Avatars of Design: Design before Design

Abstract

3) Maria Luisa Bonelli Righini and Thomas Settle, The Antique Instruments at Museum of History of Science at Florence (Florence: Araud, 1978). Inasmuch as purpose of this article is to draw reader's attention to the avatars of and particularly to before design, an appropriate approach is to isolate term design temporarily and to consider very generally fact that every technological object, that is, every object produced by human beings with a certain technical nature, always has two functions: utilitarian and sign. From consumer's point of view, an object may have great utility and little value as a sign, or contrary; what was utilitarian can become sign and vice versa. All determinations are possible and include those in which utility as itself is considered a sign (of purity, perfection, completion) and those in which object serves no purpose: a useless object, a decorative object, an esthetic object. From viewpoint of production, discussion can be summed up by two positions: production of a sign is involved and imposed on utilitarian production. For example, effective and light, beautiful and solid, perfectly fulfilling their utilitarian function thus appear Viking ships, which sailed under certain conditions with so many men on board.1 This is a twentieth-century judgment, marked by some addition to past. Such a judgment is also found in respect to other old ships, pottery, or tools. But perhaps for Vikings, that utilitarian function, acquired at cost of many trials and shipwrecks, was insufficient in eyes of their contemporaries, so they added a sign function: vivid colors, purple or black sails. All war ships of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are marked by that doublefunction of utility and sign. The utilitarian function was provided by shipbuilders and carpenters, who strove to construct seaworthy vessels. The sign function was applied by specialized artists, sculptors, and decorators, whose mission was to make menacing power and grandeur of kings manifest.2 Sometimes, they overburdened structures of ships to extent that they forfeited their utility. An example is warship Wasa, which capsized in Stockholm harbor day it was launched. Another example of a dual function is that of ancient physical instruments.3 The artisans who produced these knew how to