Summary the aticle - Essay Example

A Throw-Away Aesthetic In the early twentieth century, it was believed that aesthetics should be involved in industrial engineering, which was not hitherto done due to inadequate education. Machine products were brought within the orbit of pure aesthetics but three main factors were ignored – simplicity, objectivity and standardization. Nevertheless, objects cannot last lifelong and constant change and innovation in any product is imperative. It is absurd to expect durable aesthetic qualities in expendable products.

In appreciation of aesthetics as a part of the engineering design, Le Corbusier regarded the engines of Bugatti cars as the highest models of engineering imagination. Jean Gregoine disagreed with this view. He believed that the technique on which the utilization of material depends should be progressive and hence beauty would change too. Aesthetic qualities are expendable and liable to wastage of effect. For instance, the part to be repaired in Bugatti is hidden for the sake of beauty, which makes repairs difficult to be conducted in contrast to Buick where the stress is not on the beauty but practical performance and repairs.

In Buick the technical and aesthetic qualities have been given equal importance whereas Bugatti is a monument of abstract art. The criticism of popular art depends upon the analysis of content which lends appreciation to superficial qualities. The industrial designer should have the ability to design a product that is good, desirable, and exciting. This trend becomes more pronounced as culture becomes mechanized when the middle-class people become educated. The designer has to be in touch with the masses and determine to what extent fine arts can be integrated with popular art and what will sell.

This alone can bring out innovative, aesthetically appealing, and functionally good product. The Theory of Machine Design in the Second Industrial Age During the Second Industrial Age there was a connection between design practice and the theoretical self-awareness. With the development of design management, changes took place in the management of machinery design. Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company, brought about innovation in design management. They were market leaders in machine tool manufacturing in 1900.

They brought changes with non-mechanical decoration in 1911. All designs had to conform to a style manual issued by the Chief Draughtsman and the purpose was to create artistic machines with analytical engineering. This means the process by which the machines were designed and manufactured were transformed. This involved book learning and shop culture. Innovation was definitely getting complex but the range of products increased. At the beginning of the second industrial age machine designing combined precise formulae derived from analytical mechanics.

Changes were brought in the lathe legs but various shapes were rejected either on technical grounds or aesthetic appeal. The Chief Draughtsman Burlingame’s manual gave an insight that without an architect the firm could gain from a systematic yet spectacular paper exercise, which was different from machine shop tradition. The manual specified that a machine need not look like a machine but the details should look massive in appearance. Precision and uniformity was important. This manual, in the second industrial age was a creative response to the corporate consumer design.