Published in: Morf 9, 2008, p. 54-59
In design, there has never been a lack
of idealism. A lack of realism, yes. Too often and too easily, design has been
pictured as some kind of social panacea.
In Design for the Real World (1972), Victor
Papanek called the practice of industrial design criminal. He called on
designers to create ‘design for the real world’, i.e. design for people with
real problems, like the hundreds of millions living in poverty in developing
countries.
Back then, there
was no mass tourism in the third world, but in the meantime, the forces of globalization
have been unleashed, and travel to developing countries is no longer anything special.
Visiting a developing country, you immediately notice the dramatic differences
with our part of the world, where basically everyone is rich. With a shock you
realize how privileged you are to be part of the small wealthy part of the
world population.
At the same
time, you get a shock of recognition, too: people in poor countries lead a way
of life that seemed lost, an existence that is elementary and deals with survival
instead of consumption and superficial entertainment. And perhaps most
strikingly, they enjoy life, while for us, despite all the things we have, this
is often difficult because of welfare ailments such as stress and boredom.
Globalization
has also affected my life. For over a year, I have been living with my family
in Indonesia. Looking at design from a third world country, I have to be
outspoken, because of the stark contrasts that characterize this part of the
world – contrasts between rich and poor, modern and traditional, imported and
indigenous.
Indonesia has
235 million inhabitants, almost half of whom live in poverty. Poverty means:
lacking safe drinking water, a varied diet, sanitation, health care and
education. Can design mean anything at all for these people?
Even though Design for the Real World is pretty much
the bible for every designer with a conscience, Papanek’s call has not been overwhelmingly
effective. One of the examples from the book shows why that might be the case.
It is a radio receiver which consists of a single transistor, an earplug, a
candle, and a thermocouple inside a tin can.1 This radio was intended
for use in remote areas in the developing world where there is no power grid and
people don’t have enough money for buying batteries. It was distributed to villages
in Indonesia in the 1960s through UNESCO.2
As an example
of design for the real world, I think there are two things wrong with this device.
An ultra low-cost radio receiver for the third world seems like a good idea. However,
the tin can radio receives all radio frequencies at the same time and cannot be
tuned. Therefore, it only works properly in areas where only one station can be
received. Along with the fact that the listener has to use an earplug, this
takes away a large part of the power of the radio as a medium. How much does it
change the situation of someone who lives in poverty if he can listen by
himself to only one radio channel for five minutes each day (as Papanek proposed)?
Very little, I fear. This is nothing more than a poor people’s version of the
transistor radio, merely suggesting that the owner lives in the modern world.
Secondly, even
though the device is an ingenious technical invention, design didn’t have a
part in it. Papanek explains that this was a conscious choice:
“For one thing, it
would have raised the price of each unit [...]. Secondly, and much more
importantly, I feel I have no right to make aesthetic or ‘good taste’ decisions
that will affect millions of people in Indonesia who are members of a different
culture.”3
A correct
choice, no doubt, but it does have one peculiar consequence: this so-called design
for the real world has no design.
The main task
of a designer is to devise the appearance for objects of use. If he fails to do
so, he is doing something other than designing. Apparently, Papanek thought differently.
In his last book, The Green Imperative,
he defined design as “finding workable solutions that are immediately
applicable to problems in the real world.”4 That’s strange, because,
as Papanek himself stated before, most designers exclusively work for the ‘unreal’
world. And it may be the case that they succeed in finding solutions for design
problems, but those are not real-world problems.
Designers are
not inventors. When it comes to survival, it is of no importance what an object
looks like. The main thing is that it does what it needs to do and for that you
don’t need a designer. From the perspective of the real world, designers either
unnecessarily design necessary things, or design unnecessary things.5
This in
itself is not reprehensible. The most pleasant things in life are useless, or
unnecessary, or both, and in the West we have come to depend on such superfluities.
The welfare state is maintained with a system of excessive production and
consumption in which design plays an important role. Unfortunately, this doesn’t
imply that you can also solve real problems in the real world with design.
