Luugigyoo Patrick Stewart, and K. O’Brien (eds), Our Voices: Indigeneity and Architecture, 30–43, Novato: Oro Editions. Stolte, E. (2017), “Nationally Recognized Architect Aims to Turn Farmer’s Field into Vibrant Urban Plaza,” Edmonton Journal, Available online: https://edmontonjournal.com/news/ local-news/nationally-recognized-architect-aims-to-turn-farmers-field-into-vibranturban-plaza (Accessed May 5, 2018). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015), Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Available online: http://nctr.ca/assets/reports/Final%20 Reports/Executive_Summary_English_Web.pdf (Accessed February 19, 2019). Tuck, E. and K. Wang (2012), “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor,” Decolonization: Indigeneity Education & Society, 1 (1): 1–40. van Pelt, R. J. (2002), The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Vowel, C. (2016), Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada, Winnipeg: Highwater Press. United Nations (2007), United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Available online: https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/ uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf (Accessed December 10, 2018).

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16 Design History and Dyslexia Anne Massey The subject of design history is one that has particular appeal for the dyslexic researcher, with its breadth of scope and novel links between people and things. This chapter investigates the relationship between the practice of design history and dyslexia and looks at the barriers that exist for the dyslexic design historian. As a dyslexic author and researcher in the field of design history, I am an agent of design, working through how the teaching and writing of the subject can be improved through the tinted lens of a neurodiverse academic. As Ivan Karp argues: Actors are people whose actions are rule based and rule orientated, whereas agents are people who constitute and reconstitute a social world. The actor operates to reinforce structure. The agent operates in the emergent world where structure has not formed. (Rotenberg 2014: 37)

This chapter asks how design can help improve the lives of those who are neurodiverse with an interest in exploring the history of design. The recommendations made should improve the accessibility of design history for the neurodiverse student and researcher and beyond. This chapter is divided into three sections, which explore the challenges faced by the dyslexic design historian in terms of reading, writing, and researching. As such it offers a meta-reflection on the history of design, a subject which I have been involved with as a student and then a teacher since 1977. Each of the challenges faced is addressed by a counterbalance which highlights the possibilities of design in addressing these challenges. I am UK based and my perspective is therefore informed by the British development of design history since the 1970s as much as the contemporary context of teaching the subject in the UK. Here I focus on the disability labeled dyslexia, which translated literally means difficulty with words. However, researchers have recently defined dyslexia more broadly beyond the merely literal to mean: “a syndrome or group of difficulties, that includes problems with literacy skills, memory, perception, sequencing and organisational skills” (Moody 2006: 3). The British Dyslexia Association uses Sir Jim Rose’s description from his 2009 report on Identifying and Teaching Children and Young People with Dyslexia and Literacy Difficulties: Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. Characteristic features of dyslexia are

difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory and verbal processing speed. Dyslexia occurs across the range of intellectual abilities. It is best thought of as a continuum, not a distinct category, and there are no clear cut-off points. (www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/dyslexic)

Both definitions helpfully move us beyond the common assumption that dyslexia simply means being bad at spelling. I also use dyslexia as an umbrella term to cover dyspraxia and attention deficit (hyperactivity) disorder (ADHD). Estimates as to the proportion of the general population in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States who are dyslexic is  15  percent (­www.dyslexia-reading-well. com/dyslexia-statistics.html) and those studying art and design at the postgraduate level at the Royal College of Art is, for example,  30  percent (https:// www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/press-releases/creative-differences-dyslexiaand-neurodiversity-science-art-and-design/). It is safe, therefore, to assume that nearly one third of those studying some form of art and design history or theory in the UK are dyslexic to some degree. And, while the proportion of staff teaching art and design students who are dyslexic remains unknown, it would be reasonable to assume it is well above the national norm too. The primary research for this chapter embodies an element of risk as it is based on the experience of the author. As an agent of design, I am proposing a different approach to the study of the history of design. I am not sure what the consequences of revealing myself to be dyslexic might be, but my (fairly recent) experience of being screened and diagnosed as dyslexic will hopefully provide insights that will help explain the challenges faced and the help on offer. This (auto)-ethnographic approach situates me as an agent of design, by highlighting how design can make an impact in dealing with these challenges. By revealing this disability I also hope that others who struggle with dyslexia and feel ashamed will have the confidence to declare their status and use the help on offer. The approach to myself as an agent of design is predicated on the understanding of disability put forward by Elizabeth Guffey in Designing Disability: Symbols, Space and Society. She uses the concept of misfit to define the power of normativity over our lives: Here, then, “misfit” is a physical state and a social attitude; the two are inextricably linked. Bodies exist in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and abilities. The clash between this degree of variety and a society unwilling or unable to plan for bodily difference can cause many kinds of misfit. (Guffey 2018: 4)

Guffey argues for designers to begin with the full spectrum of misfits at the beginning of the design process in order for an improved experience for all. Her argument is largely based on physical disability and access to the built environment but applies equally to the dyslexic misfit. Just as there is an ongoing struggle against heteronormativity and gender stereotyping within design history, so too does disability as a theme deserve more attention. There is now a strong resistance to designing buildings and their interiors solely for the able bodied and movements such as Universal

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Design offer inclusivity as a way of understanding design and its history. As Jay Tomothy Dolmage has argued, “Design for disability and benefit all” (Dolmage 2017: 118). Therefore, as an agent of design I am proposing that design history can be better understood by students and researchers when the disability of dyslexia is taken into account. The careful use of design can be applied to the understanding of design history for the neurodiverse researcher. This echoes the definition of situated agency as proposed by Naomi Choi: The suggestion that individuals are always situated within social contexts leaves open the possibility that they are situated agents who can innovate against the background of such context. Moreover, situated agency entails only the ability to creatively transform an inherited tradition, language or discourse; it does not entail the ability to transcend social context. (Choi 2007: 872)

The first hurdle in coming to terms with design history is frequently reading the written word.

Reading As Grace Lees-Maffei has argued, design history is essentially a discipline rooted in the written text (Lees-Maffei 2012: 1–3) so the foremost challenge for the dyslexic design historian lies in the physical act of reading. This encompasses the archival materials at the primary research level, and the secondary textual material generated. Academic publishers are reluctant to fund color illustrated books and journals, which would greatly enhance the experience for the dyslexic reader of secondary sources. In terms of archival material, the cataloguing and ordering of materials could also be more dyslexia friendly. It is the visual, spatial, and tactile aspect of design history which has probably attracted the researcher to the subject in the first instance as many studying design history are on undergraduate and postgraduate studio-based courses (Fallan 2010: viii–xix). The written texts then too often fail to support this attraction. Design history developed in the UK from the need to address teaching a theory-based curriculum for art and design practice students following the British Coldstream Report of 1960 (Woodham 2001). This was produced by the National Advisory Council on Art Education, chaired by William Coldstream outlining the requirements for a new Diploma in Art and Design (Dip.A.D.). These proposals eventually led to more art school courses being given degree status. While the report stipulated that art history and liberal studies should form at least 15 percent of the curriculum, most art schools opted for 20 percent. However, the provision of traditional art history, usually delivered by means of lectures, backed up by reading key texts with the requirement to submit essays was not helpful, particularly for the dyslexic design student. Pressure came during the late  1960s for more relevant teaching and so through the agency of the design students, design history was developed. This was one of the central reasons for the famous Hornsey School of Art student protests of 1968, for example (Tickner 2008).

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Therefore, Hornsey became a leading center for the development of design history for the design student, later to become part of Middlesex Polytechnic, which morphed into Middlesex University. Staff there developed image-led research and published visual essays in the important research journal, BLOCK, from 1979 to 1989. However, the predominant discipline remained art history with allegiances to cultural studies and film studies. The offer was still essentially humanities driven and ways of presenting information to students were through the printed word and the reproduced image, which were difficult for the dyslexic student to navigate. However, this need for design history to justify itself as an academic discipline has haunted its existence ever since. Grace Lees Maffei and D. J. Huppatz make an important distinction between two separate parts of the discipline of design history, differentiating between “design history delivered as contextual studies for design students, and design history as a discrete academic subject as taught in art history degrees and as researched by design historians” (Huppatz and Lees-Maffei  2010:  311). It could be argued that this thirst for academic respectability has not fit well with the needs of the dyslexic student or researcher. Even now, design text books tend to be poorly produced with little consideration given to their fit with the dyslexic reader (Massey 2017). Many students choose a design career path as they think it will be the best fit for their strengths, and the reading part at the undergraduate level often comes as an unwelcome surprise. This has been my own experience of teaching design studio undergraduates since  1980; and, more research on the subject is certainly needed. As the Chartered Psychologist David Grant has argued: I’m not sure that dyslexics are born to be creative, visual thinkers. I suspect that it is the experience of being dyslexic that leads to many dyslexics becoming creative and being dyslexic that influences their choice of what profession to enter. Surprising as it may seem, remarkably little research has examined the assumed link between being dyslexic and being creative. (Grant 2010: 106)

This connection would seem like a fruitful area for further research. In my own experience, I struggled at my state Grammar School despite passing the  11-plus (an examination set for all school children at the age of  11–12 in the UK from  1944 until it was phased out by 1976. It matched children’s academic ability and IQ to an academic pathway, the Grammar School; the more skills-based Comprehensive or the Technical School) to prove my intelligence and have always been an avid reader, visual thinker, and creative writer. The only subjects I enjoyed and was good at were art, design, English, and history. I performed poorly in examinations, as dyslexia at that point in time (in the late 1960s and 1970s) was not diagnosed and recognized as it is today. In common with many adult dyslexics, I was made to feel lazy and stupid at school. While my peers filled in applications for universities, I headed for the local art school, again, a common pattern for the dyslexic learner. Leaving school with poor A-level results, I began studying fashion design at what was then Newcastle Polytechnic in 1975 (formerly Newcastle College of Art and Design), but being dyslexic found the practical elements challenging. I managed to transfer into the BA (Hons)

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History of Modern Art and Design in 1977, one of the first to be established in the UK. The degree was taught in the art school environment, alongside fellow students in fine art and design, which felt comfortable. There were only sixteen students in the year group and we were given positive support, although dyslexia was still not recognized within the British higher education sector and no specialist support was available, as there is now. At that point books on design history were rare but were, in the main, well produced, usually clearly illustrated and designed. Even the staple reading of Pevsner’s Pioneers of Modern Design was beautifully laid out, ­well-illustrated, and easy to read. The typeface used was the sturdy Monotype Plantin which was printed on cream paper, making the text easier to read for the dyslexic student. In addition, almost every page carries at least one high-quality image, directly relevant to the text. The course was stimulating, broad based, and with a practical element, as trainee art and design historians we all painted in the studio one day per week which suited the dyslexic student, although I was not particularly talented! This hands-on experience seemed to all change with the impact of IT in the later 1990s. Now employed as a full-time lecturer in design history I struggled to read from the screen and found the universal office fluorescent lighting distracting, which I now know are signs of dyslexia. I could not work in shared office spaces because the background noise and the constant movement distracted me. But I did struggle on, applying for jobs which guaranteed a quiet, single-occupancy office. At the start of the twenty-first century, colleagues looked at me aghast when I said I found it hard to read from the computer screen. The design values of design history books seemed to decline with the burgeoning influence of IT.1 This was just as design history was growing in importance as a subject, with Oxford University Press launching the Journal of Design History in 1987. But perhaps this was an era when many so-called coffee table books were published about the history of design. They were more connoisseurial in approach and destined for a popular market. With design history’s mission to be taken seriously as an academic subject, perhaps the more academic the appearance of the publication the more it was valued in university circles. But it may now be time, with the growing confidence in design history, to concentrate on the design values of the subject’s publications. Therefore, in terms of design agency publishers of design history texts could do far more to meet the needs of the dyslexic reader. Clearly written texts and well-produced books and journals would help dyslexics and other users alike. As Elizabeth Guffey has argued when discussing design and disability, “Designers have it in their power to invent better fits” (Guffey 2018: 4). Although current copyright and requirements for high-resolution images make picture research expensive and time-consuming, there would seem to be no issue with being more ambitious about the appearance of the physical book and its digital equivalent. For example, more plentiful and higher quality illustrations would add greatly to the experience of all readers, not only dyslexics. On a practical level, the flickering of words on the screen and on the page so often experienced by the dyslexic reader and known as visual stress can be addressed through designers acting as agents by providing alternatives to unhelpful norms

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which may present a barrier to the dyslexic reader [Figure 16.1]. Recent research has found that colored overlays for the page stop the letters moving around while spectacles with colored lenses have the same benefit. My own glasses are rose tinted, and I can now read without impairment [Figure 16.2]. The other issues to consider are the color of the paper on which the text and images are printed. At the University of the Arts London (UAL), for example, all handouts for staff training and particular photocopies in the Learning Resource areas use buff paper rather than stark white, which also helps the dyslexic reader. The typeface is also crucial, with the specially designed font Dyslexie, for example, being easier to read [Figure 16.3]: The Dyslexie font is specially designed for people with dyslexia, in order to make reading easier—and more fun. During the design process, all basic typography rules and standards were ignored. Readability and specific characteristics of dyslexia are used as the guidelines for the design. (www.dyslexiefont.com/en/ home)

The Dyslexie typeface designers are themselves dyslexic and, based on their own experience, they developed a font whose features include a heavy base; some letters that are similar, “b” and “d,” for example, are inclined differently to help the reader distinguish between them; there is greater spacing between words and the openings of letters; punctuation and capitals are shown in bold to help with reading; and letters are higher than they are wide. Standard fonts such as Times New Roman confuse the dyslexic reader and sans serif alternatives such as Arial and Verdana are preferable. Furthermore, when producing PowerPoint presentations slides should have an off white or pastel background, simple and pithy, and should avoid using long lists of bullet-pointed dense texts. Design, as a result, can cognitively support dyslexic design historians. Much can be achieved to help the dyslexic design historian read around the subject to the benefit of all. Dyslexic designers act as design agents in producing a more readable font and by drawing attention to the issue I act as an agent of design. But, then there is the next hurdle, writing design history.

