近代ドイツにおけるデザイン思想の課題(美学会第三十二回全国大会報告)

抄録

At the beginning of this century the main theme of the Modern Movement in Germany was to connect art with industry, and in its turn, connect design with machine. It was also an attempt to draw their model from the English Arts and Crafts Movement, and furthermore, fit it to the modern industrial society. I believe that one of the most outstanding figures pushing this attempt forward was Hermann Muthesius. He raised and used various ideas of the "Sachlichkeit" as superior criteria of modernity, which gave an impetus to the receding tide of the movement of "Jugendstil". Besides, I would like to claim here that Muthesius accepted the technological world as it really was and made it his starting point for design ; he proposed the concept of "Sachkunst", that is, the conception of "Industrial Design". Later on, however, his theory of design became so wedded to the cultural nationalism that it was transformed into an ideological device for expanding the German world market. Therefore, after World War I he was blamed for his very compromising attitude toward the pressure of the nationalism and industrialism, and was totally neglected by the world. However, it seems that Muthesius' leading design thought, before World War I, resumed late in 1920's its essential influence upon activities of the "Bauhaus" and the "Deutscher Werkbund".