Papanek, of
course, assumed you could, and he wasn’t alone. Functionalism has long propagated
the misconception that aesthetics are nothing more than a derivative of
functionality. If that were really true, all designers would be unemployed. Due
to the long lasting dominance of functionalism as a design philosophy, many
designers still feel uncomfortable towards aesthetics, laying undue emphasis on
anything else involved in making a design except for designing.
One chapter
in The Green Imperative is about “the
best designers in the world,” as Papanek referred to the Inuit.6 To call
Eskimos ‘designers’ makes no sense, but let’s assume he did it for rhetorical
effect. Design is a professional activity that can’t be compared with the way
people fashion and decorate their utensils and their environment under the demanding
conditions of poverty. They do this for their own enjoyment or that of others to
whom they are closely related. The results are always adapted to local
conditions and personal preferences. Natural materials and traditional forms
and techniques are the only available options.
In contrast,
design is aimed at a group of anonymous users and appeals to an imaginary
taste, usually a combination of the preferences of the designer himself and his
interpretation of the taste of the users his design is aimed at. Tradition is almost
completely renounced and a certain degree of originality, if not artistic
pretension, is expected. In most cases, modern materials and techniques are applied.
Design is
characterized by forced separation – forced separation between the designer and
the user, forced separation between the designer and production, forced
separation between the designer and the work of his colleagues, forced
separation between the designer and the past, forced separation between the
designer and nature.
When Western
designers design for the real world, the separation is very large indeed.
Design is loaded with codes, intentions and pretensions that only make sense in
the ‘unreal’ world. Even though design can have symbolic meaning in the real
world as well, as a status object for instance, its value is equal to that of
superstition: comforting but not effective.
In the time
that has elapsed since Papanek wrote Design
for the Real World many things have changed. Due to postmodern cultural
relativism we are now more aware of the pitfalls of ethnocentric thinking.
Thanks to the Internet lots of information about the third world is immediately
available, and in developmental aid we have become more wary of paternalistic
intervention.
But sometimes
we still make old mistakes. Papanek’s tin can radio is probably outdated as an example,
but the XO laptop from the acclaimed One Laptop Per Child project, which was
launched late last year, is once more a Western ‘solution’ for non-specific
problems in the developing world. Under the guise of charity, modern technology
is offered for a ‘low’ price, this time including design, but business
interests seem to be gaining the upper hand and the project begins to resemble
an attempt to tap new markets and create new dependencies.7
***
It can also
be different. In design, there has been a revival of interest in ‘developmental
aid’ in recent years, building on the fair-trade model. Western designers go to
a developing country and visit small craft workshops to see what materials and
production facilities are available to make designs that exported to the West.8
This fits well with the way developing countries prefer to alleviate poverty, i.e.
by giving more income opportunities to the poor. For the designers it is an
enriching experience – spiritually.
However, not
everyone realizes that developing countries also have their own well-trained
professional designers. Western designers probably have a better understanding
of their own market, but local designers are a lot more knowledgeable and aware
of local conditions such as culture, climate, language, regulations, materials,
human resources, etc. And they too can have their hearts in the right place. Through
numerous initiatives, Indonesian designers are trying to use crafts to create quality
products in order to raise the profitability of traditional (or non-traditional)
craft production within local communities. Their designs are aimed at the top
of the home and export markets, with growing success. This success directly benefits
the crafts people with whom the designers collaborate.
Based on this
approach, a radio ‘for the real world’ can take on a totally different
appearance from the one Papanek showed, as is proven by the radios of the Indonesian
designer/entrepreneur Singgih S. Kartono. After having studied industrial
design at the Technical University of Bandung, Singgih returned to his native
village in Central Java, which has suffered from the intrusion of the modern
world. New, less labor-intensive agricultural techniques brought unemployment, forcing
many villagers to seek work in the city. Others looked around the village for
alternative sources of income and cut down almost all the forest in the vicinity.
Singgih
decided to set up a workshop, where he coupled modern management with
traditional, labor-intensive workmanship. His company not only provides income
and employment to the village. He designed a radio that is mostly made out of
wood (rosewood and pine), out of love for the material and because it grows locally.