Figure 16.1  An example of visual stress. (© British Dyslexia Association)

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Figure 16.2  Rose-tinted spectacles, courtesy of Cerium Visual Technologies. (Image: author)

Figure 16.3  Examples of the Dyslexie font. (© Dyslexie)

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Writing While studying design subjects at the degree level and beyond there is the need to prove. Since the beginning when design history was being taught at a tertiary level, students were expected to prove they had met the learning outcomes of the curriculum by producing essays in the first two years and then a dissertation in the final year, which many found and still find a daunting and painful experience. I have always struggled with essay writing, verbal presentations, and written exams. During my degree there were five exams at the end of each year. Fortunately, I broke my shoulder just before my finals. It did not feel like it at the time, but the opportunity to dictate my 10,000-word dissertation into a Dictaphone and have it typed up was liberating. I could think far more clearly without struggling with spelling words and ordering my thoughts simultaneously. I received the best mark yet during my degree for the dissertation. The exam issue was also solved as I could not write my final papers. As a result, I had to dictate the answers to a scribe with a lecturer present, which was intimidating but the words flowed far more freely. Buoyed by the experience, I no longer felt stupid or lazy, and so I registered straightaway for a research degree on the same subject as my dissertation, that is, the Independent Group.2 The process of researching and writing the thesis was challenging but immensely enjoyable. In common with many dyslexics, I have learned to be resourceful and resilient. I passed the viva, the only proviso was that I corrected the myriad spelling mistakes—my external examiner had never seen a thesis with so many errors, as this was pre-word processing so I couldn’t see them. Of course, in  1984 there was little understanding of dyslexia and there have been marked improvements since. Word processing has helped enormously as have devices to cut screen glare. Much work has been carried out in relation to students in tertiary education who require support in terms of writing for their dyslexia. Change in the availability of student support came with the British Disability Discrimination Act of  1995 and the Equality Act of  2010 which stipulated that higher education institutions had to make reasonable adjustments for those suffering mental impairment, which covers dyslexia. Supported by government funding in the form of The Disabled Students Allowance (DSA), provision is made for dyslexic students, for example allowing extra time for assignments and extra support with structuring and writing up essays and dissertations. This funding is only available to UK home students however. The RCA in London, for example, has its own Dyslexia Support service to help with screening and learning support and the UAL offers support as part of its Disability Service. The DSA enables home students to buy in twenty hours of one-to-one support for their coursework and the Dyslexia Support service at the RCA, for example, is concerned with helping overseas students who do not have access to the DSA. There is recognition nationally that dyslexic students need more time for written assignments or the PhD viva, for example. The other apparatus which can be immensely helpful are software programs such as Dragonspeak, which recognizes the writer’s voice and

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types up on the PC as they speak. It is also useful to record lectures to listen back to and make notes. This is now embedded good practice within the UK HE sector and helps the dyslexic design student in their studies. Students can also be encouraged to undertake a more creative form of writing, akin to sketching. The work undertaken by Jane Rendall in terms of site writing can be developed to give students confidence to take risks and use writing more creatively (Rendell 2006). This practice involves writing in situ in the form of field notes accompanied by sketches. But there is comparatively less attention paid to the staff teaching design history and theory, who probably mirror the proportion of dyslexic students. Design history makes an excellent field for the dyslexic researcher to engage with. It can be image or object led and plays to the dyslexic’s common skill of enhanced three-dimensional thinking. Design history also draws upon and cuts across different, neighboring disciplines including history but also art history, politics, gender studies, and technology. This also plays to the strengths of the dyslexic researcher, who can usually think laterally and make connections that are not immediately obvious. In my own case, the research area of the Independent Group (Massey 1995) and more recently, Interiors, plays to these strengths in terms of writing up research. For example, when I launched the academic journal Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture with my co-editor John Turpin and the publishers Berg in July 2010 the Editorial Introduction stressed: The interior is uniquely challenging as an object of study because of its myriad of components (from the views into the landscape to the vase of flowers on the table), its transitory nature (a reflection of human capriciousness and changing need), and its many creators (from homemaker to star designer). (Massey and Turpin 2010: 5)

What does not help the dyslexic design historian is the current support for publication. But once the article, chapter, or book reaches the publisher the challenges begin. When I began publishing my writing in the 1980s it was a joy. Patient in-house editors were supportive and engaged fully with the work, they would either meet with you or talk on the telephone. Most of the editing work was paper based and the pictures were sent as photographs by post. Producing Interior Design of the 20th Century for Thames & Hudson, commissioned by Nikos Stangos, was a real pleasure, although the copy editor couldn’t believe how bad my spelling was (Massey 1990). My PhD was published by Manchester University Press in 1996 as The Independent Group: Modernism and Mass Culture in Britain 1945–59, which was again a rewarding experience. This all seemed to change with the impact of IT in the late 1990s. I struggled to read from the screen and as joint founding editor of the academic journal, Interiors, I relished the challenge of finding new contributors and putting each edition together to take the study of the interior forward. John and I worked in a cottage industry style, with documents as attachments to emails—that way I could print them out to read. The journal was sold to Taylor & Francis in 2016

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along with other key Bloomsbury titles including Fashion Theory and Luxury. The editors were then introduced to the editorial system. Thinking in terms of design agency this proved to be a major barrier for me as I could not easily and quickly grasp the various stages and layers of IT. This was a science and humanities-based system which did not meet the needs of the dyslexic, which meant there was a misfit. I have subsequently struggled with the system even in terms of submitting articles to other journals, as it involves a linear process that is visually confusing and entirely text based. It is a similar story with books in the twenty-first century, with sub-editing often sub-contracted out and onerous picture research taking up more resources than ever before with the need for numerous passwords and usernames. All communication takes place by means of email and the ability to read for long hours from the screen is taken for granted. Design could be employed more readily here, to produce easier forms and processes to follow. Color coding and suitable fonts would help enormously. Writing illustrated books, articles, and chapters on the history of design can be such a rewarding experience for the dyslexic writer, and through the use of design the system for submission could be significantly improved. There is help in the UK for design historians who are in employment. Through the Equality Act of 2010 staff are entitled to request dyslexia screening with support from their employer and subsequent support through Access to Work, a UK ­government-funded scheme to ensure that disabled employees receive adequate support. Staff may be hesitant to reveal this apparent weakness at work and the shame of dyslexia, which they may have covered up for years, continues to dog many. I went through the Access to Work process myself during 2017–18 with the support of my then employer, the University of the Arts London. I received training for the use of Dragonspeak and six sessions of support from an experienced dyslexia tutor. This greatly enhanced my understanding of being dyslexic and gave me the courage to concentrate on my strengths, which do not lie in the area of academic administration. As with publishing, more and more complex systems are being introduced in academia, which leave me, for one, exhausted and baffled. As Qona Rankin, Head of the Dyslexia Support Service at the RCA, recalled: Back in 2002 we had quite a lot of administrative support and there was far less on-line bureaucracy. I have known at least three members of staff leave because they couldn’t hack the admin that they were then required to do … It does seem to me that within the art school environment the organisation has lost sight of the individual’s strengths, of the academics working there and are trying to force them into this quasi administrator/lecturer/wearing of all hats type lecturer which just doesn’t work. (Rankin 2018: 1)

As a possible solution to this issue, Rankin suggests bringing in Access to Work to talk to IT developers who invent systems to make user interfaces more usable for the dyslexic members of staff. Programs such as the financial system Agresso3 are cumbersome and difficult to use and many universities also use different systems for different aspects of an academic’s job: E-vision for monitoring students’ attendance

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and entering grades, Agresso for accounting and another for Human Resource matters or room bookings. For the dyslexic reader, and possibly many other academics, the stress of dealing with these disconnected systems is exhausting and detracts from the job in hand. The same plethora of systems is also now a feature of applying for research funding for design history research.

Researching For the design history researcher, dyslexia could arguably be seen as a positive advantage. Dyslexics struggle with systems and conventional ways of project initiation and development. However, they are apt to be creative in the sense of thinking laterally and seeing beyond boundaries. In terms of research into the history of design the dyslexic will excel at bringing together original ideas and using disparate resources. Oral history is one area that dyslexics may find rewarding as well as visual analysis. The use of archives and library catalogues, printed material, and the general historiography of design may present more of a challenge in relation to dyslexia. Recent work by Curatorial Director of the University of Brighton Design Archives Catherine Moriarty (2016: 52–63) has demonstrated the advantages of communicating archival content concerned with design in more easily understood formats, beyond the usual archival lists in descending, hierarchical layers: The considered production of data structures driven by educational imperatives, rather than the commercial priorities of institutional digital strategies, has an important role in leading work of this kind. Design theory and practice informing project design and the presentation of data, as well as design content, needs to declare itself in a digital humanities context, behind the scenes and out front. In this way critical design thinking and the study of design history come together to encourage us to think carefully about what we see, how we see it, and the processes of selection and editing it has gone through historically and more recently, thus offering new ways to reshape the form and content of design history. (Moriarty 2016: 63)

More dyslexia-friendly signposting and categorization would greatly enhance the experience of design history for the neurodiverse researcher through the use of design. As Robert Rotenberg has argued: Assemblage is itself an example of a way of ordering and arranging knowledge that Deleuze and Guattari characterize as a rhizome, as opposed to q hierarchy, or tree. Tree-like arrangements are bounded systems of knowing that have first principles, foundations, that produce unambiguous secondary identities within the arrangement. … Rhizomes, on the other hand, are flat, unsystematic and open. A rhizoid way of knowing focuses on thresholds or condition that, once attained, bring about a transformation. (Rotenberg 2014: 40)

Presenting the end results of design history research in a comprehensible way for peers involves conference papers, possibly at the annual Design History Society,

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Association for Art History, or College Art Association conferences. This is a supportive and positive way of sharing research, and the dyslexic researcher can devote the necessary time to preparing the presentation. However, they need to be able to signal their dyslexia somehow as they will find responding the questions at the end difficult as quite commonly, as is the case with myself, there is a gap between intelligence and auditory short-term memory. This makes it difficult for the dyslexic presenter to respond “off the cuff” to questions at the end of the presentation. It presents similar problems in academic meetings and discussions. Quite often, I find myself not being able to keep up with the pace of a meeting as I don’t have the necessary time to formulate a response. Through the use of design, dyslexia could be more clearly signposted in research presentations, for example, and dyslexic staff can prepare for a meeting in advance, with a script to give support for an important point they wish to make.

Conclusion This chapter has argued that the dyslexic design historian faces many challenges in terms of various facets of their practice. Through my own experiences I have outlined some of the main issues which dog the dyslexic researcher. However, I have also suggested that through the use of design a more open and accessible design history process is possible. If one third of those engaged with design history are dyslexic, surely it is worth ensuring that there is not such a misfit between the reading, writing, and researching of the subject. And this would be to the benefit of all. As an agent of design, I have drawn attention to the following points: ●●

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Students and staff who are neurodiverse will hopefully find this chapter useful, make their disability known, and access help on offer without shame. More research on the links between dyslexia and creativity among design students and staff is needed. Publishers of design history texts could be more mindful about the needs of the dyslexic reader in the production of journals and books. This includes a consideration of typeface, color of paper, and use of illustrations. The use of colored overlays or tinted spectacles can reduce visual disturbance for the dyslexic reader. Dragonspeak is a useful software packaged to make writing easier for the neurodiverse author. Software developers, publishers, universities, and research councils need to consider improving the user interfaces of their programs. This includes financial management, HR, document editing, and student records. The representation of knowledge and archival signposting could be greatly improved for the dyslexic user, to the benefit of all.

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Acknowledgments With thanks to Jos Boys, Judith Massey Content Services Ltd., Harriet McKay, Qona Rankin, Alena Stitchner, and Sarah Teasley.

Notes 1 One example is a book I published by Routledge in  2006, Designing Liners: Interior Design Afloat (Wealleans 2006). The paper was stark white and thin, the reproductions are grainy and grey. 2 The Independent Group was a loose collection of architects, art critics, artists, designers, and musicians which met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London from  1952 to  1955. During the group’s discussions and creative outputs modernism was challenged and popular culture included. 3 Agresso is a standalone piece of software used by many universities in the UK for financing approval and accounting. It is an online system which all staff are required to use for the repayment of expenses, for example.

