I think I owe it to diabase and Steven Ward to admit that on another thread I stated something to the effect of "Design is creating something new by arranging or reorganizing existing things." And I think that's true.

Yet I also agree with both of your arguments that style is using existing things to create a new appearance.

I like the notion of use vs. consumption. A good building (or backpack, or fountain pen) works alongside you, physically and psychically it increase your ability and enjoyment of completing a task.

The Public, also, very nice comments. I'm enjoying this discussion.

Also, the notion that design is a means, style is an end - very nice idea, dia - relates to my time at Cranbrook, where we architecture students said that while the art students were working towards an end - a product in the form of a painting or sculpture or video or instalaltion - we arch students were producing a process. The process itself was the end product.

Thanks. I'm enjoying it also. Thanks for starting it, and for the Greenfield link.

Also, the notion that design is a means, style is an end - very nice idea, dia - relates to my time at Cranbrook, where we architecture students said that while the art students were working towards an end - a product in the form of a painting or sculpture or video or installation - we arch students were producing a process. The process itself was the end product.

Oops, so sorry for double post. Internet belch.

"Let me see if I can make my point a little more concretely, so that it doesn't begin to degenerate into mere bitter-old-fart acidity: I believe that success in design strongly implies a satisfying the requirements of a user."

Brilliant though Greenfield is, I do read nostalgia in his writing ... "there was a time when everyone was a modernist!" He believes in progress. He seems irritated by youngsters who don't know what he knows.

You might look at his article as a modern/postmodern debate. Greenfield wants to protect his idea of 'universally applicable' modernist design ideals from degrading into fragmented, meaningless styling. You might read that styling to him represents postmodernity -- it's purely surface, it isn't humanist, it doesn't have true intentions. He doesn't want to understand the language, for example posturing as he calls it (he mentions punk, hip hop), and that makes it easy to dismiss it.

He writes, design's success is satisfying the requirements of the user. But isn't the real question: what are the requirements of the user?

Maybe there is no teleology here. The 'surface' can communicate just as many messages about the maker and the user as the engineering. Just as Pop Art imitates commercial art, it says to us: 1. commercial art is just as valid as high art. 2. selling and image-making is just as important as the integrity of the commodity -- the package is the equivalent of the content, at least when it comes to perception.

It says a lot about what the world is right now. There's a multitude of images (arguably more than any other time in history) and what a modern culture produces most is imagery. It's difficult to accept if you feel overwelmed by the sheer quantity of languages, cultures, subcultures, the artificiality, and the materialism. But, isn't there also a simultaneous depth and beauty?

mintcar - I do agree with you, there is very much a pro-modernist anti-postmodernist stance in greenfields ideas.

I dont see style as equivalent to surface. Is the eberswalde library facade a stylistic treatment?

Excuse me if this confuses the thread; I'm new to this and I'm not an architect so I don't share some of the same language.
My thoughts on style center around the idea of style relating to symbols and how they are put together. Style seems to be a way of distinguishing, of marking inclusion and exclusion through knowing a way of putting symbols together. Style can be very inclusive - trying to be universal and broadly understood (I'm thinking of Greenfield's Rail signage example); or it can be exclusive and identify those in the know (the coke designs). This could also be said of writing styles - some try to be broadly understood while others are used to signify allegiance to a particular group or language.

How this though relates to design and archtecture I'm still sorting through. Greenfield seems to admire the universal ideal, while feeling excluded from the more fragmented styles. I think all designs can be said to have a style - a way of putting components together that goes beyond the functional to signify a context (traditional, modern, contemprary, etc.). I think this is why 'traditional' styles of homes have been so successful in suburbs; they symbolize home for the owners when the surroundings feel less than homey. Here the style hides the lack of substance.
I guess I don't think there is a simple relationship between style and design. Back to the writing example - sometimes a writer's style disappears behind the message, other times the style is the message.
As in many things it all depends - However I believe Greenfield is arguing that Design should be inclusive and broadly understood, and not exclusive, denoting those in the 'know'.
This brings us to the postmodern critique of the universal, but I'm tired and my brain hasn't had to work this hard this late in years so I'll end it here.