For each tree that is felled, Singgih plants a new one. In cooperation with a
local school, he also initiated a reforestation project.
His radios
combine a contemporary retro-design with an ancient natural material and modern
electronics. It is an exclusive product, available in several models, costing between
150 and 300 euro’s and mainly sold on the international market. High-quality workmanship
ensures that each copy is unique and Singgih deliberately chose an ‘imperfect’
finish, using oil instead of varnish, to the persuade the owners to take regular
care of their radio.
Even though the
design of the radio is crucial for its commercial success, it is not in itself
sufficient for reaching the other objectives. Without Singgih’s careful
management, the exact same design could also have adverse environmental and
social impacts.
Unlike
Papanek’s tin can radio, this design for the real world is design for the ‘unreal’
world, made in the real world, ensuring environmental and social
sustainability. Especially in low-income countries, where the excesses of
industrial exploitation are only too well known, this type of project offers
hope to counterbalance the disruptive impact of modernity on traditional
communities. Not for nostalgia’s sake or for fear of change, but out of a sense
of responsibility for man and nature.9
Papaneks
great merit was that he drew attention to the plight of the developing world,10
a subject that can’t be separated from the environmental problem. In the
future, prosperity will keep growing in the developing world, leading to a considerable
negative environmental impact. That doesn’t mean that developing countries should
stop developing. They seek to obtain their fair share of the wealth that can be
extracted from this earth. Nobody can deny them that.11
To what
extent design can contribute to this complex process in order to make things better
can’t be predicted in advance, but it seems wise not to expect too much. In the
past, design has been assumed to be some kind of social panacea too often and
too easily. In Design for the Real World,
Papanek describes what happened when
he showed slides of the tin can radio to teachers and students at the
Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm:
“[...] nearly all
the professors walked out (in protest against the radio’s ‘ugliness’ and its
lack of ‘formal’ design).”12
I’m convinced
they reacted this way because their sacred belief in design as the ultimate tool
to improve the world had been put into question.
Having to
acknowledge that design is unsuitable for achieving real solutions to real
problems in the real world is perhaps a bitter pill to swallow, but it seems
preferable to designers perpetuating a false self-image, as they have been
doing for far too long.
Notes
1 Thermocouple: device for converting heat to
electricity.
2 See, Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World, 1971, p. 162-165.
3 Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World, 1971, p. 164.
4 Victor Papanek, The Green Imperative. Natural Design for the Real World, p. 223.
5 See also: George Basalla, ‘Variety,
necessity and evolution’ in Morf 8,
p. 40.
6 Victor Papanek, The Green Imperative. Natural Design for the Real World, p.
223-234.
7 The original plan from 2005 was to offer in
developing countries a minimum, rugged laptop for U.S. $ 100, which would run
on open-source software. Later it was decided that it should be able to run
Microsoft Windows and when it launched late 2007 it turned out that it would
cost almost U.S. $ 200. Meanwhile, many competing laptops have appeared on the
market.
8 Dutch examples: Fair Trade (e.g. by Ton
Haas), the projects of Dutch Design in Development, the Ragbag by Siem Haffmans
(Id-l).
9 For more on Singgih’s motives and details
of his operation, see: Singgih Susilo Kartono, ‘The Story Behind Magno’,
www.fair-kaeuflich.de/index.php/manufacturers_id/157. See also:
www.wooden-radio.com.
10 Victor Papanek regularly visited
the developing world for his work for UNESCO and often held
workshops with design students.
11 Especially not former colonial powers, who
owe the present economic advantage they have over the developing world in large
part to centuries of unscrupulous exploitation of material and human resources
in the colonies.
12 Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World, 1971, p. 164.
Internet
www.wooden-radio.com - Magno wooden radios
www.ddid.nl - Dutch Design in Development
www.rag-bag.eu - Rag Bag
www.fairtrade.nl - see ‘Fair Trade Originals
www.tonhaas.com - see ‘Fair Trade’
www.laptop.org - One Laptop Per Child
www.olpcnews.com - independent reporting on
the OLPC project
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