Society. Powers. Design.

Seeking out an indi­vidual style might be com­pared to sear­ching for a name for your off­spring. No sooner have you decided with cer­tainty that you have found the perfect name hardly anyone else has thought of, than you hear it shouted out in the play­ground on a see­mingly con­ti­nuous loop. A similar feeling creeps over you when you are fitting out your own four walls. Looking for an ori­ginal idea nowadays involves getting lost in various blogs and cli­cking from one Instagram post to the next. But ulti­m­ately you must face the unavo­idable fact that, like in fur­niture shops or at relevant trade fairs, the inno­va­tions they showcase resemble and repeat one another over and over. The colours are the same whe­rever you go – in short: the tastes of an entire scene seem to follow the same trends. All too often we dis­cover that even items we once thought were ori­ginal now turn out to be just fol­lowers of fashion. It is even more fasci­nating that, the more often you encounter the same style, your own sense of style adjusts accor­dingly and your search for unique pieces fre­quently ends where it started: at the trend items popular whe­rever you go.

How can it be that you sud­denly like things that you didn’t par­ti­cu­larly like in the past and so uncon­sciously follow current trends? Fre­quently these are short-lived product or fashion trends which dis­appear into obscurity no sooner than they have emerged, only to re-emerge at some point, and so on it goes. What are par­ti­cu­larly inte­resting, however, are the under­lying trends – known as mega­trends, which often operate at a global level, paradigm shifts that affect every aspect of our lives, from economy, fashion and product design through to art, lite­rature and music. They describe long-lived phe­nomena that can prevail for decades, which cha­rac­terise the spirit of the age and the­r­efore differ from short-term trends and fashions. Changes to the envi­ronment, avai­la­bility of resources or indi­vidual needs not only affect social inter­action, but also life­styles, the design of fur­niture and interior design trends – and these in turn influence the deve­lo­pment of design. This mutual inter­action between design and society can be observed in almost all eras. The fol­lowing will only touch on a few, starting with the Bauhaus movement, which had a major influence on sub­se­quent styles of design, as well as on social deve­lo­p­ments, in the decades fol­lowing its foun­dation – an influence that con­tinues to be seen today.

The signi­fi­cance of the Bauhaus school extends far beyond that of an edu­ca­tional insti­tution for art, design and archi­tecture, or the defining approach to interior styling. Bauhaus was rather an artistic, edu­ca­tional and social pro­gramme and thereby the expression of social upheaval. The focus was on social change in an age of indus­tria­li­sation. Bauhaus was intended to be a pioneer in pro­viding an answer to the pro­blems facing con­tem­porary society. The social aspect of pro­duction and the deve­lo­pment of cheaper fur­niture, tex­tiles, wall­papers and lamps that were affordable even for the working classes was a central focus, in par­ti­cular for Walter Gropius’ suc­cessor Hannes Meyer in his work at Bauhaus. By endea­vouring to create func­tional and tim­eless ‘fur­niture for all’, a pared-down aes­thetic style was defined, taking into account all aspects of life. Even a century after Bauhaus came into being, many fur­niture and product designs from that time still have their place among the most famous classics of design – we only need think of Marcel Breuer’s tubular steel chair or Wilhelm Wagenfeld’s desk lamp. Pieces ori­gi­nally manu­fac­tured with the intention of making design acces­sible to a broad mass of people and which since then have often become affordable only to con­nois­seurs. In the archi­tec­tural sphere, cube forms, flat roofs or added-on glass fa.ades harking back to the Bauhaus movement have become indis­pensable. Nowadays the term Bauhaus is used more and more broadly and much is declared to be in the “Bauhaus” style that has little to do with the ori­ginal Bauhaus concept. Aside from that, the ori­ginal Bauhaus approach has indeed had a lasting influence on the deve­lo­pment of design, so much so that it is encoun­tered at every turn, usually without us even being aware of the fact.

Like Bauhaus, Scan­di­navian design too is con­sidered the epitome of good design. Even in the 1930s, Finnish designer Alvar Aalto and Danish archi­tects Arne Jakobsen and Verner Panton were creating their own lan­guage of form – two decades before Nordic style came into being with its unpre­ten­tious for­mality and aspi­ration to func­tion­ality and focus on affordable mass pro­duction. Here too the origin of design is to be found in over­riding mega­trends: in the emer­gence of Scan­di­navian-style social demo­cracy in the 1950s, in the avai­la­bility of cheap mate­rials and in inno­vative methods of mass pro­duction. Scan­di­navian design still has great influence on inter­na­tional indus­trial design. Poul Henningsen’s PH pendant lights seem to hang in every household and in almost every public building in Copen­hagen. With clear lines, bright colours, natural mate­rials such as wood and linen and a muted aes­thetic that is inviting despite a degree of coolness, the concept of making beau­tifully designed yet func­tional objects for every sector of society has been suc­cessfully imple­mented. In par­ti­cular the style described as Scan­di­navian home design has been made available to the masses by Swedish fur­niture store IKEA, which has con­tri­buted signi­fi­cantly to the glo­ba­li­sation of Nordic interior design style and the asso­ciated life­style. For several years, another Scan­di­navian brand has been defining interior design: the Danish company Hay offers design at affordable prices. IKEA too has col­la­bo­rated with the Danes – as it has with many other famous desi­gners such as Ilse Crawford or Tom Dixon. Such tem­porary coope­ra­tions mean that design remains acces­sible to a broad sector of the popu­lation.

