Swedish Design

M. Murphy Keith

Description

Swedish designers are noted for producing distinctive and elegant forms; their furniture and household goods have an especially loyal following around the world. Design in Sweden has more than just an aesthetic component, however. Since at least the late nineteenth century, Swedish politicians and social planners have viewed design as a means for advocating and enacting social change and pushing for a more egalitarian social organization. In this book, Keith M. Murphy examines the special relationship between politics and design in Sweden, revealing in particular the cultural meanings this relationship holds for Swedish society.Over the course of fourteen months of research in Stockholm and at other sites, Murphy conducted in-depth interviews with various players involved in the Swedish design industry-designers, design instructors, government officials, artists, and curators-and observed several different design collectives in action. He found that for Swedes design is never socially or politically neutral. Even for common objects like furniture and other household goods, design can be labeled "responsible," "democratic," or "ethical"- descriptors that all neatly resonate with the traditional moral tones of Swedish social democracy. Murphy also considers the example of Ikea and its power to politicize perceptions of the everyday world. More broadly, his book serves as a model for an anthropological approach to the study of design practice, one that accounts for the various ways in which order is purposefully and meaningfully imposed by designers on the domains of human life, and the consequences those impositions have on the social worlds in which they are embedded.

Sujets

• Sciences et techniques
• Industrial
• Sweden
• Material culture
• Furniture
• History of Europe
• Suède
• Design
• Musique industrielle

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 11 août 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801455803
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Swedish Design

C U L T U R E S A N D T E C H N O L O G I E S O F K N O W L E D G E

edited by dominic boyer

A list of titles in this series is available at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Swedish Design

An Ethnography

Keith M. Murphy

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2015 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2015 by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2015 Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Murphy, Keith M., author.  Swedish design : an ethnography / Keith M. Murphy.  pages cm. — (Expertise : cultures and technologies of knowledge)  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 978-0-8014-5329-8 (cloth : alk. paper) —  ISBN 978-0-8014-7966-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)  1. Design—Anthropological aspects—Sweden. 2. Material culture— Sweden—Philosophy. 3. Ethnology—Sweden. I. Title.  NK1461.A1M87 2015  306.4'709485—dc23 2014041686

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood îbers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing Paperback printing

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Acknowledgments

Contents

Introduction: Disentangling Swedish Design

1. The Diagram of Swedish Design

2. Building the Beautiful Home

3. In the Design World

4. In the Studio

5. Displays of Force

Conclusion: Designing a Social Cosmology

Notes References Index

vii

1 30 58 89 128 172 206

219 225 243

Acknowledgments

Without the backing of a vast conspiracy of supporters, this book would not exist. I’d like to start by thanking Alessandro Duranti, Candy Good- win, Chuck Goodwin, and Paul Kroskrity, who, when I came to them and said “hand gestures plus furniture plus Sweden plus anthropology,” decided not to lose their faith in me. A number of other mentors at UCLA also helped shape the trajectory of this book, including Niko Besnier, Linda Garro, John Heritage, Doug Hollan, Elinor Ochs, Mel Pollner, and Manny Schegloff. My colleagues, past and present, at the University of California, Irvine, have pushed my thinking and writing in directions I’d have never discov- ered on my own, and I’d especially like to thank Victoria Bernal, Tom Boellstorff, Angela Garcia, Julia Lupton, Bill Maurer, Sanjoy Mazum- dar, Michael Montoya, Valerie Olson, Kris Peterson, and Kaushik Sun- der Rajan. George Marcus has productively encouraged me to expand my views of both design and anthropology. All of my students at UCI—in particular Julka Almquist, Lilly Irani, Janny Li, and Stevie Rea—have in

