Abstract

"The Design Necessity: NEA’s Federal Design Improvement Program and the Crisis in Design"

Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler, Purdue University (jkbuhler@purdue.edu)

In the early 1970s, the recently created National Endowment of the Arts initiated a federal design improvement program that was meant to draw on the knowledge of design professionals to improve the quality of design in all aspects of the US government. As part of this larger program, the NEA created a number of events, grant programs, workshops, publications, and exhibitions to help promote the value of design and encourage greater investment in design across all design disciplines and at all levels of government.

At the time, the design industry was in the midst of a crisis of conscience. In the 1960s and 1970s, a growing number of designers had begun to question the purpose and value of design. For example, design iconoclast Victor Papanek had declared design, and particularly industrial design, a means of murder by mass production that was creating unsafe products, endless waste, and pollution. In this context, the NEA’s government design investments represented a way for designers to use their knowledge and skills from their commercial practices to the benefit of the public sphere.

Drawing on a mix of primary source materials including government publications, design journals, and archival research, this paper will look at the ways in which designer and architects participated in these government design initiatives in the early 1970s. In what ways did designers contribute to these various programs? How did they seek to use their work for government as a way of reframing the purpose and value of design beyond private industry?