Design in the 20th Century

«There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. [...] Let us then create a new guild of craftsmen without the class distinction that raises an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist!». With these words Walter Gropius concluded his prologue to the Manifesto establishing the Bauhaus in Weimar in April 1919. This marks the greatest moment in European Rationalism and the birth of modern design as we understand it. Arts and crafts schools had gradually spread across Europe against the background of increasing industrialization following the emergence of industrial design in the nineteenth century. But it was the extraordinary hothouse of talent and ideas in the Bauhaus that led to the assertion of the role of art in every detail of domestic life, making it accessible to everyone. The growing sophistication of the process of production together with the rapid and alluring expansion of markets contributed to the diffusion of design. Form and function of the highest quality was the aim in the mass production at a reasonable cost of all sorts of objects, machines, furniture and tools. And now, more than ever, design is everything.