Bibliography Choi, N. (2007), “Situated Agency,” in M. Bevir (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Governance, 873, London: Sage. Dolmage, J. T. (2017), Academic Abalism: Disability and Higher Education, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Fallan, K. (2010), Design History: Understanding Theory and Method, Oxford: Berg Publishers. Grant, D. (2010), That’s the Way I Think: Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and ADHD Explained, Adingdon: Routledge. Guffey, E. (2018), Designing Disability: Symbols, Space and Society, London: Bloomsbury Academic. Huppatz, D. J. and G. Lees-Maffei. (2010), “Why Design History? A Multi-National Perspective on the State and Purpose of the Field,” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 12 (2–3): 311. DOI: 10.1177/1474022212467601. Lees-Maffei, G., ed. (2012), Writing Design: Words and Objects, Oxford: Berg Publishers. Massey, A. (1990), Interior Design since 1900, London: Thames & Hudson World of Art, 1st edition 1990; 3rd edition, 2008, 4th edition planned for 2020. Massey, A. (1995), The Independent Group: Modernism and Mass Culture in Britain, 1945–59, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Massey, A. (2017), “The Routledge Companion to Design Studies,” The Design Journal, 21 (1): 177–80. Massey, A. and J. Turpin. (2010), “Editorial Introduction,” Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture, 1 (1): 5–6. Moody, S. (2006), Dyslexia: How to Survive at Work, London: Vermillion. Moriarty, C. (2016), “Monographs, Archives and Networks: Representing Designer Relationships,” Design Issues, 32 (4): 52–63.

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Rankin, Q. (n.d.), Interview with author, July 13, 2018. Rendell, J. (2006), Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism, London: I.B. Tauris. Rosenberg, R. (2014), “Material Agency in the Urban Culture Initiative,” Museum Anthropology, 37 (1): 36–45. Tickner, L. (2008), Hornsey 1968: The Art School Revolution, London: Francis Lincoln. Wealleans, A. (2006), Designing Liners: A History of Interior Design Afloat, Adingdon: Routledge. Woodham, J. M. (2001), “Designing Design History: From Pevsner to Postmodernism,” Working Papers in Communication Research Archive, 1 (1): Digitisation and Knowledge.

Websites www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/dyslexic (Accessed July 25, 2018). www.dyslexiefont.com/en/home/ (Accessed July 25, 2018). www.dyslexia-reading-well.com/dyslexia-statistics.html (Accessed January 4, 2019).

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17 Textual Agency: Pitfalls and Potentials Jessica Hemmings Several years ago, in Dublin, I had the following brief conversation with a postgraduate student: JH: How is your thesis progressing? Student: I’m finished. JH: Congratulations! Student: I just need to add the theory bit.

I have recounted this story with a wry smile to many academic colleagues in the years since it took place, often in conversations about the fraught relationship of theory to practice within the academic models I can claim as familiar. The student I quote did not intend to be humorous, nor do I think they were particularly interested in testing my patience. In fact, I have begun to reflect on their honesty. Theoretical models of thinking conveyed through text continue to command greater agency within arts education despite other types of knowledge often occupying more of our time and thought. But first a rewind to the winter of 2016. I am in Amsterdam when the Portuguese artist Leonor Antunes’s performance commissioned by If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution is presented as An Open House at the Aldo van Eyck’s Hubertushuis [Figures 17.1 and 17.2]. Designed in 1973, Hubertushuis was planned “as a home for mothers in difficulty. Together with their children, these mothers could find temporary accommodation within the house, and if so desired, make use of the professional help available” (www.arcam.nl). Antunes introduced women dressed in blocks of bright color—a similar bold color scheme to Van Eyck’s now-empty building. In place of the building’s original purpose to shelter and support women and children, Antunes’s actors (including herself) stood motionless. The terraces, stairs, and passages once intended to “encourage social interaction” (www.arcam.nl) were temporarily reoccupied by lone women, each turned away from the interior of the building’s original intentions to support mothers and children and instead gaze toward solitary horizons beyond our sight. Alongside the suggestion of isolation, the lone female figure framed in a window evokes association to the sex trade, perhaps particularly in the context of Amsterdam.1 While the performance was visible from the street, it was most clearly seen by viewers invited into the neighboring section of the building, inside the architecture.

Figure 17.1  Leonor Antunes, An Open House at the Aldo van Eyck’s Hubertushuis, Amsterdam, with If I Can’t Dance (December 10, 2016). (Image courtesy of Leonor Antunes & If I Can’t Dance)

Figure 17.2  Leonor Antunes, An Open House at the Aldo van Eyck’s Hubertushuis, Amsterdam, with If I Can’t Dance (December 10, 2016). (Image detail courtesy of Leonor Antunes & If I Can’t Dance)

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Meeting Antunes shortly after the performance, I was sure she had drawn her inspiration for the performance from a book I had recently reread by architect and academic Jill Stoner called Towards a Minor Architecture (2012). Stoner explains, “Minor architectures operate from outside the major economy, potentially outside the architectural profession, and outside prevailing critical frameworks—outside these dominant cultural paradigms, but inside architecture’s physical body” (2012:  15). To my mind this was exactly what Antunes had created. While the Hubertushuis was conceived with social intentions at the fore, her performance moved inside the building to critique its current unoccupied identity and offer an acute reminder of the absence of those for whom the building was originally intended. When I later spoke to Antunes she was politely interested, but had never heard of the book. And then it dawned on me: Was I in danger of becoming the very joke I had shared with so many of my academic colleagues? Was I just adding the theory bit? In fairness, writing a thesis and adding some footnotes the day before submission is not the same as seeing a theory alive within a practice—intended or otherwise. But I remain suspicious of my own motivations. What legacy was I perpetuating that wanted to explain Antunes performance via another text rather than allow agency to reside in the performance itself? My use of the term “agency” throughout this chapter is, by my own admission, not a sophisticated one. The agency I write about here is twofold. If Alfred Gell’s influential Art and Agency (1998) (cited by John Potvin in his opening lecture at the conference that led to this publication) foregrounds the artistic artifact, my first observation dwells on a contrary position, which is the power that written forms of communication continue to command in studio or practiced-based (rather than historical or theoretical) arts education, particularly at the PhD level. But my second observation of agency at work is found in a negation of this dominance that can be found in the examples of practitioner’s writing I will discuss in this chapter. In these examples, the authors are not resigned to this imbalance but instead take risks to test forms of writing that do not conform to staid academic conventions. My second understanding of agency is situated, if situated agency is apparent in individuals who “can create traditions and practices through local reasoning and modify the very background that influences them” (Choi 2007: 873). This twofold reading of agency may be understood as what Andrew Pickering terms “the dance of agency” (2010: 1)—a push and pull of power—although Pickering’s observations are applied to very different subject areas of knowledge. Rehearsing the various ways in which agency has been understood, Johanna Drucker (2017) observes that the term “design agency” has shifted over the past century and a half from a noun which “clearly designated an organization of professionals who offered their services to do something [to] our contemporary moment, [when] concepts of agency have been informed by new materialist approaches that split sentential agency (a self-aware cognition) from mechanical agency” (2017: 9). But it is Drucker’s third form of agency that I see in my writing, performative agency, which she defines as “the ability of a work, word[,] person, or object to make something

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happen through an action or expression” (2017: 9). In this chapter I consider examples of writing about practice-based research that were not complacent despite the surrounding power structures of the university. Instead these examples seek to develop writing produced within university research about practice that made something happen in ways more useful to the knowledge practice-based PhDs create. The apogee of the overdetermined agency of text in practice-based research can be found in the practice-based PhD by publication route found in Britain.2 The oddity that this would, without question, be communicated through written language rather than, for example, further practical work, confirms that within the university agency continues to remain predominantly the domain of written text. These concerns are also confirmed every time I witness PhD examinations of what in the British Isles is referred to as practice-based (or practice-led or practice-informed) or in Sweden PhD research “on artistic grounds” and a written thesis is read and examined often in the curious absence of other forms of communication. Workshops, making, and performances are often at the very heart of these endeavors but can remain strangely absent from the formal proceedings. My interests are far from new. A lengthy account of these debates appears in Artists with PhDs (Elkins 2014) and, more recently, Artistic Research in the Future Academy (Butt 2017). In the Swedish context where I now work, Andreas Nobel’s PhD thesis “Shady Enlightenment: Textualized Thinking and Its consequences for Design” (2016) rehearses the debate from a particularly acute perspective. Nobel, Butt, and Elkins’s edited volume do not explicitly couch their arguments in terms of agency, but are all engaged in the question of what makes something happen in practice. In the closing lines of his thesis Nobel asks, “Is there something about the Gutenberg’s printing press that makes it more trustworthy as a truthful technological medium than a bow lathe [the tool of his studio inquiry], or is it just a matter of who is looking from what perspective, and with which underlying interests?” (2016: 238). This chapter attempts to make sense of my two anecdotes by considering the agency written language enjoys within the university and, to a lesser extent, the museum and offer some examples of responses to this question. After airing my despair over the power jargon holds within writing about the arts, I consider three recent examples of practitioners’ research (two PhDs in Britain and one project from the Norwegian Artistic Research Fellowship Programme) that shed some light on how the relationship between written discourse and practice-based knowledge may be navigated and communicated. Rather than haunt the tired terrain of the theory–practice divide, these examples suggest alternative concerns from practitioners who have responded to the agency of text on their own terms. This includes recognizing when vocabulary needs to be built before written language can even serve as a useful tool of communication. I then consider two projects where the agency of particular existing vocabularies familiar within the university failed to travel well. Finally, I attempt to peek ahead and discover what types of communication may wield the greatest agency and be most needed in the future.

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A brief note on my word choice: I am conscious that the focus of this book is agency within design practices. Throughout this chapter I have chosen to use the generic term “arts” because, while lacking accuracy, is more inclusive. The examples I dwell on at length are drawn from writing by practitioners of ceramics and t­ extiles— disciplines that intermittently find themselves unwelcome in both contemporary art and design discourses.

The Agency of Jargon “What is distinctly human is not the capacity for language. It is the crystallisation of language in writing” (Gray 2002: 56). The human capacity to put thought in written form is unique to our species, but it does not seem to have protected us from the disheartening fact that we live among large amounts of appallingly bad writing. Writing presents an opportunity to develop understanding, but there are countless examples that seem committed to the opposite. The philosopher Alain de Botton3 warns that “wisdom does not require a specialized vocabulary or syntax, nor does an audience benefit from being wearied” (2000: 158). Instead he encourages “taking our levels of boredom when reading into account” because boredom “can temper an otherwise excessive tolerance for balderdash” (158). De Botton’s advice is taken to heart by the ceramicist Grayson Perry who with great humor loses patience with a wall text from the 2011 Venice Biennale (Perry 2013: 10). Perry refers to Alix Rule and David Levine’s (2012) mapping of “international art English,”4 diagnosing that it “began in the 1960s in art magazines and […] spread like wildfire because everybody wanted to be thought of as being very serious about the art” (2013: 10). Rule and Levine write, “How did we end up writing in a way that sounds like inexpertly translated French?” (2012). Perry points out that international art English “spread to institutions, commercial galleries, even students’ dissertations, you’ll still see it in today” (2013: 10) and concludes with the warning, “the non-fluent in this kind of language might feel a bit uneducated” and seeks to break this cycle by saying what is infrequently confronted: if you “think you might need to understand this in order to pass judgment: I just want to tell you now, you don’t” (2013). Perry introduced his Reith lecture series by explaining, “I’ve called this series of lectures Playing to the Gallery and not, you may note, Sucking up to an Academic Elite” (2013:  3). The academic Jan Svenungsson also establishes a distance from academic elitism when he observes a similar type of exclusion at work in an artist’s catalogue writing about the artist’s own work. Unlike Perry, Svenungsson chooses not to name and shame his subject, but he does explain an experience I think will be familiar to many readers: “I read it, I re-read it, then I read it again. The first sentence is easy. In the second, it gets complicated; by the third sentence, I’m lost. I hardly understand a word, and much less why he using these words” (2007: 16). Svenungsson’s example differs from Perry’s because, as he explains, “I know that this particular artist can be a very good writer—but in this text I see a cynicism appear, an

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aggression towards the reader, a desire (conscious or sub-conscious) to make the reader bounce back, rather than to create any real understanding” (2007: 17). Both Perry and Svengunsson observe exclusion at work—a way of presenting ideas and knowledge that works against the possibility that the reader may be better informed for having read the text. That a reader’s understanding may have deepened does not seem to be a priority for the author. This approach to writing is not interested in the possibility that information could be transferred to others who in turn may enjoy a new position of agency within discourses in future. Via Rule and Levine, Perry diagnoses that we recreate unclear writing out of some lemming-like sense of obligation. This is what I have read, so this must be how it is done. Svengunsson points to cynicism and even aggression, in his example, by the artist toward their audience. A third version is observed by Amy Whitaker in her humorous discussion of why we face such an overwhelming sense of fatigue when visiting art museums—a sensation she coins “museum legs.” Whitaker explains: “If art fatigue reflects apathy at feeling left out of a conversation around art, then one must try to avoid writing about it in similarly disenfranchising language” (2009: 5). Whitaker turns her attention to what we are offered as reading material in the museum—often the wall text—noting that “obfuscation is a weird and obscure mercantilism, an isolationism that in an economy walls off a country, and in museums circumscribes a field of knowledge. Museum legs would seem to be less the result of sensory overload or vast spaces as much as feeling on the outside of an inside joke” (2009: 89). What each of these observations shares is the acknowledgment that these styles of communication are not accidental, they serve a purpose and that purpose is to exclude. It need not be this way. The Australian academic Helen Sword in her study of academic writing assumes, understandably, that across all the academic subjects we write because we are genuinely interested in communicating our research. Sword’s study celebrates examples of academic writing that “take care to remain intelligible to educated readers both within and beyond their own discipline, they think hard about both how and what they write, and they resist intellectual conformity” (2012: viii). In a gesture that I think would please Alain de Botton and his invitation for us, at times, to lose patience with our reading matter Sword explains, “I aim to start a stylistic revolution that will end in improved reading conditions for all […] I hope to empower colleagues who have come to believe—I have heard this mantra again and again—that they are ‘not allowed’ to write in a certain way” (2012: vii). Jargon, ironically, has become a familiar style of writing within the arts. This style does not seem to cause considerable concern, despite the nonsense it communicates. But in disciplines where academic modes of study—at least at the third cycle level—are relatively new what is and is not “allowed” are very real debates.

