The Responsible Object: A History of Design Ideology for the Future traces the long lineage of socially committed design thinking, demonstrating that sustainability and ethical production are not recent inventions but recurring — and repeatedly suppressed — imperatives within Western design culture.
About This Book
What happens when future archaeologists sift through the debris of our era — the discarded electronics, synthetic textiles, and imperishable plastics that define mass consumer culture? The Responsible Object takes this unsettling premise as its starting point, then turns it into a historical inquiry. Edited by Marjanne van Helvert, the book charts a lineage of socially responsible design from William Morris through Victor Papanek, and from the Soviet design school VKhUTEMAS to the open-source fabrication network FabLab. For designers and design historians alike, it reframes sustainability not as a contemporary trend but as a contested ideology with deep roots — one that demands serious reckoning in the present.
Key Features
- 284 pages tracing the history of socially committed and sustainable design strategies within the Western tradition
- Edited by Marjanne van Helvert
- Case studies spanning William Morris, Victor Papanek, VKhUTEMAS, and FabLab
- Published by Valiz, ISBN 9789492095190
What You'll Discover
- How design ideologies of sustainability and social responsibility predate contemporary discourse, with traceable roots across more than a century of Western design history
- The ideological continuities and ruptures between craft-based movements, avant-garde collectives, and contemporary open-source fabrication communities
- How figures such as William Morris and Victor Papanek positioned design as an instrument of social and ethical transformation — not merely aesthetic production
- The material consequences of consumer culture, framed through the lens of what our discarded objects reveal about the economic systems that produced them
About the Author
[Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 284
- Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9789492095190
- Publisher: Valiz
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Designers and design educators interrogating the ethics of practice, historians of modernism and material culture, and students of sustainable and socially engaged design.