And then there is the ever-recurrent vintage movement which surely everyone has been seduced by at some point, even if it was just a flir­tation with a pastel-toned fridge. There is almost nothing that cannot be obtained in a retro variant – from art and fashion through to archi­tecture and tech­nology, lite­rature and music. Evi­dence of recourse to past aes­thetic styles can be seen ever­y­where. Harking back to pre­vious styles is no new phe­no­menon but was a prin­ciple of expression in design even in his­to­ricism and eclec­ticism. While Nordic design represents the desire for sim­plicity, the vintage movement and the asso­ciated retro trend draw on lon­gings for a time when the world was not yet as mul­ti­di­men­sional as it is today. So retro design should be described less as resorting to the past but rather as a con­ti­nuing deve­lo­pment: things do remind us of earlier times, but at the same time express a need for per­ma­nence and sta­bility. At the same time nowadays we have the freedom to expe­rience nost­algia without renouncing the com­forts of modernism. Some stores offer the best of the old days in a new way and emphasise elegant design and sus­taina­bility in its pro­ducts. In so doing, they strike a chord with an entire gene­ration.

Taking into account social needs and attempting to build ‘fur­niture for everyone’ is a preoc­cu­pation even of young desi­gners. At a time that has turned an entire gene­ration into a throw-away society where the talk is often of ‘must-haves’, which are con­stantly being reinvented, issues such as sus­taina­bility and eco­lo­gi­cally com­pa­tible design and manu­fac­turing are taking on fresh importance. Desi­gners once again con­sider them­selves more to be shapers of the present and of the future – and thereby of society. Con­cen­tration on natural mate­rials, in par­ti­cular timber, is to be observed not only in archi­tecture, but also in interior design. Social living pro­jects, high-rise buil­dings with timber fa.ades, self-assembly designer fur­niture – current social deve­lo­p­ments such as the growing social divide are being taken into account in the design of the envi­ronment without negle­cting aes­thetic appeal. Ever more fre­quently nowadays, there are attempts to make design acces­sible to a broader section of the popu­lation. One won­derful example of this – also revi­siting the elegant designs of De Stijl and Bauhaus – is offered by Berlin-based architect Le Van Bo: an easy-to-follow guide, inspired by dra­wings by Gerrit Rietveld, Marcel Breuer, Erich Dieckmann and Mies van der Rohe, faci­li­tates the self-assembly of a simple chair in high-quality mate­rials, repre­senting a way into the world of beau­tiful everyday design for people who could never hope to afford classic designer pieces. The inno­vative project of a DIY store for which architect and designer Sigurd Larsen created a self-assembly lounge chair is a part of this movement. Affordable design costing little is becoming – once more – a part of everyday cul­tural heritage. Nevert­heless, designer items such as the chairs of Hans J. Wegner or Arne Jakobsen, or pieces by con­tem­porary desi­gners such as Jasper Mor­rison or Kon­stantin Grcic con­tinue to be purchased almost exclu­sively by a style-con­scious target group who do not want to buy off the shelf and are willing to spend a little more money on one-off pieces.

Design even today remains an expression of an attitude that is con­stantly deve­loping in ever more diverse ways as it interacts with social deve­lo­p­ments. The speed at which both mega­trends and short-lived fashions are per­ceived and adopted has changed. Private indi­vi­duals and the so-called influencers on social net­works are becoming a source of inspi­ration. Indi­vi­dua­li­sation of our society and striving for uni­queness is actually a trend opposing this – yet it has nevert­heless become a trend. Con­tem­porary move­ments such as the Danish ‘Hygge’ or Swedish ‘Lagom’ describe life­styles that are understood to be a reaction to the fast pace of con­tem­porary life. The aim is a sus­tainable and enjoyable life­style – a trend which has now pene­trated the world of interior design. Ulti­m­ately an aban­donment of blind adapt­ation of what is curr­ently in style/hip is being pre­ached. Everyone should be able to find and live out their own style. Trends – whether these are pastel shades, grid designs or brass lamps – should at most form the basis of a per­sonal style mix. Great emphasis is placed on indi­vi­duality and uni­queness. This creates a trend that actually fors­wears trends, and yet is itself one. A won­derful trend indeed as you only ever find that which is truly special by gathering tog­ether unique objects and items of fur­niture, by dis­co­vering an interplay between indi­vidual pieces, by com­bining old and new, and by trusting your own aes­thetic sense. Only then can good style emerge. And that is the case in all HOLIDAYARCHITECTURE pro­perties, where pre­cisely this won­derful mix can be found: unique com­po­si­tions of ambi­tious archi­tecture and indi­vi­dually sel­ected fur­niture and access­ories that make an interior into some­thing really special.

This article first appeared in our book URLAUBSARCHITEKTUR 2019.

Author: Tina Barankay has worked for many years in the fields of design and archi­tecture – com­bining her passion for aes­thetics and form with her extensive expe­rience in public rela­tions and project management. She writes regu­larly as a free­lance author for Urlaubs­ar­chi­tektur.

Photos: © Serge Ben­kemoun (Villa Ben­kemoun — cover photo, 14, 15), © Rita Pala­ni­kumar (Vind­ly­veien — 1), © Ben Buschfeld (Tautes Heim — 2–5), © Ake Eson Lindman (Grams Gård — 6, 7), © Eli­sabeth Inth­avong / Studio Twinky (Maison Jalon — 8, 9), © Carlos Barruz (yök Casa + Cultura, 10,11), © Nicolas Matheus (Villa Extra­muros — 12, 13)