v i i i Acknowledgments

some way inuenced this book. Iris Flores and Rachel Ulgado provided invaluable bibliographic assistance. And thanks to the Department of Anthropology staff, especially Norma Miranda, who takes care of all the things that need taking care of. Over the years I have beneîted immensely from conversations with a wide array of interlocutors whose voices echo throughout these pages. I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by a brilliant and generous group of graduate students at UCLA, including Steven Black, Anjali Brown- ing, Mara Buchbinder, Cre Engelke, Inmaculada Garcia-Sánchez, Hanna Garth, Rachel George, Jeff Good, Anthony Graesch, Mi Kyung Kim, Heather Loyd, Angela Nonaka, Daisy Rooks, Merav Shohet, Jesse Sum- mers, and Anja Vogel. I’d especially like to acknowledge the perseverance and dedication of Kevin Groark, Justin Richland, Kristen Schilt, and Jason Throop (the îrst person to hear of my plan to work in Sweden), all of whom have provided critical input at every stage of this project. For their own various bits of wisdom, insight, and assistance prior to and during the writing of the book, I’d like to thank Shoham Arad, Don Brenneis, Mary Bucholtz, Graham Jones, Susan Gal, Wendy Gunn, Cori Hayden, Jamer Hunt, Don Kulick, Lotta Björklund Larsen, Michael Lempert, Per Linell, Chris McCray, Lorenza Mondada, Howard Morphy, Smoki Mu- saraj, Constantine Nakassis, Todd Nicewonger, Mihir Pandya, Marina Peterson, Michael Silverstein, Ivan Small, Roger Säljö, and Marketa Vele- hradska. Thanks also to my friends Paul Connor, Jennifer Tsang, Kerry Tulson, Ann Walters, and Anna Krakus, who is not just a friend, but also the central pillar supporting everything in this book. The list of people who have selessly helped me in Sweden is long. I’d like to thank the ofîce of the Swedish Fulbright Commission, Jean- nette Lindström, Monica Dahlen, Nina Forsblad, and Antonietta Op- penheimer for easing my transition into the Stockholm way of living. Karin Junefelt, my “Swedish mom,” demonstrated more kindness and generosity than I thought any normal human being was capable of. At Stockholm University, the Social Anthropology Department welcomed me with open arms, and I’d especially like to thank Ulf Hannerz, Chris- tina Garsten, Shahram Khosravi, Johan Lindquist, Karin Norman, and Helena Wulff, as well as Laila Abdallah, Victor Alneng, Raoul Galli, and Johanna Gullberg. And for going above and beyond, Eva Lundgren and Renita Thedvall are true saints. I would also like to thank Mathias Broth,

i xA c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

Lucas Gottzén, Jonas Ivarsson, Oskar Lindwall, and Gustav Lymer, my staunchest intellectual supporters and interlocutors in Sweden. And without my friends Cameron Britt, Garrett Bucks, Jorg De Vries, The- resa Harmanen, Fredrik Johansson-Oviedo, Kjersti Knox, Cora Lacatus, Rebecca Lundberg, and Mia Marchner, îeldwork in Stockholm would surely have been a drag. Many others in Sweden have contributed to the development of this project, but I’d like to thank in particular Jan Carl Adelswärd, Viveka Adelswärd, Karin Aronsson, Stella D'Ailly, Ronald Jones, Bronek Krakus, Urszula Krakus, Karl Lallerstedt, Lars Lallerstedt, Sara Lönnroth, Jonas Nobel, Dominic Power, Cilla Robach, Helena Scragg, Yngve Sundblad, Anna-Marie Svensson, Niklas Wolkert, Måns Wrange, and Christina Zetterlund. I must profusely thank all of the folks who graciously allowed me a glimpse of their own small corners of the Swedish design world, especially the designers who opened their doors to me. Most will remain unnamed, but you know who you are. However there is an obvious exception in Peter, Matti, and Fredrik, whose work—in every sense of the term—has fundamentally made this book possible. Tack så jätte mycket. Various pieces of this project were presented at a number of different conferences, colloquia, and workshops, and participants in those events have been instrumental in giving form to my otherwise inchoate ideas. These include members of the Department of Anthropology at the Uni- versity of California, Santa Cruz; the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University; the Departments of Anthro- pology and Sociology at the University of Chicago; the Social Anthropol- ogy Department at Stockholm University; Södertörn University College in Södertörn, Sweden; the Linnaeus Centre for Research on Learning, Interaction, and Mediated Communication in Contemporary Society (LinCS) at the University of Gothenburg; the American Anthropologi- cal Association; the International Conference on Conversation Analysis in Mannheim, Germany; and the Swedish Women’s Education Association in San Francisco. At Cornell University Press my deepest thanks go to series editor Dom- inic Boyer, for his unwavering advocacy; Peter Potter, for his careful guid- ance; Sara Ferguson, for her patience and efîciency; Marian Rogers, for her eagle eyes and cleverness; and Lisa DeBoer for compiling the index.