The Design History Reader

by Grace Lees-Maffei (Editor), Rebecca Houze (editor)

This revised and updated edition addresses the international history and practice of design from the 17th century to the present day.

Covering both primary texts by social theorists, designers and design reformers, and secondary texts in the form of key works of design history and design thinking, the Reader provides an essential resource for understanding the history of design, the development of the discipline, and contemporary issues in design history and practice, including decolonization, sustainability, historiography, gender and globalization. Extracts are grouped into thematic sections, each with a contextualizing introduction by the editors, and a guide to further reading.

The updated edition of The Design History Reader expands upon its original content and features numerous significant voices from across the globe. Authors include William Morris, Karl Marx, Roland Barthes, Victor Margolin, Penny Sparke, Judy Attfield, Ellen Lupton, and many more.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction

474 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Grace Lees-Maffei is a Professor of Design History and Director of the Professional Doctorate in Heritage (DHeritage) at the University of Hertfordshire. Grace's published work is available in The Design History Reader (Berg 2010), Writing Design: Words and Objects (Berg 2012), Made in Italy: Rethinking a Century of Italian Design (Bloomsbury 2013), Design at Home: Domestic Advice Books in Britain and the USA since 1945 (Routledge 2013), Iconic Designs: 50 Stories about 50 Things (Bloomsbury 2014), Designing Worlds: National Design Histories in an Age of Globalization (Berghahn, 2016), Reading Graphic Design in Cultural Context (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), Design and Heritage (Routledge 2022) and in journals including Design Issues, Design and Culture, Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, Women's History Review, Modern Italy and the Journal of Design History.
Prof Lees-Maffei is Book Series Editor, with Prof Kjetil Fallan (University of Oslo), for Cultural Histories of Design (Bloomsbury), and Advisory Board member for AIS/Design Storia e Ricerche, Journal of the AIS/Design (Associazione italiana degli storici del design).

Reviews

[Yokusun Basi]

The Design History Reader by Grace Lees-Maffei (2010)