I think you're right, michaelg, that there is not a simple relationship between design and style. I definitely feel that I do bot in my work, and (very generally ) the design work is more "work" while the style wrk is more fun. But both aspects are approached with my critical faculties working.

Style often hides a lack of substance - but sometimes style and substance are so intertwined as to be equal - I think the ipod falls into this category. Definitely a "stylized" object, uber cool in appearance, but oh, such wonderful usability!

It is often said that something possess style but if it has no 'substance' it is often derided.

Style + substance = good design

Perhaps the syle end of the equation is more visual rated where the substance is the background and the functionality that come from the thing?

if i design an aquaculture system does it have to be stylish?

not all design is styled, at least not in the decorative sense. Then again the big LeC found style in grain silos that no one ever saw before, so perhaps style is simply about form that has an associated meaning. and the meaning can change. which is why style comes and goes. it has no inherent value, only temporary value.

design is about meeting a purpose. in the sense that a painting is not designed, but a car is (i am not, btw, suggesting that painting has no function). Architecture is usually a blend of these two threads, and in the end the distinction is basically moot. The only reason we could possibly be concerned about it is if we have an agenda of establishing a hierarchy and fixing our position as designers within it. Which seems a losing position to me all round...categories are just limits that we create for ourselves...

Isn't a 'style' a bit of a compilation of a number of 'designs', methods, works, etc?
I know it's often un-cool to say nice, or serious things abot 'style' , but
there is value to the concept, I think.

Maybe I'm focusing on the big picture concept of 'style'.
When a noun has 'style' aren't we sayingthat it hasgood qualities (unlike my typing), such as 'virtue.'

I would say that style needs to be interpreted, that it is meant to be 'read'. Some types of designs have a larger symbolic component - say museums - and it is the job of a good designer to figure out what that component is and integrate it into the overall design.

Style is often derided because it can also cover up or lie - when a home is a McMansion, yet its 'style' is italianate villa. There is a sense that we are being lied to by these developments. On the other hand the owners are buying the house becuase the style says to them - home and status.

excellent point about style and form. maybe, i dunno, style is the bundle of meanings that we project onto a specific form or set of forms. or style is the intention to bundle forms in order to satisfy a certain desire for consumption. all these words...i just had four hours of MEP coordination meetings and my brain is more taken up with VAVs than values right now.

i mean, flat roofs and glass walls combined to form the "international style" in the 1950s and that style was grafted onto the identity of corporate america. now the same set of forms is grafted onto a different identity, that of high culture / art (as in the redone ny moma etc).

'Design's ends are related to use, whereas Style has as it's ultimate end consumption.'

minus the theological capsing, huh? use is not consumption? this smacks of regurgitated marxistish cliches (something functionalism borrows from heavily)


'The truth is that design and style do overlap. Zaha's perspective are more style than design, but her buildings are more design than style.'

to begin with, they werent seen as stylized, but as representations iconically on par with the proposed designs (such as the HK project). now, its easy to call them stylized, as it easy to call anything or one aging under the spotlights more stylized than original. perhaps the test of time is also a test of one's rationale through time for it seems
such a dismissal is, ironically, a fad. alse here, the distinction is a non distinction and the reasoning..well, there is no reasoning.

'Also, the notion that design is a means, style is an end'

the notion of design as a 'process'....the fetishization of the design process , especially in schools of architecture ( an onanism
of representations pinned up at the end of the year that, irrespective of end or target, ticks a box. i recall a rehabilitation centre project for chocaholics in the U. of Westminster end of the year show that presented endless diagrams charting calorie consumption and lipids percentage...quite sad really) is only relatively recent (not the process itself, but the abstract notion of process as value within itself). it is part of the heritage of post industrial thinking ( an assembling factory of ideas) and perhaps the growing trend for obsessive self-archiving (at least, a matter of egotism- making clear each and every clever thing thought of. in other guises, genius as a matter of paranoid self editing (only undone posthumously), the 'means' were simply a means to an end, not, as implied above, a means to a means). i really think, if i accept this half baked idea of style vs design, that the chocaholic project stylized its process to a point where it became a perfect fashionable caption for a certain academic trend. and, just in case someone will find it easy to pit it against design, it was also a very thoroughly (but badly) designed project.