Agency within the University In Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Maryanne Wolf considers the history of the human ability to read. She reminds us that Socrates

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expressed considerable concern about the transition from the well-honed powers of memorization and oral literacy to writing down thoughts, fearing the change would create a dreadful erosion of the human intellect (2008:  71–2). We now see these ancient anxieties were unfounded, aware instead that “the writer’s efforts to capture ideas with ever more precise written words contain within them an inner dialogue, which each of us who has struggled to articulate our thoughts knows from the experience of watching our ideas change shape through the sheer effort of writing” (Wolf 2008: 73). But the ongoing dominance of written text—even a text that has been pushed and pressed into a satisfactory shape—continues to carry with it tensions. Katie McGown’s practice-based PhD at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle in England articulates an unspoken by-product of the agency of text for practitioners working with PhD-level research5: The physicality of constructing these pieces and the immutable time they took to complete meant that my days had to be neatly divided to accommodate the written component of this project: in the mornings I wrote, and in the afternoon[s] I made. I wrote in the mornings to use up the first clarity and focus of the day. I wrote until my head was no longer formulating coherent sentences, and until I could no longer focus on the goal of the project. These are always my best hours, and there was a sacrifice in giving them over almost exclusively to writing in the last year of the project. On a few rare days I used that energy for my studio work, neglecting my daily word count. Although anyone supporting me through this process, and any likely reader of this text [,] would accept these days without words as normal and useful, there was a perpetual and accompanying guilt. This guilt did not manifest on the days where I only wrote and ignored the unfinished objects in the studio. Despite best intentions, the writing always seems to outweigh the art. (McGown 2017: 81–3)

McGown eloquently describes a reality that is not particular to her research project. Not only does the writing tend to outweigh the art, writing often feels like a more justified use of research time than making. When a practice requires particularly time-consuming making (as McGown’s hand-tufted sculptures required) this tension becomes all the more acute. Because making continues to struggle for agency within the university research context, there remains an underlying atmosphere of concern around the investment of the researcher’s time in relation to the outcome. But even the idea that agency resides within text is not simple for practitioners who find that the vocabulary needed to communicate their research is distant or even nonexistent. Caroline Slotte, reflecting on her experience within the Norwegian Artistic Fellowship Programme observes: When writing about my own art, I often get the sense that words and work don’t quite match. Like equal magnet poles, they repel one another; as if moved by an invisible force they slide apart. Only by the utmost coercion, and only for short moments at a time, do I ever manage to bring text and work together, surface to surface.

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And yet, it is right here, in the quest for satisfactory verbal counterparts to the artistic process, that I want to linger. I have sought a voice that truly says what I mean, a voice whose inner timbre I can recognise, the voice of my unarticulated ideas. This has captivated me to the degree that it became one of my central areas of exploration during my time as a research fellow. (Slotte 2011: 10)

In his critical review of fourteen texts submitted between  2009 and  2012 to the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme, Eirik Vassenden, Professor of Scandinavian Literature, quotes Slotte at length, observing, “Slotte does appear to have attempted to build her own linguistic space for her critical reflection instead of sticking slavishly to the existing genres” (2014: 12). Slotte in fact concludes her text by naming her writing practice as an unexpected discovery (2011: 78): Concerning the written part of the project, it is how, rather than what, I have written that has perhaps contributed most to the development in the field. I have looked for verbal alternatives to the detached, academic voice when writing about my work. In particular, I have explored subjective writing as a means of accessing the knowledge development that takes place in practice when a work of art is created. “The artist as writer” is a theme that has fascinated me, and thus the discussion of the role of text in artistic research, and in artistic practices in general, has taken a prominent position in my project. (2011: 79)

Slotte is not alone in emphasizing her interest in how rather than what. Helen Sword refers to an ideal attention to both (2012: viii). In my introduction to The Textile Reader (Bloomsbury 2012) I too felt the need to write, “It is fair to say that this Textile Reader is as concerned with how we write about textiles as it is interested in what we write about textiles […] it is my hope that the content of this book makes clear the diversity of voices and styles that are contributing to the emerging academic discipline of textile scholarship” (2012: 1). Similar to Slotte’s “voice of unarticulated ideas” (2011: 10), Elaine Igoe reflects in her PhD written at the Royal College of Art, London that “I have been using words to help me discover what I wanted to say” (2013: 15). But Igoe also offers us a powerful reason to avoid the simplistic conclusion that agency deserves to be pulled away from text and returned to practice. Explaining her transition away from a p ­ ractice-based PhD route, she writes: This story describes how my visual practice was subsumed by my textual practice. I worried about this initially, fearing that this would deny my skills as a textile designer and fretting about my ability to express myself in words alone. But now I see it as some small and necessary act of design activism, significant because it is words and commentary that have been missing from textile design, not the thinking and making. (Igoe 2013: 21)

Igoe describes a research process that included “conversations with fifteen other textile designers, both novices and experts, to help me find a way to describe what it is that we do and why” learning along the way that “what struck me was their frustration. They felt marginalized within the design hierarchy, but were resigned to this

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state of affairs. I was clearly dealing with a group (largely populated by women), which felt suppressed within the design industry and misrepresented in design research discourse” (Igoe  2013:  20). Vocabularies that do not yet exist to voice research cannot hold any agency until they are formed.

Agency beyond the University I hope the previous examples illustrate why drawing singular conclusions about the agency of text within the university is unwise. My two final examples also show how vocabulary can be a poor traveler, vulnerable to context and changes in audience. In her honest account of the difficult education she experienced directing The Knitting Map project, academic and choreographer Jools Gilson reflects on the miscommunication she witnessed during the community-based, City of Culture-funded knitting project which took place in Cork, Ireland in 2005. Writing seven years after the project concluded, Gilson recalls misunderstandings that emerged in the project from the outset: We fall into our first tangle in which some contingents of the press, and many of our knitters, believe our project The Knitting Map to be about a literal mapping of Cork City. We are appalled, while many of our knitters think of it as a lovely idea and volunteer to knit particular parts of the city. Our understanding of processes of cartography assumed a poetic plurality. Our map wasn’t literal, because such literality would not have allowed us space to be playful with how cartographic energies depict all kinds of geographies. (2012: 10)

Gilson concludes that “our error, our failure, was to assume that we could collaborate with a city and a community using similar skills that we had honed in the retreats of contemporary art practice” (2012: 17). We “brought our nuanced collaborative skills to TKM [The Knitting Map] project and watched as they slowly failed. Invisibly but palpably, more popularly accepted structures of relating made themselves felt. We began to understand that what we did was not that understandable” (Gilson  2012:  16). Gilson offers a poetic but frank reflection on how her style of communication, which had in the decade prior worked for performance and installation projects (2012: 11), failed to communicate accurately with the community who formed the backbone of The Knitting Map project. A second example of the shifting meaning of specific vocabulary is acknowledged by the artist and academic Matt Smith who reflects on his exhibition Queering the Museum (2010–11) at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in England. Describing the project as a “contemporary ‘dig’ that could allow LGBT [Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender] narratives to come to light,” Smith’s exhibition of nineteen interventions both introduced new works to the permanent collection and rearranged and recontextualized existing objects (2017:  363). Smith faced a considerable challenge in his dig. Echoing Amy Whitaker’s attention to the potential power of the museum wall text and exhibition label, he observed that “exhibition labels are usually written with an institutional voice and backed up with documented

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evidence. Normative thinking assumes people are part of the majority unless there is clear evidence to the contrary” (2017:  365). What Smith came to recognize is that the absence of records about maker’s identities made the museum’s predicament more difficult than he first imagined. His “dig” to bring into the light LGBT identities of artists’ whose work was held in the museum archive could not rely on archival information because of the absence of recorded facts. “I began to sympathise with museum curators—how could stories be told without documented facts?” (2017: 368). Instead Smith’s interventions of his own work in the collection attempted to navigate between known and assumed information. A survey with thirty-one exhibition visitors conducted by Maria-Anna Tseliou from the Museum Studies Department of the University of Leicester also shed light on assumptions around our contemporary understanding of the term “queer.” Smith reflects: [Tseliou’s survey] brought the term queer outside the academy into sharp relief. Only 22 per cent of interviewees were aware of the reclamation of the word, with over half of the interviewees having negative associations with the word. This raises concerns for its use in projects which are trying to increase and widen social engagement and inclusion. (2017: 370)

Gilson learnt that her poetic and abstract notion of city mapping was initially met, not unreasonably, by a literal understanding of the term from some project participants. Smith found that re-appropriated language such as the term “queer,” in the context of the museum exhibition, did not necessarily capture a broader understanding of the term. If we are to accept that a certain agency is enjoyed by language, then part of the responsibility of that agency is its continued reevaluation. A vocabulary that exists is not necessarily a vocabulary that is broadly understood to hold the same meaning or intent. This does not mean that new or reclaimed vocabularies cannot be built, but rather acknowledges the considerable challenges that come with building new vocabularies before agency can be claimed.

Agencies of the Future Maryanne Wolf sees that today we are on the cusp of yet another shift in understanding human intelligence which accepts that the human brain may no longer be best used to memorize large tracts of data that can now be accessed readily via online information systems. Instead, she proposes, it will be the knowledge that our online memories cannot convey that will be prized as meaningful human intelligence. This means that learning patterns such as dyslexia may prove useful in new ways. “I look at dyslexia as a daily evolutionary reminder that very different organisations of the brain are possible. Some organisations may not work well for reading, yet are critical for the creation of buildings and art and the recognition of pattern” (Wolf 2008: 215). Wolf concludes, “Some of these variations of the brain’s organisation may lend themselves to the requirements of modes of communication just on the horizon” (2008: 215).

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The agency written communication currently commands within the university and museum may not be “forever.” But for now, as I hope my examples have shown, practitioners have available a range of relationships to build with the written t­ext— from advocate to adversary. An awareness that the agency of text does not need to be at the exclusion of other forms of communication is crucial. If we remain vigilant to the pitfalls and potentials our current reality creates, this form of agency may become a little more questioned, a little more challenged and possibly, in the right scenarios, a little more accepted if words can do justice to the subject at stake. Rather than revisit the tired debates of theory versus practice, we may take heart from voices such as Caroline Slotte’s, who submitted the following narrative as part of her Norwegian Artistic Fellowship: I’m standing in a door opening. It’s dark in front of me. I can’t make out how large the room is. A dim light is visible in there. The light falls upon various types of objects, but everything is vague, unclear. I’m drawn to the light, drawn into the room. I walk up to the point of light, and place my face close to it. Something happens as I view the objects—the haze disappears, colours brighten. Eventually, one of the objects becomes so clear that I can grasp it […] But I am alone in here. Those standing outside can’t see what I see, they can’t get close enough. So I start speaking, I describe what I see as precisely as I can: the details of every object, the room in its entirety, and the relative position of everything in it. […] While I have been speaking, the room has become full of light. I can move around freely. There are still areas of shadow left, as always in a room, but in the open areas there is no longer anything to stumble upon. I can either stay here or move on. The room now belongs to me. (2010: 4–5)

Notes 1 Caryn Simonson at the Chelsea College of Art, London, deserves my thanks for this observation and reminder. 2 Practitioners working in academia with a lengthy career can opt for a shorter PhD route which rather than set off on a new research trajectory all together instead reflect on a group of preexisting work (typically exhibitions) and distil the knowledge from these experiences into a text. 3 It would be fair to acknowledge here that de Botton is hardly enamored with the contemporary university: “To judge by what they do rather than what they airily declaim, universities are in the business of turning out a majority of tightly focused professionals (lawyers, physicians, engineers) and a minority of culturally well-informed but ethically confused arts graduates aptly panicked about how they might remuneratively occupy the rest of their lives” (2012: 105). 4 Eirik Vassenden writes, “Perhaps the whole idea of an international art English can be said to be, as the two authors themselves point out, an elaborate joke? There is no

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doubt, however, that they are right in saying that different worlds of experience and language create their own linguistic spaces, and that they also, over time stultify into jargon. What started out as linguistic experiments in articulation, become empty phrases and genre conventions” (2014: 7). 5 This is different from my own PhD, written about literature in a Literature Department where the idea that written text may be the ideal mode for discussing text does not create as many headaches. Eirik Vassenden echoes this in his review of the written texts submitted to the Norwegian Artistic Research Programme between  2009 and  2012: “Everyone who writes about one art form or another encounters these fundamental issues, but they are probably experienced most strongly in the non-verbal art forms, where the problem of describing and translating is greater than for example in fiction or poetry, where the art form and the comment share the same medium” (2014: 5).

