Comrade Commodity: Design Behind the Iron Curtain

The development of modern design is in many ways intertwined with the rise of consumer capitalism. But what happens to design when market forces are neutralized, when profit agendas are subverted, when the commodity’s ostensibly irresistible attractions are, well, resisted? Opening with the October Revolution in 1917 and culminating with die Wende, the period of political change leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany in 1989, this course examines the development of twentieth-century design (primarily in Central and Eastern Europe) in absence of, reaction to, and outright defiance of capitalism. While the course covers much of the twentieth century in a chronological arc, individual class sessions will be regionally focused, moving from the USSR geographically and culturally “outward” to consider first countries where the greatest Soviet cultural influence was felt between 1945 and 1989—the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Czechoslovakia, and Poland to countries where this influence was attenuated by preexisting regional traditions: Hungary, Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, and, by greatest extension, Cuba. Looking closely at avant-garde artwork, speculative design, industrial products, graphic design, urban planning, architecture, film, and music, we will explore the persistence and power of design in the construction of the socialist state and, more intimately, in the everyday lives of its workers. We will witness designed objects transformed from soulless commodities into soulful comrades—and back again. 3 credits.