Design History and the History of Design

by John A. Walker

An essential overview as well as a theoretical critique for all students of design history. Walker studies the intellectual discipline of Design History and the issues that confront scholars writing histories of design. Taking his approach from a range of related fields, he discusses the problems of defining design and writing history. He considers the different methods that leading scholars have used in the absence of a theoretical framework, and looks critically at a number of histories of design and architecture.

Genres: Design

264 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Saurabh Tewari · Rating 5 out of 5]

The seminal book in the discourse of Design History. The Production-Consumption Model by Walker and his various chapters delineate the field.

[✨ Ida ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 (not attempting to rate the quality of this book, this rating solely reflects how useful it was for me)
I expected something different (but now looking back I should’ve just read the description a little bit more carefully). This is not an overview of design history, this is more so a discussion of design history as an intellectual discipline. But with that also came discussions about defining design in itself and those parts I especially enjoyed. Although this book was published about 30 years ago and English is not my first language, I didn’t find the writing to be dense or hard to understand.
I do not regret reading this, as I took away quite a few useful insights but if you’re looking to gain an overview over design history this is not the one.

[Yokusun Basi]

DESIGN HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF DESIGN by John A. Walker (1990)