Bibliography Butt, D. (2017), Artistic Research in the Future Academy, Bristol, UK, and Chicago, IL: Intellect. Choi, N. (2007), “Situated Agency,” in Mark Bevir (ed.), Encyclopedia of Governance, 873, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Inc. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.4135/9781412952613.n492 de Botton, A. (2000), The Consolations of Philosophy, London: Hamish Hamilton. de Botton, A. (2012), Religion for Atheists, London: Penguin Books. Druker, J. (2017), “Knowledge Design and Illusions/Delusions of Agency,” Dialectic, 1 (2): 6–12. Elkins, J., ed. (2014), Artists with PhDs: On the New Doctoral Degree in Studio Art, Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing. Gell, A. (1998), Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gilson, J. (2012), “Navigation, Nuance and Half/Angel’s Knitting Map: A Series of Navigational Directions,” Performance Research, 17 (1): 9–20. Gray, J. (2002), Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, London: Granta Books. Hemmings, J., ed. (2012), The Textile Reader, Oxford: Bloomsbury. Igoe, E. (2013), “In Textasis: Matrixial Narratives of Textile Design” (PhD Royal College of Art, England). McGown, K. (2017), “Dropped Threads: Articulating a History of Textile Instability through 20th Century Sculpture” (PhD University of Northumbria at Newcastle, England). Nobel, A. (2016), “Shady Enlightenment: Textualized Thinking and Its Consequences for Design” trans. William Jewson. First published in Swedish as “Dimmer på upplysningen—text, form and design” by Nilleditions (2014), Stockholm: Konstfack Collection. Perry, G. (2013), “Playing to the Gallery: Democracy Has Bad Taste” episode 1 of 4 Reith Lectures, October 15, 2013, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03969vt and lecture

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transcript and http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/transcripts/lecture-1-transcript.pdf (Accessed May 13, 2018). Rule, A. and Levine, D. (2012), “International Art English. On the rise—and the Space—of the Art-World Press Release,” Triplecanopy, July 30, 2012, http:// canopycanopycanopy.com/16/international_art_english (Accessed May 13, 2018). Slotte, C. (2010), Closer/Närmare, Richard Griffith Carlsson, English trans. (Bergen National Academy of Arts). Slotte, C. (2011), “Second Hand Stories—Reflection on the Project,” The National Norwegian Artistic Research Programme, accessed via www.carolineslotte.com (Accessed May 13, 2018). Smith, M. (2017), “Queering the Museum,” in Andrew Livingston and Kevin Petrie (eds), The Ceramics Reader, 363–72, Oxford: Bloomsbury. Stoner, J. (2012), Towards a Minor Architecture, Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press. Svenungsson, J. (2007), An Artist’s Text Book, Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Fine Art. Sword, H. (2012), Stylish Academic Writing, Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press. Vassenden, E. (2014), “What is critical reflection? A question concerning artistic research, genre and the exercise of making narratives about one’s own work,” Bergen: Norwegian Artistic Research Programme. Whitaker, A. (2009), Museum Legs: Fatigue and Hope in the Face of Art, Tucson, AR: Hol Art Books. Wolf, M. (2008), Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Cambridge: Icon Books.www.arcam.nl/en/moederhuishubertushuis/ (Accessed May 13, 2018).

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18 Design’s Performative Agency: Thoughts on

New Directions for Materiality, Ontology, and Identity-Making Ece Canlı

Introduction What Do Things Do? Can Inanimate Things Act, Enact or React? Do Things Have Agency? Over the last decades, these questions have been playing a pivotal role in many disciplinary discussions, following the downfall of logocentrism as the hallmark of Western epistemology. This downfall bequeathed a profound criticism of the linguistic representation, human-centric meaning-making, and dominance of “culture over nature” which constituted the human subject as the ultimate agent of the world’s complex ecology (Barad  2003; Jones and Boivin  2010; Ingold  2012). Discerning the problems of this long-standing anthropocentrism, researchers—primarily from anthropology, archaeology, history, then science and technology studies (STS), and finally material culture studies (MCS)—turned their face to other agents that ­co-constitute the modes of living and being in the world, which are nonhumans, or objects, or things, or materialities or namely the artificial.1 This new focus encouraged examining how human-created forces directly condition social structures, politics, and power-relations beyond humans (see Winner  1980); yet, how and in which circumstances they obtain and exercise such power remained contentious. Design, as a practice firmly invested in both materiality and human condition, occupies a key position in this discussion. The more our entire existence is shaped by design, the more material power it yields and the question of agency become a concern. This design-driven power, moreover, is not always favorable for all, as it also reifies ongoing social stratification, unequal distribution of power, and discrimination of bodies that are othered due to their identity2 formations. As practitioners and researchers, if we want to combat such injustices, we should reckon that not only individual actions but also disciplinary articulations need to alter. I claim that new directions for understanding the agential questions behind material practices, bodies, and identities are the first step toward change.

With these motivations, in this chapter, I undertake to provoke some thoughts on design agency from an intersectional queer feminist perspective. The chapter aims to serve both as a brief view of the material agency across disciplines and as a theoretical exercise to articulate entangled relations between human (the body) and nonhuman (the designed). I will start the chapter by problematizing the generic approaches on material agency that emerged in other kindred disciplines which also direct the discussions in the design discipline. I will then speculate on design agencies and the concurrent formations of things, bodies, and identities, by using the concepts of ontological designing, performativity, and agential realism as my main analytical framework. I will finish the chapter by sketching out how these theories can be helpful to counteract hegemonic designed normativities, hoping to contribute to ongoing discussions around emancipatory politics in the design field.

The Material Agency and Its Discontents It was by the 1970s and 1980s, when researchers and thinkers brought the artificial into social theory, locating human-made objects as commensurable and symmetrical to living beings, as human’s counterparts (Ingold  2012). With this shift, also called the material turn, thing turn, ontological turn, or agentive turn, we became surrounded by a significant number of theories and schools of thought (i.e., materiality studies [Miller 2005], thing theory [Brown 2001], object-oriented ontology [OOO] [Harman 1999], actor-network theory [ANT] [Latour 2005]) while the crux of investigations slid to the “artifactual domain” and its effects (Hoskins 2006; Ingold 2012: 428). Consequently, the question of “what things mean” shifted to “what things do” and to how these things reenact in the world within the complex relations of humans and nonhuman things (Robb  2015; Fowles  2016; Lather  2016). A great number of research has demonstrated that things gain their own social lives and faculties, and, in return, reshape the social, political, and corporeal conditions in which humans live (Appadurai  1986; Brown  2001; Hoskins  2006). Things talk back, act back or “kick back” (Barad  2007) on us, insomuch as they become “actants” in their own rights, possessing the socio-culturally negotiated capacity to exert power (Gell  1998; Wassrin  2018). This also affirmed that agency is not limited to human volition, but manifested through other material configurations (Hoskins 2006; Jones and Boivin 2010; Ingold 2012). While many studies on material agency have succeeded in “exploring simultaneous genesis of objects and their environments” within complex sociopolitical networks (Latour 2005; Yaneva 2009: 276), they have not been exempt from some pertinent criticisms. For instance, while stressing the commensurability of human and nonhuman things, paradoxically, researchers have fallen back into the anthropocentric view, regarding objects as servants merely for human purposes as in “what matters about objects is our ideas about them” (Kimbell 2013: 105). Yet, for me, this critique of re-clinging to anthropocentrism is not merely a philosophical question, but a political and ethical one. Anthropocentrism cannot be regarded a homogenous

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concept that blankets “all humans” regardless of their myriads of traits and formations. For instance, if we look at materiality-oriented anthropological research, we can see that while the researcher, the interpreter, and the human agent are dominantly and preferably modern Western, educated, white, upper-middle class, and able subject (Knappett and Malafouris 2008: x), “the researched” is the object still belonging to or associated with the colonized other, in “far other lands” (Fowles 2016). This is not surprising though, considering other driving forces behind the sudden interest in materiality since the 1970s. Before the effects of decolonization and postcolonial discussions permeated into every field, Western anthropology and archaeology had greatly benefited from tribal cultures by investigating them through a colonial gaze. When anthropologists were no longer able to approach indigenous peoples and treat them as objects, they veered off to material things and started treating them as their new subjects, since this new standpoint was safer, “less overtly political,” and “less presumptuous” (Fowles 2016: 17). Using this timely turn to objects as a “methodological way-out,” scholars became “able to assert even greater authority than was ever possible in the old days of colonial ethnography” (Fowles 2016: 24). Now, the object has replaced the once-colonized human body as the centre of the gaze, while the colonized trapped into being “pseudo-subject” and “quasi-object,” and the sole human agent in the scene perpetuated as the epistemic dominance of the West. These agential hierarchies and bias also appear in other forms. While things surely “kick back” on humans, this “kick” is fiercer for some humans more than others. A sex-segregated public bathroom for a non-heterocissexual body; a ward in a prison for a person of color, a passport for an undocumented immigrant, a crosswalk for a differently abled body, a smartphone for an underclass adolescent or for an elderly, an imposed dress code for a religious minority, or a public garden for a body who is not supposed to be publicly visible (i.e., drug addict, sex worker, or ex-criminal) will act differently than for their privileged counterparts (Canlı 2018). Such designed things foster the privilege–oppression dynamics that reproduce the conditions in which some humans have less agency than others, even less than objects. This very mundane reality complicates both the critique of human-centrism in material studies and the politics of material agency which has been neutralized and detached from the structural violence against these “abjectified” bodies (Canlı 2018; Race forthcoming). On the other hand, acknowledging material agency should not mean to prioritize materiality over humanity either, but to understand their co-constitution. “That things gain their own agency” should not be understood as that of a Frankenstein or other techno-creatures like in sci-fi movies that are unidirectionally activated by humans and turn into uncontrollable malicious invaders beyond human control. To see things as such not only gives too much value on objects than what they actually have, but also imputes all the responsibility and ethical decisions of the acts from human to things. Things still hinge on humans as I will elaborate below; therefore, humans and nonhumans share an entangled accountability. I, thereby, argue that to unfold the conditions and dynamics of this entanglement is the very first step of counteracting inequalities toward those bodies left without agency.

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This is to say, a balanced and overarching approach to understand material agency that would involve not only all actants but also processes—inquiring not only what agency is, but how it is obtained—is necessary. And here is where design steps in. It is curious to see how other materiality-based studies have mostly omitted design from the discussion, while design practice is the very juncture of all the components the question of agency posits: humans, nonhumans, acts, conditions, effects. Materiality-oriented studies have been limited in addressing other actors and decision-makings involved in the process of reifying an object (Attfield  2000:  15; Robb  2015), and I argue that the involvement of design in the discussion would bridge this aperture, especially to understand how things come to operate socio-­ material life and its disparities. The next sections, hence, will incorporate the design discipline and practice into the discussion, by construing design agency through new critical currents of thought on design, ontology, and queer feminist materialism.

Design[ed] Ontologies or What Design Designs? Considering today’s technological conjuncture and visual-, material-, and ­digital-based social organizations, it would not be wrong to say that recently there has been a new turn—a “design turn.” Since artificial things come into existence only and solely through design that has “privileged relationship[s] with objects,” materiality lies at the very heart of design practice (as the activity of conceiving and materializing) and design theory (as the activity of theorizing and reflecting back on the artificial) (Kimbell  2013:  104). In reality, nevertheless, the intellectual and practical focus in design have been dominantly human-centered (either on the designer or on the user) until recently (Willis 2007; Kimbell 2013). Moreover, like the activity of design itself, these human subjects have been historically posited as apolitical and free from the world’s proliferating problems. While this has been changing recently, the question of agency or which is the main actant “in relation to the formation and operation of the contemporary world” remains still elusive (Dilnot 2013: 334; Escobar 2018). Meeting this deficit and seeing the direct and interlaced impact of designing, designer, and the designed on the world, some prominent design theorists have embarked on redefining and redirecting design as a sociopolitical agent that acts back (Fry 1998; Willis 2007; Dilnot 2013); shifting the question from “how to design” to “what design is and does” (Fry and Kalantidou  2014:  186). This has decentralized the designer whom was once counted as the sole force in shaping the world, and attributed agency also to other actants. Influencing most of the ensuing discussions on design politics, Tony Fry has taken the lead by defining the “design agency” as an assemblage of “the designer, design instruction in any medium or mode of expression and the designed object itself as it acts on its world” (Fry 1998; quoted in Willis 2007: 94). This approach shaped the consideration of design as ontological3, generating its own conditions and behaviors, with the main premise of “design also designs” (Winograd and Flores 1986; Fry 1998; Willis 2007).

