Secret design report

 

“Geheimreport Deutsches Design: Deutsche Konsumgüter im Visier des britischen Council of Industrial Design”, Book Review, Journal of Design History, 26:4 (2013), pp 437-438.

The review is about the book that brings to the public eye a significant design-historical document that researcher Anne Sudrow discovered in the archives of the Imperial War Museum in Duxforth, England. The document, entitled “Design Investigation in Selected German Consumer Goods Industries” was the final outcome of research commissioned by the British Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (BIOS) during the last months of 1946, soon after the end of the Second World War. The research team, led by Nikolaus Pevsner, was dispatched by BIOS to the British- and US-controlled areas of Germany in order to investigate the conditions and methods of industrial design in the local industry. The book opens up new directions for transnational and interdisciplinary design research.