'Style often hides a lack of substance - but sometimes style and substance are so intertwined as to be equal - I think the ipod falls into this category.'

again a logical fallacy, if sometimes they are so intertwined, that means style , whatever that is, is not set against substance, whatever that is. therefor style cannot hide, whatever that is, substance...or it would do so each and every time. there is either a third element that determines when and how they are intertwined or the very conjecture given is just wishful thiking. i think the latter...and what is meant by 'hide'? if it is hidden, then how come you are privy to the thing it hides...the lack that is? the trailing is a typical standard elitist vs pop chit chat ( 'as architects, our education and practice dictates more clarity' blah blah countered by 'your education is as pop as coronation street but the difference is you are also educated to think your education dictated more clarity' blah blah)

these distinctions are simplistic, and not simple.

great post Rita

oops, the one before that...

this is a great discussion.

"However I believe Greenfield is arguing that Design should be inclusive and broadly understood, and not exclusive, denoting those in the 'know'."

I think michaelg cut to the heart of the argument.

Now, the premise of 'inclusion' is that there are such things as needs, symbols, and principles that apply to every person, every where. Signs that are understood by everyone. For example, the symbol for "man" as a head, torso, limbs. A kiss usually means affection. That everyone needs food, shelter, and sunlight. A tool fulfilling its function. That murder is bad.

Beyond (contestable) universal principles, we're in the realm of ... customization, differentiation, indentity. "sometimes a writer's style disappears behind the message, other times the style is the message." Yes!

Phenomena like branding (A Bathing Ape's success) is about tapping into desire to own rare objects, have a distinct identity ('the rebel'), and at the same time, identify with others who wear the same stuff -- share the language. Just as much, anti-style/modernist universalism can be interpreted as a style, not just a Truth to behold.

As an architect, maybe my intent is to allow people to own a piece of good design at an affordable cost. And/or to convey a philosophy or lifestyle. And/or to use your design to allow the client to express their values.

I think the intents are equally valid. However, we can get into murky waters: when does affordable become thow-away? When does lifestyle mean imagining that you're 'rich and powerful' because you own a McMansion? And what's a society when the way you express yourself is primarily through the objects you buy, NOT through having a real political voice?

it's off the track, but i didn't become an architect to go through the process of designing/styling/creating buildings. i became an architect for the end product, and the (yes, cheap and selfish) pride of knowing i had a part in the end product.

so after having slept on it a little, i realized i don't really care what i call what it is that i do. just so long as the product is what it should be.

now what THAT is...hmm...dunno but lemme get back to making it.

Is ornament style or design?

Ornament has no function in and of itself but can be used to highlight parts of the building or speak about when and where it was created.

Sullivan's ornamentation was created to solve 'a problem', an iconographic, theorectical problem but a problem none-the-less. But that was specific to him...

reminds me,
'i am the operator of my pocket calculator'.

''Design's ends are related to use, whereas Style has as it's ultimate end consumption.''

'minus the theological capsing, huh? use is not consumption? this smacks of regurgitated marxistish cliches (something functionalism borrows from heavily)'

No not minus the "theological capsing." I'm well aware of both my capsing and the reference to Marxian notions of use vs. exchange, which is also very much related to the Modern vs. Postmodern elements of this thread and the Greenfield link to which it refers ("planned obsolescence" is right out of Frederic Jameson for chrissakes, to drag back some more regurgitated Marxishism).