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Claiming design as ontological means that designed things (as objects, spaces, technologies, systems, and infrastructures) shape, direct, and even dominate our (as designers, users, and other mediators) “modes of being and ways of living” in the world (Escobar 2018, 100). They are not mere physical entities, but determine the perception of bodies, registers of identities, our affective investments, natural environments, the roads we walk, the air we breathe, the way we move, and finally the way we become what we are. Nor are they ahistorical. Effects and certain politics a design thing inscribes in particular time and in particular space do not vanish after the disuse of that thing, but pass down through times and bodies. For instance, transphobic violence a gender nonconforming body experiences today in a sex-segregated public bathroom results not only from the design of that specific bathroom, but also from the reiterated and globalized materialization of modern sanitary arrangements based on gender and sex binary (see Canlı  2018). This designed bathroom, then, not only designs back the existence of bodies using this space, but also reconstitutes the ontology of gender, sexuality, and modernity as an active agent. Ontological design, moreover, suggests that the subject, the object, the receiver, the process, and the activity of design all reciprocally and intricately condition each other, without preceding one another in a cyclic and continuous way (Winograd and Flores 1986; Willis 2007; Escobar 2018). Designing, then, is an ongoing act without a clear beginning or an end, while the designed “always continues designing” before and after its materialization (Willis 2007). On the other hand, deeming design as ontological force is not only a philosophical critique, but also a re-directive program for future practices. Ontological designing, as a transformative envisioning for design, seeks “different ways of understanding how […] we come to be who/what we are in the modern world,” and “understands design as a subject-decentred practice, acknowledging that things as well as people design” (Willis 2007: 80–1). Less about what to design next, ontological designing reflects more on “the self—about what we can do and what can be” (Winograd and Flores 1986: 179) beyond “reason-centered anthropocentrism” (Escobar 2018: 132). This exercise can apply to the most cutting-edge technologies or to the most ubiquitous and simplest artifacts. Let us take garments as example. If we put this everyday human-made object under the lens of ontological designing, for instance, we can examine not only what designers simply “fashion,” but also a gigantic network of how each time they remake first-hand binary identity attributions (man/woman, feminine/masculine, oriental/occidental, religious/secular, rich/poor, young/old, etc.) that create publicly visible polarizations; how certain garments (from prisoner’s standardized cloths to military uniforms) are used to perpetuate subjugating power dynamics; how most of them are produced in the sweatshops of global capitalism, labor exploitation, and growing socioeconomic gap between the Global South and the Global North; how their raw materials have been stolen and extracted from the colonized lands and culturally appropriated by the colonizer; and how their afterlife contaminates waters, plants, and wildlife. The list can go on.

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While this belated yet promising ontological turn in design implies a design “after the subject” with the emphasis on the politics of things (Escobar  2018:  132), it does not suggest a design “without the subject” nor underestimates the human aspect. On the contrary, especially interesting for the context of this chapter, it asks for accountability from every single element that constitutes design. It first demands that author-designers who mostly “act with total obliviousness to the material and economic dimensions of production” (Escobar  2018:  125) recognize their own situatedness both in society and in their practice. Designers—often white, h ­ etero-cisgendered, upper-middle class and socio-corporeally advantaged bodies—ought to recognize their [in]direct role in shaping society and the world as a whole, including making the world unlivable for some by materializing hierarchies and negotiating complex power relations (Dilnot  2013). Thinking design ontologically might change designers’ perceptions about their practice when they realize the domino effect of “all kinds of nonhumans and the heterogeneous assemblages of life they bring into existence” (Escobar  2018:  125). Second, it calls for the recognition of the designed; not only its affordances or physical qualities, but also its uses, meanings, and aftereffects. It then also demands accountability of the receiver—or user, interlocutor—who is not always an inert victim subjected to certain material conditions, but also reenacts them every day, either by free will or by force (Escobar 2018). Last but not least, ontological designing also addresses the process of designing as an active mode not only of identity-making but also of interrupting these identity formations. While ontological design has been usually directed to design’s detrimental effects on nature and failed ecological sustainment, I see potential in it for anti-colonial queer feminist practices and would like to incorporate other questions to the discussion as I briefly exemplified above: What does the agency of design mean when it comes to the bodies who are directly afflicted by it? How can we avail ourselves of such theories to explain other socio-material problems, such as structural identity-based discrimination and corporeal segregation? How can the question of agency help us scrutinize the ramifications of design in reproducing identity categories, reinforcing norms and inequalities, and privileging certain bodies while subordinating others? I concede that there will be barely direct answers to these rather difficult questions. Yet, reflecting on them might provide further understanding of the reciprocity between social hierarchies and designing. Unlike the discussions in other fields, ontological dimension of design sheds lights on the greater context of the material agency that does not occur as fait accompli, but emanates through continuous efforts of “making,” “doing,” “performing,” and “becoming”; as verb-like activities. This evokes the theory of performativity that is equally invested in verb-like qualities and “becomings” of bodies; which will help us read designing and identity-making as interdependent and commensurable processes. In the next section, thus, I will turn to the concepts of performativity and agential realism to add a queer feminist perspective to the question of agency in ontological design, which, I believe, will offer a theoretical exercise to rethink the complex process of identity construction and materiality.

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Toward a Performative, Relational, and Agential View of Designing Within the framework of ontological designing and the question of agency, what I am particularly interested in is the endeavor that resettles design not only as a finished object, but also as a dynamic deed; as less a noun and more like a verb. For a designed thing is not only a configuration of certain raw materials, but also a reconfiguring force for our bodies, actions, orientations, identities, value judgments, and political structures. This is to say, design does not stay inertly but performs, adjusts, and re-enacts “the social,” reconnecting and remaking us in new ways time and again (Yaneva 2009: 280). This performative characteristic of design, affirming that “design is not only doing but also becoming” goes hand in hand with the theory of performativity which propounds that one’s identities—especially gender and sexuality—are rehearsed and reproduced through repetitive acts. Performativity attacks the given assumptions that identities are some metaphysical entities humans possess innately. Rather, they are constructed socially through “spatially distributed and temporally reiterative” practices; not as innate nouns nor static qualities, but as acts of “doing” and “becoming” (West and Zimmerman  1987; Butler  1988; Butler  2010:  149). This aspect of performativity unfolds the parallelism between designing and identity-making as contingent, reciprocal, and simultaneous modes of doing and becoming. In other words, while our identities are being constantly designed, our designed materialities are always being informed by identities. More importantly, in this relationship, we can notice two main agential entities. First, identity roles are reiterated not only through discourses, gestures, and other codes, but also through embodiment of material practices (West and Zimmerman  1987; Butler 1988; Lorber 2004). Such embodiment of things plays a pivotal role in reproducing and safeguarding given codes to the extent that not only do we perform our actions on/in/with/through the things we use, but things become the actors and agents of our performances and identities. Things, as both designed and appropriated by bodies, then, obtain their own performative (i.e., gendered, sexualized, and racialized) characteristics with(in) their performers, as a vicious circle. By this, like humans, things also become charged with certain identities, genders, races, religions, or sexualities that are naturalized and even universalized in time. If we go back to garments, today a wedding dress performs itself, for instance, as heterocissexual legality; a necktie as Western masculine middle-class prosperity; a turban in the United States as racial and religious alterity; a police uniform as state authority; dresslessness as primitivized nudity of the colonized; and so on. We can say, therefore, that one of the agential entities I propose is the designed thing with human characteristics, as the design-being. Second, identity-based oppressions and privileges do not merely arise from some external material forces, but they are “both ascribed and achieved” (Lorber 2004: 57) and internalized by an omnipresent domain: the body. As both an outlet and the

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destination of design and identities, the body is a hybrid organism that engulfs, processes, and conditions all kinds of power structures, whose materiality gets amplified each time it encounters with things. Within these constant encounters and mutual relations between body and thing, the human body becomes a material assemblage of things, of the organic and the inorganic, of the self and the artificial designs. The process of gendering, sexualizing, and racializing functions through designed materialities imposed on bodies and that, in turn, are embodied and reproduced by these bodies. Yet, this logic does not occur unidirectionally, as some of the bodies are also designers of materialities and, by extension, responsible for the process of identity-making materially. This chain of events is like a chicken–egg situation, demonstrating that identity-making and designing are cyclical, entangled, and constantly reenacted by the body. If we go back to the example of garments, a garment shapes and constructs the body according to its particular cultural or sociopolitical meanings. When a body dresses this garment, it automatically embodies those meanings and stereotypes, too (i.e., being a woman, gay, butch, upper middle class, oriental, old, promiscuous, rebellious, religious, and so forth). Moreover, this body is perceived as an attributed personification than being itself. It is not clear whether the garments had harbored these attributions before or the bodies created these meanings by performing them. In this “gathering […] of materials in movement, the body [becomes] a thing” insomuch as that it is not possible to talk about people and things as two separate entities (Ingold 2012: 438). In this designed body, “body” and “thing” together are so much implicated in each other that they become extensions of each other as body-artifact or techno-body. This is the second agential entity, the human being that becomes reified or objectified, as the body-thing. My proposition of these two interlaced entities—design-being and body-thing—is useful for thinking the role of constituents of designing; however, the questions of accountability and agency still demand further unpacking. To elaborate on it, I turn here to feminist physician Karen Barad who complicates the theory of performativity further and tackles the baffling question of agency by urging an ontology not based on separability of humans and things, but on their relationality—as relational ontology. Barad similarly starts off denouncing a type of agency that has been historically attributed only to human subjectivity. Yet, her arguments differ from others when she repudiates the premise that matter is a fixed, passive, and static substance that needs an “external force” (i.e., human, culture, history) to be activated or completed (Barad 2003: 822). With her “agential realist” account, she troubles the assumption that the human and nonhuman are already separated and preexisting entities that can possess agency (Barad  2007). She instead argues that they come into being only and solely through their entangled enactments within phenomena; a term that refers to the process and event of these very entanglements (Barad 2007). This view suggests that without phenomena, there are no preexisting boundaries between human and nonhuman entities; but these boundaries get demarcated and solidified only from within the phenomena through reiterated practices which she calls “­boundary-drawing practices” or agential cuts (Barad  2007:  140; Warfield  2016).

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These cuts draw and perform boundaries between a human, object, space, institution, or technology at the very moments of their specific intra-actions4 (Barad 2003; 2007). According to this, the notion of agency is “a matter of intra-acting” (Barad 2007: 178) emerging not solely from things or humans, but from a series of performative reconfigurations “that move and relocate the boundaries, demarcations, and marks that have historically separated” them (Barad 2007; Warfield 2016: 6). Agencies, then, are situated and always temporarily specific enactments emitted “in the possibilities […] of reconfiguring entanglements” (Lather 2016: 126). In our context, I conclude that there is no preexisting design-being and body-thing as separable entities before phenomena and intra-actions. While phenomena signify the very act of designing as practicing and performing; intra-actions refer to the set of gathering moments of all the elements that render both the process of designing and the reification of these elements possible. Bodies, designed things, and normative identities simultaneously occur through designing; moreover, there is no distinct human agency or material agency but only a situated agency that emerges through time-, space-, and context-specific amalgamations of both. Acknowledging this helps us re-situate designing as a performative and open-ended phenomenon. The uniqueness of each particular phenomenon confutes both arguments of “designed things kick back in their own rights” and “designers are only agents of problems or change.” It rather opens up, once again, new doors to scrutinize each particular phenomenon with care in its uniqueness and manipulate each possible process of boundary-making to distribute the power of agency evenly. To create such “an ethics of knowing and being,” or in other terms “ethico-onto-epistemology” (Barad 2001: 103) is urgent for a “relational ontological designing” as a new direction toward change, for the subjugated bodies with hegemonized identities.

Reclaiming Agency: Failed Cuts, Performative Breakdowns Unsurprisingly, the agential realist approach is also subjected to criticisms. It is mostly accused not only of being too theoretical and philosophical, but also of falling into the same trap I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter which is to treat human as a monolithic (i.e., white, Western) category and not addressing the dynamics of racial, ethnic, and colonial hierarchies that leave “othered” bodies without agency and “less worthy” than others. It is also criticized of directing agency more toward a speculative future than reality and of neglecting daily experiences of the marginalized bodies whose abjection and lack of agency are materialized through everyday practices. Although I sympathize with these cogent criticisms, to conclude the chapter, I would like to focus on the opportunities such theories offer for designers, researchers, and other parties interested in normative identity formations to think, reflect, and act differently; as the agency is “not only the capacity to act, but also the capacity to reflect on this capacity” (Knappett and Malafouris  2008: ix). I thereby claim that, in line with Barad, when we recognize that everything is always co-constituted through ongoing intra-actions, we can see that our existence depends exclusively

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on all the entangled elements, including our unwanted “other.” This obliges us to assume accountability for our actions toward “others” who have a direct influence on our very existence. In addition, such an account on agency can also shift the existing position of the marginalized who are mostly treated as if they inherently have neither volition nor voice. On the contrary, these bodies are more than experienced in knowing how agential power dynamics work among different actants and how to counteract, dismantle, or elude them. Everyday struggles re-situate abjectified bodies not as “less than things” that are doomed to perform and internalize imposed normative codes, but also as counter-hegemonic sites themselves that reclaim their political empowerment, through differently enacted intra-actions that produce different phenomena (Barad  2007; Wassrin  2018). For “intra-actions have the potential to do more than participate in the constitution of the geometries of power” as “they open up possibilities for […] interventions in the manifold possibilities made available reconfigure both what will be and what will be possible” (Barad 2001: 103). Relational ontological designing should accordingly consider the “ways of responsibly imagining and intervening in the re(con)figurations of power” (Barad 2001: 104). The question can then be shifted from “how might we move from what needs to be opposed to what can be imagined out of what is already happening, embedded in an immanence of doing” (Lather 2016: 129). This last remark also aims to open space for thinking of designing not necessarily as an act of oppressing and marginalizing, but also as configuring new possibilities through “diffractions” and failed agential cuts that demarcate bodies differently or cannot demarcate at all (Barad  2003). Although failures and breakdowns (i.e., designed things that stop functioning or bodies that misfire the given identity roles) are considered unwanted, in line with queer feminist thoughts I see them as opportunities with political values (Race forthcoming). With an interruption in the normalized and ever-reiterated processes, “our customary practices and the role of our tools in maintaining them” get exposed as non-natural and other ways of being and doing emerge (Winograd and Flores 1986; Butler 2010; Escobar 2018: 113). These “performative breakdowns” as counter-hegemonic acts occur when boundaries are cut differently; namely, when normatively designed things are manipulated, misused, or spoiled by users; when designers resist materializing hegemonic narratives or hack them; or even when things stop functioning spontaneously. All these cracks open possibilities for resisting identity-based oppressions or erasing identities all at once. The question, then, maybe is not whether things have agency or what this agency does, but what are the conditions of this agency in the complex ecology of ­socio-material politics, what forms of forced identities this agency reproduces and how to counteract them? One possible direction for designers, design researchers, and bodies afflicted by material practices is, as I have so far sketched out here, to continuously question the forces and ontologies of designing. By resituating intra-actions and reconfiguring new boundaries between our bodies, identities, performances, and practices, we can change our existing unpleasant conditions and shift from merely denouncing them to stepping into action (Ingold 2012: 438).

