This seminar presents a cultural study of European and American women’s dress from the Belle Époque through the 1980s. Within a chronological framework that …

Graphic design, in the sense that we now understand it, developed in the late nineteenth century out of the needs of a new mass society …

This seminar introduces students to issues and debates within design history and material culture studies. It aims to provide an understanding of their development as …

Fired by a concern that British exports were suffering in the international market, the British government launched a campaign in the 1830s to improve the …

This course examines manifestations of ‘modernity’ in British design, from the Aesthetic Movement of the 1860s to the “New Art” tendencies around 1900, with reference to …

This course offers a different view of European-wide tendencies in design and architecture by examining a remarkable body of work that has often been ignored …

This course traces the development of furnishing and dress textiles in Europe and the United States from the highly naturalistic and revival styles of the …

What is the purpose of design? All design aspires, at some level, to change the world in which we live, and with it, our experience …

This seminar seeks to impart a broad understanding of the history and ideas of East Asian fashion from the seventeenth century to present, featuring a …

This course is a survey of the nineteenth-century design reform movement highlighting British furniture designers and theorists from the Gothic Revival to Art Nouveau. The …

In the late 1890s, French architect Hector Guimard—now best known for his sprouting, organic designs for the Paris Metro—coined the phrase “Reject the …

Taking its name from British novelist Michael Arlen’s 1924 tale of a fashionable young society widow, this course will explore two intertwined ideas: the representation …

This seminar focuses on the abundance of new scholarly research that examines craft within discourses of contemporary art and theory. A cross section of readings …

This course will be a preparation for the Focus exhibition Jan Tschichold and the New Typography to be shown in spring, 2019. Drawn from the collection …

This course will examine the legacies of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement around the world. We will look at a variety of …

The German term Sachlichkeit is central to the development and interpretation of twentieth-century modernism—and yet it is rarely fully understood.  In 1936, design historian …