Even so, you dismiss my "regurgitated marxishist cliches" out of hand because functionalism borrowed from them. Or because they are regurgitated, or cliche, I suppose, but I wish you'd continue.

And as you enumerate the tenets of "good design," be careful not to use any academic jargon, but also please don't default to any old-school architectural platitudes in the guise of practical thinking.

was/is kraftwerk's music designed or styled?

Well, at any rate, Jameson talks a lot about it, especially here (that was 1991). I'm not sure if he coined it. It's been a while since I've read it, but it is apropos to this conversation that you used the term.

Jameson has also been accused, like Greenfield above, of betraying a certain nostalgia for the modern ... oh sorry, Modern.

i think it was operated..

strange ... i was just listening to "the man machine" in my car on the way back to the office from lunch.

Cellar Door Whore,

"I really think, if i accept this half baked idea of style vs design, that the chocaholic project stylized its process to a point where it became a perfect fashionable caption for a certain academic trend. and, just in case someone will find it easy to pit it against design, it was also a very thoroughly (but badly) designed project."

I think you identified the real nature of this kind of approach - it is stylised. We are all familiar with this design-by-numbers, design-by-statistics approach. The mistake often made by people who make this kind of argument is the hands-off, let-the-process-do-its-thing lack of accountability.

This is not a design process, but a style process. It is/was fashionable - fueled by the Dutch and the misreading of the machinic idea espoused by alejandro zaera polo and greg lynn, an obseesion with diagrams, and the possibilities of automatic design linked to possibilities in new software.

Maybe this comes down to value - the chocaholic project has as much value as its proposition and process - ie, pretty worthless. Ideally a machinic process, of which I am a proponent, should ask as many questions as it answers, and not rely on bullshit graphs, charts and statistics a'la SMLXL.

Through all of these posts I see that most of us like 'design' & are suspicious of 'style'. Either way, I think a big point is being missed: Design can be criticized as much as it is praised & the same can be said for style.

diabase...my point was that it fit both categories..and fit them badly it did. it was in bad taste/style...and it was thoroughly and badly designed, but designed it (the outcome) was as well. articulated, justified, processed, developed, schemed....it is interesting now that we start to touch base with calling 'style process'. the deeper we dig, the more the depth becomes surface. so you see, the distinction between style and design has nothing to do with process or means (as that can be stylized), it cant have to do with being ephemeral as that is not a distinction but a percieved evidence of assumed distinction (and arguing longevity proves a design is a design and not a stye is cute but not much more...), it has nothing to do with surface vs depth (terms that describe less than what they mean to until they actually have meaning, in which case they both acquire ...depth (nietsche on depth), and it is not use vs consumption for a trillion reasons.

the public, no need to be overtly defensive. i just dont enjoy holier than thou caps lock functions and i didnt care enough whether you were acquainted with marxist cliches and your usage of caps to assume thereof. and no i dont dismiss the cliches because functionalism borrowed heavily, it was a bracketed association that underlined common, yes cliched, ethos-turned-morality... the genuine almost primitive -nature- of labour(this is possibly the first lesson, for those interested, marxism has taught the patrick schumachers, labour is very much part of nature) vs the ideology (fake consciousness) of consumption. i will refrain from throwing in modernism vs postmodernism en masse as well as there are different versions of both that, on these grounds, are in opposite camps.


'And as you enumerate the tenets of "good design," be careful not to use any academic jargon, but also please don't default to any old-school architectural platitudes in the guise of practical thinking.'
...my on my, your sense of self worth must really have been threatened for you to break out in such a rash

and the article sucked. i hate it when a luddite geriatric pretends to be uber kool dragging the corpse of the sex pistols back up and then wanks over british rail details. doesnt realize that that fascination with railway physics is just as solipsistic? he probably has a bust of brunel next to a crucifix and a sex pistols poster and dating a teenager with fake blonde hair , buck teeth and split ends from an obscure welsh village. again, javiers kill-bill-esque'death of theory?' link is a much better richer intelligent and nicely written piece that is critical of some contemporary practices.