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Notes 1 While all of these terms can be defined differently depending on locus of enunciation (see Ingold 2012), in this chapter I use them interchangeably with the designed, as the outcomes of human-initiated material practices. 2 Throughout the chapter, I use the term “identity” as a social category that is either given or reclaimed, based on gender, sex, sexual orientation, nationality, ethnicity, race, class, age, ability, religion and legality, and such. I premise that each identity category is constructed unevenly through hierarchal oppositions that create its “weaker” to be “abjectified,” excluded or subjugated (see Canlı 2018). 3 As ontology is the study of being that deals with “what is,” I use ontological here to refer to questions and concepts related to existence and concerned with “the condition or behavior of what is” (Willis 2007: 81). In the context of design, an ontological approach suggests a closer look at how things come into existence and keep operating life to the extent that they set the very ground of our being. Stating that design is ontological, or we are ontologically designed, means that our condition of being and living in the world is directly shaped by designed things; thus, it directly engages with the question of agency. 4 Barad uses the term “intra-action” instead of “interaction.” While the latter signifies an encounter between two separate entities, the former deems that these entities are already entangled, emerging through dynamic performances that are both constituted by and constitutive of these intra-actions (Barad 2003; 2007).

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Escobar, A. (2018), Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds, Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Fowles, S. (2016), “The Perfect Subject (Postcolonial Object Studies),” Journal of Material Culture, 21 (1): 9–27. Fry, T. (1998), Lexicon [unpublished], EcoDesign Foundation. Fry, T. and E. Kalantidou, eds (2014), Design in the Borderlands, London and New York: Routledge. Gell, A. (1998), Art and Agency: A New Anthropological Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harman, G. (1999), “Tool-Being: Elements in a Theory of Objects,” PhD diss., DePaul University. Hoskins, J. (2006), “Agency, Biography and Objects,” in Christopher Y. Tiller et al. (eds), Handbook of Material Culture, 74–84, London: Sage. Ingold, T. (2012), “Toward an Ecology of Materials,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 41 (1): 427–42. Jones, A. and N. Boivin (2010), “The Malice of Inanimate Objects: Material Agency,” in D. Hicks and M. C. Beaudry (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, 333–51, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kimbell, L. (2013), “The Object Strikes Back: An Interview with Graham Harman,” Design and Culture, 5 (1): 103–17. Knappett, C. and L. Malafouris, eds (2008), “Material and Nonhuman Agency: An Introduction,” in Material Agency: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Approach, ix–xix, New York: Springer. Lather, P. (2016), “Top Ten+ List: (Re)Thinking Ontology in (Post)Qualitative Research,” Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 16 (2): 125–31. Latour, B. (2005), Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lorber, J. (2004), “Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender,” in P. S. Rothenberg (ed.), Race, Class and Gender in the United States, 54–65, New York: Worth. Miller, D., ed. (2005), Materiality, Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Race, K. (forthcoming), “What Possibilities Would a Queer Actor-Network Theory Generate?,” in A. Blok, I. Farias, and C. Roberts (eds), A Routledge Companion to Actor-Network Theory, n.p., London: Routledge. Robb, J. (2015), “What Do Things Want? Object Design as a Middle Range Theory of Material Culture,” Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 26 (1): 166–80. Warfield, K. (2016), “Making the Cut: An Agential Realist Examination of Selfies and Touch,” Social Media + Society, 2 (2): 1–10. Wassrin, S. (2018), “Why Is It Difficult to Design Innovative IT? An Agential Realist Study of Designing IT for Healthcare Innovation,” PhD diss., Linköping University. West, C. and D. H. Zimmerman (1987), “Doing Gender,” Gender and Society, 1 (2): 125–51. Willis, A. M., ed. (2007), “Ontological Designing––Laying the Ground,” in Design Philosophy Papers Collection Three, 80–98, Queensland: Team D/E/S Publications.

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Index Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) 9, 11, 34, 47, 99, 108, 288, 298–9 The Advance of Neurology ix, 16, 111, 114–15, 117–18, 120, 124, 127 agential realism 288, 292, 295, 298 Ahmed, Sara 2, 3, 4, 10 Allard, Jules vii, 21, 22 Amos ‘n’ Andy 105 Analytic Environment v, 15, 69–71, 74, 78–81 The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp 120 Antunes, Leonor xii, 273–5 Appadurai, Arjun 9–11, 35, 47, 129, 147, 288, 297 Architectural Forum ix, 129–30, 133, 141, 146–7, 198 Aspects of Negro Life 122 assemblage 3, 80, 101, 257, 269, 290, 294 Astor vii, 20–1, 23–4, 27, 30–31 Astor Jr., William Backhouse 23 attention deficit (hyperactivity) disorder (ADHD) 260, 271 Augenfeld, Felix 74, 79–80 Aujame, Roger 152 auto-ethnography 260 Barad, Karen 287–8, 294–7 Barnardo, Thomas viii, 54–5, 58–60, 62–6 Barrias, Louis-Ernest 118 Barthes, Roland 45, 47, 228, 240 Bassett, Florence Knoll 165, 200, 205–6, 210 Baum, Frank L. 179–80 Beating Fantasies and Daydreams (Anna Freud) 70, 72 bedroom of Anna Freud 69, 72–4, 81 Eisler von Terramare 37–8 Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons Camp, Germany 16, 103–4, 285 Berta Zuckerkandl 36–40, 42, 44–5, 48

biography 36–8 Black Mountain College 132, 136, 141, 146, 148 British child migration 54, 58–61, 63–7 British Dyslexia Association xii, 259, 272 Brooklyn Daily Eagle 171, 176–7, 181 Brown, Deidre 253, 256 Buenos Aires 152–3 The Burial of the Count of Orgaz 120, 125 Burlingham, Dorothy 71, 80–1 Canadian design history xvi, xviii, xix, 10, 49–67, 97–109, 111–28, 129–49, 166, 243–58, 227–42 Carleton University Art Gallery viii, xiii, xxi, 16, 97, 98 Caroline Astor vii, 20, 23–4, 27 Carolus-Duran (Charles-Auguste-Émile Durant) 24 Carr Jr., Frank L. x, 164, 169–80 Casa Curutchet vi, 17, 151–61 Chaise HIH (Honey I’m Home) vii, xiii, 1, 2 Chamber of Horrors 163, 168 child psychoanalysis 15, 79, 82 child separation practices 49, 59 childhood vi, 60, 65–7, 74, 85, 94, 165, 183–98 Choi, Naomi 34–5, 47, 72, 261, 271, 275, 284 Cisco Kid 105 citizenship 49, 50, 61, 66, 183, 188, 192, 197 Civil War 19, 20, 28–30 Cohn, Mariono x, 151–2, 155, 159 Cole, Henry 163, 168, 230–1, 240 coloniality/ism 66, 224 anti-colonial 292 colonial xii, 3, 57, 61, 64, 153, 164, 166–7, 213, 222, 243, 250–2, 256–7, 289, 295 colonialist 192

decolonial xvi, 235 post(-)colonial xvii, 250, 289, 298 Cone, William ix, 114, 119, 124–5 consulting room 82 Anna Freud’s viii, 15, 69, 73–6, 78–9 Sigmund Freud’s 69, 71, 73 Contemporary Arts Society (Montreal) 122 Convocation Hall, Simon Fraser University 145 Coombes, Annie E 214, 224–5 craft xvi, xvii, xix, 7–8, 10, 14–15, 49–51, 55, 57–8, 61, 66, 77–8, 85, 231, 240–1 craftsmen/people 36, 83, 90–1 craftsmanship 37, 92 cultural philanthropy xix, 56 philanthropy 51, 57, 60–1, 63, 65, 67 Curutchet, Dr. Pedro 152–4 Dale Scott, Marian v, ix, xiii, 16, 111–14, 120–4, 126, 128 Debord, Guy 228, 241 department stores xvii, 133, 169, 171, 173, 180–1, 225 design ecologies 16, 99, 106 Design Exchange xii, xvii, 227–8, 235, 236, 237, 238, 241 design history vi, xviii, xix, xx, 6–11, 16, 36, 40, 44, 85, 97–9, 107–8, 111, 147, 167, 181, 184, 259–64, 266–7, 269, 271–2, 292 design sovereignty 166, 243, 245, 253–5 design studies 6, 8–10, 98, 271 Dilnot, Clive 9–10, 290, 292, 297 Direction of FRF Canadian Division 129, 132–3, 136–7, 139, 141, 144–5, 147, 149 Disability Discrimination Act (1995) 266 dollhouses 85–6, 94 Douglas, Aaron 122 Dreyfuss, Henry 8 Dry Goods Economist vi, x, 164–5, 169–81 Duprat, Gastón x, 151–2, 155, 159–60 Duveen 20, 29, 32, 86 Duveen Brothers 20, 32 Duveen, Joseph 20, 29, 32, 86 Dymaxion, world of 131–2, 136–7, 144, 147 dyslexia vi, xii, 167, 259–64, 266, 268–72, 282 Dyslexie xii, 264–5, 272

Ed Sullivan Show 105 education 15, 49–50, 54, 56–66, 77, 90, 93, 108, 143, 147, 161, 164, 167, 179, 191, 193, 195, 197, 200, 204, 258, 261, 263, 266, 271, 273, 275, 281 Black Mountain College 132, 136, 141, 146, 148 Institute of Design 131, 136, 143, 147, 148 Eisenhower, Milton 120, 125 El Greco 120, 125 Endocrinology ix, xiii, 16, 111, 114, 120–1, 124, 127 Equality Act (2010) 266, 268 Erickson & Massey 145 Erskine Smith, Alva (Vanderbilt) vii, 20–2, 24, 27, 32 Establishment of Fuller Research Foundation 139, 146 ethnography 48, 99, 289 Evans, Robin 158, 248 Expo ’67 17, 129, 146, 231, 235 Expo for Design and Innovation & Technology (EDIT) xii, 232, 235–41 Fanon, Franz 3, 4 fashion xi, xix, xx, 3, 8, 20, 30–1, 43, 216–21, 225–6, 262, 268, 291 fashion exhibitions 216–17, 221 fashionable 15, 33, 36, 40 fashionability 41 Fetherstonhaugh, Durnford, Bolton & Chadwick 115, 125 Filer, Mary v, ix, 16, 111–28 Flanagan, Eileen 120 “flying domes” for US Marines 136 Follett, Mary Parker xi, 165, 200, 202–3, 210 Ford Rotunda dome 133, 146 Forty, Adrian 97–8, 108 Foucault, Michel 190–1, 196 Freud, Anna v, viii, 15–16, 69–82 Freud, Ernst L. 73, 79, 82 Freud, Sigmund 15, 69–74, 78–82 Froebel, Frederich 189, 191 Fry, Tony 9, 11, 290, 298 Fuller Research Foundation Canadian Division, Montreal ix, xviii, 129–30, 132, 137, 146, 147, 149

