Britain Can Make It, can’t it?

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

Less and More: the design ethos of Dieter Rams

In 1955 Dieter Rams began working for a little known electrical company called Braun (pronounced ‘brown’) and quickly became an influential force within the company. From 1961 Prof Rams was head of design until his retirement in 1995.

Suntory Museum, Osaka and the Fuchu Museum, Tokyo have put together an exhibition to show a vast amount of the products that were designed at Braun during his tenure at the electrical giant. Amongst this work is also work for the other companies that Dieter Rams put his hand to, namely Vitsœ and FSB.

During the recent visit I had the opportunity to view the exhibition with Dieter Rams and Dietrich Lubs (who had designed most of the clocks and watches during this period).

The object that most stood out to me, was the FS 1000 portable television. Having seen most of the popular products before (the T 1000 world receiver, SK 4 record player et al) this was quite a surprise to see. This was just a prototype but Dieter Rams explained to me that “it was planned to sit alongside the T 1000 [world receiver]“. It never went into production, but now I look at Fukasawa’s portable television in a very different light – I see a clear influence, deliberate or not.

The most striking part of this television was the tilting screen and the way in which Rams dealt with the tube at the back of the television, only creating a case for the shape of the tube. I am sure that this product could have had a life if only it had made it beyond prototype stage.

Less and More: the design ethos of Dieter Rams is at Suntory Museum, Osaka until 25 Janaury 2009 and at Fuchu Art Museum from 23 May to 20 July 2009.