How much do you know about British Manufacturing and export? Nor me. But it is in decline. It wasn’t always like this…
‘Britain Can Make It’ was an exhibition held in 1946 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. It was organised and held under the auspices of the Council of Industrial Design (later renamed the Design Council) which had been established by central government in 1944 ‘to promote by all practicable means the improvement of design in the products of British industry’. We still have the Design Council and I have to admit it can be hard to know what they get up to sometimes, although this is a nice reminder of their purpose back then.
Image courtesy www.vads.ahds.ac.uk
‘Britain Can Make It’ displayed the consumer goods which, the government intended, would form the basis on which the economy of post-War Britain would be renewed. Six years of war had left the country in severe debt. The government’s main concern was to ensure that income could be generated through trade, particularly with countries overseas. Hence all effort in production was aimed at the export market while the British market remained subject to a rationing even more severe than in wartime. This situation was made clear at ‘Britain Can Make It’ where all the goods on display were for purchase only by the export market and would not be available, at least in the short term, to home consumers (hence the popular nickname for the exhibition, Britain Can’t Have It).
Image courtesy www.vads.ahds.ac.uk
I wish I had seen this exhibition as it would have been ground-breaking to be seen. Instead, I had to see a later incarnation on a smaller scale, by David Nicholls for Liberty of London in an exhibition he entitled ‘Britain Can (Still) Make It‘ which showed some fantastic examples of British Manufacturing still going strong. Favourites of mine (not all shown in David’s exhibition) are Ercol, Vitsœ and Anglepoise… three really wonderful products with fantastic heritage that I could never imagine being without. In fact, my flat is adorned with all three of them but I’m not biased.
Still want to read more? Seriously?
Okay, there are further resources for ‘Britain Can Make It’ here:
http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/learning/designingbritain/html/bcmi_intro.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britain_Can_Make_It
NEW blog post: Britain Can Make It, can’t it? http://bit.ly/e7BcsU #dbcollective
RT @ateliertally: NEW blog post: Britain Can Make It, can’t it? http://bit.ly/e7BcsU #dbcollective
He's on a blogging roll at the moment! RT @ateliertally: NEW blog post: Britain Can Make It, can’t it? http://bit.ly/e7BcsU
Britain Can Make It, can’t it? http://t.co/kqIP4xq
Great post Daniel. Unfortunately yes, production in general is pretty bleak at the moment in this country, although I’m quite excited about the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain – it looks like they are going to town this year, and it will be a reminder of some of the great design and production that has come out of Britain in the last half a century!
I attended Britain can Make it. in 1946 on a school trip . it changed my life because I knew then that I should become a industrial designer. and I did.