'I admit it. I'm one of those poor souls who likes to indulge myself in the fiction that there's something called "the online design community." '
it spelled disaster right from the start. what a lukewarm hippy.

nietzsche...sleepy, bye

ach, the semantics, they be flyin.

but, luckily, the semantics never lie.

Cellardoor,

I agree with you that simplification [on my part] is too simple, in fact I stated that somewhere up there. I have reductivist tendencies...

Knowing what I do know about the kind of project that you talk about, I still contend that that kind of process is style masked as design - the fact that it has no value, ie that it does not contribute, does not ask or discover questions, does not add to knowledge, but merely adds to an accepted aesthetic or mode of production denotes this.

I think that the difference lies in intention and value [more reductivism]. I dont think that surface comes into this, although I follow the lineage of the thinking that lies behind this. I dont think that style is a veneer - this is simplistic. For example, the facade of the Eberswalde Library is not in my opinion style.

in greenfield's article, design is problem solving; high-design is accommodating limitations; the greater the adversity, the better the artist. styling is contrasted as willfulness without boundaries. the two seem to hinge on an idea of personal taste vs limitations. the designer is celebrated for working to limits, but is feted for accomplishing this, as well as expressing a personal style, as if any issue of personality is a sure road to ruin. if on the other hand you're unlucky enough to land in free parking, your expressions are worthless, at least as design.

for greenfield, taste in design admits a privileged audience. although it is designed for usability and legibility, the artistry will pass most by (should in fact pass most by), especially if you didn't pick up the right book. by contrast, taste in style wantonly taps our desires and fears and connects en masse. whether either can communicate meaning is questionable, meaning in design is refined by a system of limitations, its refinement qualifies it as a sort of truth, meaning in style is introspective, hit or miss.

the substance of taste in both cases seems to be predetermined by the necessity or freedom of the designer, which gives the designer almost a moral superiority for enduring the pressures of "real problems". but we know taste is not an adjunct to a process or condition, rather it is an ever present sense of apportioning, giving things their place and finding what is appropriate for a situation; certainly we are aware when we suspend taste in the face unavoidable "truths" - or just no money. this idea of taste as "finding the appropriate" latently informed by our collected histories, dissolves the problem of visual appearance as a choice between systematic necessity and personal freedom, instead admiting to visual reality a representative capacity that appeals to our pysche's well of cultural figures drawn from the situation at hand.

cellar-door,

Sorry for my initial defensive response. I just get annoyed by people who summarily dismiss everything in an entire discussion (while overindulging in brackets and parentheticals), who offer only critique (not even critique, just criticism), and who offer little clarification or constructive input, only some vague references philosophers of preference. So you've once again, explained why we are all wrong, but have not explained why you are right.

That said, I agree with a lot of what you are saying, including your criticisms of the weakest points of vulgar Marxism. I also agree with your contention that Reinhold Martin's piece on post-theory, post-criticality is more subtle and interesting.

I think that one reason Greenfield's piece inspired the response that it did is because of its reductivist associations (easy target, broad vague categories [design, style]), but also (at least in the way that this thread played out) because a lot of "designers" (can I use scare-quotes instead of CAPS?) still feel some anxiety about design's complicity with the darker side of capitalist economy, and would like to rescue design from being pimp or whore to the perceived injustices capitalism (if that is even possible), but also feel a need to do so without making the intellectual-fashion faux pas of resurrecting the Utopianism that you criticize here and that Martian references in his piece.

Martian ... ha ha

Embrace the Inevitable. Pimp and Whore.

cdw: 'the deeper we dig, the more the depth becomes surface.'

that is the condition that we are faced with.


Embrace the Inevitable.

i overindulge in brackets because this is how i think (i think)- an almost instant imprint. i dont mind keeping it messy, there is no one over my shoulder but myself.