Index 301

Fuller, R. Buckminster v, 17, 129, 131–3, 136, 137–9, 141, 143–9 Gell, Alfred 4, 5, 6, 11, 19, 31, 91, 94, 166, 214, 215, 220, 224–5, 228–9, 241, 275, 284, 288, 298 gender xv, xvi, xix, xx, 1–2, 5, 7–8, 10, 14, 15, 33, 40–2, 46, 48, 57, 66, 69, 70–1, 73–4, 78, 80, 82, 84, 113, 119, 164–5, 181, 184, 188, 192–3, 196–7, 199–200, 208–9, 211, 221, 235, 260, 267, 281, 291–4, 297–8 geodesic domes 17, 129–31, 133, 136–7, 139, 141, 144–7, 149 Gesamtkunstwerk 15, 38, 40, 43, 45, 203–4 gesture(s) 3, 70, 75, 80, 219, 222, 293 Gibson, Charles Dana vii, 27–8 Gilded Age xviii, 14, 19, 25, 31 Gilson, Jools 281–2, 284 global window design aesthetic vi, 164, 169–70, 177, 179–80 Goebbels, Joseph 102–3, 108 great circle domes 136 Guffey, Elizabeth 260, 263, 271 Hals, Frans 120 Haskell, Douglas 141, 146, 148–9 Heller, Peter 71, 73–4, 77, 79, 82 Highmore, Ben 98, 108 Hoesli, Bernard 152 Home Arts and Industries Association (HAIA) 50–1, 55–8, 60, 63 Hoskins, Janet 5, 11, 34, 47, 99, 108, 112, 127, 185, 196, 288, 298 human relations movement 200–1, 203 Hunt, Richard Morris 21, 23 Husserl, Edmund 3–5 identity-making vi, 167, 287, 292–4 Igoe, Elaine 280–1, 284 imperial benevolence v, 15, 49, 54, 56, 60, 65, 67 indigenous agency vi, 166, 243–4, 254, 255, 257 indigenous co-design 166, 243, 246–7, 255–6 indigenous residential schools (Canada) 64, 67, 247, 248, 255 Ingold, Tim 54, 62, 66, 84, 92, 93, 94, 287–8, 294, 296–8

302 Index

Institute of Design 131, 136, 143, 147–8 interface 98, 99, 102, 106–7, 268, 270 intersectionality xvi, xix, 6, 66, 164, 288, 297 intra-actions 295–7 jargon 276–8, 284 Jeffrey Lindsay & Associates 144 The Jewish Hour 105 Jewish Immigration Society 104 Jewish women 15, 33, 41, 47 Johnson Wax building xi, 203–4, 210 Klimt, Gustav 33, 35, 40, 41, 43, 46–8 knickerbocker(s) 22–3, 30 knitting 15, 75, 77–8, 81, 281, 284 Knoll Planning Unit 165, 200, 205 Kopytoff, Igor 9, 11 de Kooning, Elaine 132, 141, 146–7 La Nature se dévoilant à la Science 118 Laenui, Poka 252–3, 255, 257 landscape design (see landscape gardening) landscape gardening 183–4, 186, 188, 197 Latour, Bruno 20, 31, 34, 42, 47, 107–8, 214, 288, 298 lay-psychoanalyst 15, 70–3, 77–8, 80 Le Corbusier vi, 17, 151–4, 158, 161 Lebenswelt 33 Lefebvre, Henri 101, 108 The Life of a Nurse ix, 119, 120 Lindsay, Jeffrey Burland v, ix, x, xiii, xviii, 17, 129–34, 136–7, 139, 141–9 Lismer, Arthur 112, 127 Loew (Felsövanyi), Gertrud v, 15, 33–7, 39–46, 48 Loos, Adolf 42–5, 47, 79, 163 Lord Grey 49, 50, 54, 58, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66 Louis XV 19–21 MacLeod, Pegi Nicol 122 mannequins in exhibitions/museum interiors xi, 166, 174, 215–18, 220–6 in Surrealists’ works 166, 216, 219, 221 Māori-led design 246–7, 253–7 Massive Change xii, xiv, 227–8, 230–7, 240–1 material turn 13, 167, 288 matters of concern 107 Mau, Bruce vi, xii, 166, 227–42

McConnell, Lily Griffith 120, 126 McGown, Katie 279, 284 McNaughton, Francis 113–15, 120–1, 124–6 miniatures 85, 86, 87, 89, 91 Montreal Neurological Institute ix, 16, 111, 115, 116, 124–8 Morley, Henry 163, 168 Moser, Koloman vii, xiii, 15, 33, 36–48 Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) 147, 230, 231, 235, 242, 257 Museum of Ornamental Art 163, 168, 230 museum(s) vii, viii, xi, xiii, xvii, xviii, xx, xxi, 7, 8, 11, 24, 30–1, 44, 48, 62, 69, 71, 75–6, 80–1, 83, 85–6, 88, 89, 91, 93–4, 107, 108–9, 124, 128–9 147–9, 161, 163–8, 176, 213, 215–33, 235, 238–42, 272, 276, 278, 281–3, 285 interiors 44, 83, 85, 88, 93, 217, 223–4 interventions in 221, 223–4, 281–2 and the sphere of consumption 8, 214, 217, 228 National Cash Register Company vi, xi, xvi, 165, 183–98 needlework banner v, viii, xiii, 15, 49, 50, 53–4, 57, 62, 63, 67 neurodiverse 259, 261, 269, 270 The News of the World 105 Nobel, Andreas 276, 284 object biography 9, 11, 16, 99 office (Fig 82) v, ix, xvi, xxii, 17, 37, 39, 46, 81, 82, 87, 116, 120, 125, 129, 132, 139, 141, 143, 145, 147, 149, 154, 158, 164–5, 178–9, 190, 195, 199, 200–1, 203–7, 209–11, 229–30, 239, 263 office design 199–201, 203–7, 209–10 Olmsted Brothers the 183, 185 ontological designing 168, 288, 290–2, 295–8 Our Lady of the Snows (1906) viii, xiii, 15, 49–57, 61–3 patent v, 17, 129, 131, 137–39, 141, 143, 147–8 patent for Knoll Womb chair 138 Patterson, John H. 183–5, 188–92, 194, 197–8 Pellegrin, Paolo 236

Penfield, Wilder 111, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128 Penn State ix, 114, 119, 120 performativity 2, 5, 8, 168, 288, 292, 293, 294, 297 period room xvii, xx, 86, 213, 214, 215, 216, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226 phenomena 294, 295, 296 phenomenology of race 3, 10 philanthropy 51, 57, 60, 61, 63, 65, 67 Pickering, Andrew 34, 48, 101, 108, 112, 128, 275 Pinker, Stephen 238, 242 Pope, Ted 133 portrait by Arthur Erickson (Fig. 8.6) 144–5 practice-based PhD 276, 279, 280 psychoanalysis xix, 15, 69, 70–1, 73, 77–82 queer xvi, xx, 2, 3, 10, 281, 282, 285, 288, 292, 296, 298 queer feminist epistemology 208, 295 queer phenomenology 10, 297 Quiet Revolution 106, 108 Raumkunst 38 reenacting history 213, 221, 224 Reich Broadcasting Corporation (Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft) 103 relational ontology 294, 295, 296 Rembrandt 120 retail design xvii, 170, 171, 176 Royal Victoria College (Montreal) viii, xiii, 15, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 61, 63, 66, 67 Saarinen, Eero 138, 148, 149 salon culture 41, 42 Schermerhorn, William Colford 19, 23 school gardens 183, 184, 185, 188, 190, 191, 192, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198 School of the Art Institute viii, xiii, 16, 83–6, 88, 90, 92, 93, 94, 235 Scott, Frank 114, 121 second-wave feminism 207, 209 Selye, Hans 111, 114, 120–4, 128 settlement 49–51, 54, 57–8, 63, 190, 249, 255–7 sexuality xv, xvi, xix, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10, 74, 81, 84, 208, 291, 293

Index 303

Shonibare, Yinka xi, xiii, 221–4, 226 The Show Window 179, 180–1 situated agency 2, 15, 33–4, 41, 47, 72, 261, 271, 275, 284, 295 Slotte, Caroline 279, 280, 282, 285 Snelson, Kenneth 136, 138, 146, 147, 149 social agency 5, 123, 183, 191, 194, 195 social welfare 15, 49, 56–60, 63, 65–7, 165, 183–4, 190, 194, 196–7, 202 South Kensington Museum 230 Spatial Agency 112, 127, 244, 249, 250, 256 spectacle xii, xiv, 32, 166, 227–8, 231, 234–5, 238–9, 241–2, 265, 270 Sportes, Cédric vii, xiii, 1, 2, 4, 5, 11 Stanley, Phoebe 120 Stewart, Susan 83, 87–91, 94 Stoner, Jill 275, 285 Strathcona Anatomy Building ix, xiii, 112, 121 Strawczynski, Sylvia 16, 97, 99, 104, 106–7 Strawczynski, Leo 16, 97, 99, 106–7 Sword, Helen 278, 280, 285 Taylor, Fredrick Winslow 201, 211 Taylorism 201, 205, 211 tensegrity 136, 146 von Terramare, Eisler 33, 36–7, 41, 48 textile history xvii, 50–1, 90, 93, 280, 284 Thorne Miniature Rooms v, viii, xiii, 16, 83–94 Thorne, Narcissa viii, xiii, 16, 83, 84, 85, 86, 92, 93, 94 Tracy, Lena Harvey 184, 188, 192, 197 transgression xi, 17, 151, 156, 220–1, 225 Tri-Services Pavilion, Pacific National Exhibition (Figs. 841–2; 851–2); x, xiii, 140, 142 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) 243–5, 258 Tussaud, Madame Marie 163 UNCEDED Voices of the Land 254, 257 Ungers, Simon 152

304 Index

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) 244, 255, 257–8 United States Pavilion, Expo ‘67 17, 129 use of patents 131, 137, 138 van Eyck, Aldo xii, 273, 274 Vancouver Art Gallery xii, xiv, 227–8, 231, 233–4 Vanderbilt(s) vii, 20–2, 24, 27, 30, 31–2 Vanderbilt, William Kissam 20, 21, 30 Vannini, Phillip 99, 103, 109 Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) vii, xiii, 44, 48, 163, 168, 230, 240 Vienna v, vii, viii, 15, 33–48, 69–71, 75–6, 79–82, 179, 226 visual culture xv, xvii, xix, xx, 97, 98, 101, 184 Watts, Mary Seton v, viii, xix, 15, 49–58, 61–3, 65–7 Weatherbreak (Figs. 8.1, 8.3) 17, 129–30, 133–4, 136, 137–9, 141, 145–7 Wechsler Bros & Co x, 171–3, 176–9, 181 Weinberg, Juda 97, 103–7 Weinberg, Sara 97, 103–7 Whitaker, Amy 278, 281, 285 Wiener Werkstätte 33, 36–41, 43, 46–8 William Backhouse Astor Jr. 23 Williams, Amancio 152 Williams, Bisi 230 window dressing x, 169, 171–80, 208 Wolf, Maryanne 278–9, 282, 285 women’s ways of knowing 207–10 Wright, Frank Lloyd 131, 133, 203–5, 210 written communication 283 Yagou, Artemis 97, 109 Zarov, Basil ix, 116–17 Zenith (television) 105 Zuckerkandl, Berta 36–40, 42, 44–5, 48 biography 36–8

305

306

Plate 1  Cédric Sportes for Modesdemploi, Chair HIH (Honey I’m Home), neoprene and painted pressed wood, 76 × 41 × 137 cm (carpet), 76 × 41 × 50 cm (chair). Collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, purchased with financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program (2006.231), © Modesdemploi. (Photo credits: MNBAQ, Patrick Altman)

Plate 2  Koloman Moser, Desk and Armchair, 1903, veneered in thuya wood and inlaid with satinwood/brass, 145.5 × 119.4 cm. (© Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

Plates 3 A-B  Interior view of Royal Victoria College (2016) showing Our Lady of the Snows needlework banner in situ. Mother of pearl, moonstones, crystal, garnets, aquamarine, silk, and velvet painted and applied onto satin, embroidered with gold and silver thread. Collection of McGill University. (Photo credits: author’s photo)

Plate 4  Mrs. James Ward Thorne, French Salon of the Louis XIV Period, 1660–1700, c. 1937. Miniature Room, mixed media. Interior: 18 ¾ × 31 × 23 ¾ in. Gift of Mrs. James Ward Thorne, 1941. 1203. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA. (Photo credits: the Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource)

Plate 5  View of “Making Radio Space in 1930s Canada,” curated by Michael Windover and Anne MacLennan, February 27–May 7, 2017, Carleton University Art Gallery. (Photo credit: Peter Coffman)

Plate 6  Marian Dale Scott’s Endocrinology, 1942–3, was intended to inspire scientific research. Oil on plaster wall. 369 × 494 cm. Strathcona Anatomy Building, McGill University. Visual Arts Collection, McGill University Library 1986–025. (© Estate of the artist)

Plates 7 A-B  Tri-Services Pavilion (1954–5) on the covers of Bauwelt, December 1957, and The Canadian Architect, March 1957. Jeffrey Lindsay, structural designer and photographer. (7A. Courtesy of Bauwelt [© graphics] and Jasmine Lindsay Forman [photograph];  7B. Courtesy of Canadian Architect and Jasmine Lindsay Forman [photograph])

Plate 8  Boys’ Gardens Postcard, Dayton Postcard Collection. (Courtesy of Dayton Metro Library)

Plate 9  Installation view, Moorish Room, Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play: Yinka Shonibare MBE, Brooklyn Museum, June 26–September 20, 2009. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, © Yinka Shonibare MBE, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2019)

Plate 10 “Wealth and Politics,” Massive Change, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2003, photo by Robert Keziere. (Robert Keziere/Vancouver Art Gallery)

Plate 11  Inuit Myth Machine. Drawing by Andrej Iwanski, Ryan Lewis, and Evan Taylor. Azrieli School of Architecture, Carleton University, 2016.

Plate 12  Rose-tinted spectacles, courtesy of Cerium Visual Technologies. (Image: author)