Victor Papanek Designer for the Real World

The history and controversial roots of the social design movement, explored through the life and work of its leading pioneer, Victor Papanek.

In Victor Papanek: Designer for the Real World, Alison Clarke explores the social design movement through the life of its leading pioneer, the Austrian American designer, theorist, and activist Victor Papanek. Papanek's 1971 best seller, Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change has been translated into twenty-two languages and never fallen out of print. Its politics of social design, anti-corporatism, and environmental sustainability have found renewed pertinence in the twenty-first century and dominate the agendas of design schools today. Drawing extensively on previously unexplored archival sources, Clarke uncovers and contextualizes the movement's controversial origins and contradictions.

Alison J. Clarke is a design historian and social anthropologist. She is Professor of Design History and Theory at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she is also Director of the Victor J. Papanek Foundation.

Contents Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Design Clinic: The Early Formation of a Social Designer 9
2 Seduction of the Innocent: From Bondage Fetishism to Frank Lloyd Wright 43
3 Studio 44: Mid-Century California Calling 67
4 The Comprehensive Designer: Toward a New Politics of Design 93
5 From Bionics to Racial Politics: The Making of a Cold War Designer 121
6 Prescription for Rebellion? From Styrofoam Domes to Animatronic Women 151
7 Northern Lights: The Allure of Nordic Design Activism 179
8 Design for the Real World: A Call to Action 211
9 Pragmatism before Politics: Social Design Turns Nomadic 233
10 After Design for the Real World 265
Notes 281
Index 325