'but have not explained why you are right' it is not my intention to be right so i dont see the reason for such explanation. i feel freer that way. it is more natural for me to see the pitfalls (cringing is, to some extent, a matter instinctive therefor, i might be a complete nonintellectual)

also this: 'only some vague references philosophers of preference' nothing i wrote strikes me as vague (except the typo), the nietzsche reference is very clear for anyone who has read some (like a lens that gives depth to surface (the depth of the skin) and fire dog rising out of the depth vice versas...now ambiguous :) ) if not, and thats just fine and dandy as well, the rest stands on its own.

as to critique/criticism, that is true. i dont offer a critique, nor do i aim to be so methodical or synthetic or attain thematic unity. i don't see why you need to raise that up, must i live up to your expectations?

an offering, an appeasment, because im in love

"Oh, those Greeks! They knew how to live. What is required for that is to stop courageously at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore appearance, to believe in forms, tones, words, in the whole Olympus of appearance. Those Greeks were superficial—out of profundity." from
n. contra wagner
hither
(this also links back to the wilde ilk in a previous posting here)

hm, that got convoluted a bit.

anyway. about greenfield's article ... i think my sentiment's similar to cellardoor's (and others'). the article's pretentious and whiny.

Of course you do not have to live up to my expections. Stay free. Stay natural.

The link is broken, but it doesn't seem to be your fault.

engineering + styling = design?

"design is problem solving; high-design is accommodating limitations"

therfore:

design = cover that up!

'the misreading of the machinic idea espoused by alejandro zaera polo and greg lynn'

i do not know whether this coming together of the UA sheds more light on the trivias of the f.o.a or the serious mindedness of greg lynn, two creatures meant to be very different. is there, beyond the f.o.a rigours of generative methodology, a taint of lynn's fetish for the liberated image (doing its own bra burning and gravity bashing)? are there the roots of methodical autopoiesis in lynn's work?

at second glance the collusion seems so unlikely, but at third glance is are there the echos of the first (that spots the look of computerized 'subversion' (or is it?))?

at second glance, that machinic idea mentioned doesnt sound very greg lynn, who is more of a fabulist conjuring (even if buildable) fiction of images. the fictions of architectural eroticism...that might sound intruiging for some, and just jenks-like kitsch terminology for others. the f.o.a. seem more inclined to tell others of their documentary pursuits, architectural self awareness generating and documenting itself at each moment of its development (siblings of schumacher's aotopoeisis)). this is hardly new, but perhaps new in terms of the self publicizing rhetoric, the non-manifesto manifesto (their 'opportunism' being antithetical to a general metaphysics).

the question is whether they are misreadings of themselves.

Always gratifying to know that something I tossed out there is still capable of sparking conversation, even after four years.

A few comments I'd like to offer:

The article *is* too wordy by far, and there are far too many references that have been read as pretentious name-dropping widely enough to convince me that they get in the way of whatever point I was trying to make. I'd write it differently now, no doubt. But I think its point is still largely sound, and maybe even a little stronger now.

The intention was *not* to privilege design over style; as a matter of fact I think I explicitly point out somewhere that both are necessary and useful things.

I plead guilty to the charge of a certain nostalgia for modernism. (I drive a DS, for chrissake, and live in an I.M. Pei building. You don't need to be a psychiatrist to read in these facts a certain discomfort and/or displeasure with the present. Can you blame me?)

Most importantly, to me anyway: it was a dang *blog post*, reacting to the manifest stupidities of circa '01 posters on alleged design boards like Yayhooray and Newstoday. Not to say that I won't stand by what I wrote, but that's all the piece is about and was ever meant to be about. The snottiness and condescension in the piece are directed at them, and as my wife has since reminded me that one is defined in part by one's choice of enemies, I've, uh, moved on.

Bust of Brunel, though, I think not. And if you're gonna slag me, at least get the insults right: "baby-faced," not "geriatric"; "close-cropped cryptofascist," not "hippy."

Anyway, thanks again for having taken this piece so seriously and thoughtfully (in some cases, more than it deserves). And thanks to Donna for pointing me at this thread!