“The ‘Designer’—The 11th Plague”: Design Discourse from Consumer Activism to Environmentalism in 1960s Norway

Abstract

In 1962, designers were branded as fadmongers and named the Plague itself by a Norwegian botany professor who took it upon himself to defend the duped consumer. In 1969, design students under the guidance of Victor Papanek and his Norwegian host were renovating a derelict backyard in a run-down part of Oslo in the name of environmental regeneration. These two rather remarkable, but highly dissimilar events exemplify a significant transformation in critical design discourse in Norway during the 1960s. Whereas the broader streams of design discourse at the time revolved around the disintegration of the traditional applied art movement in the aftermath of the Scandinavian Design frenzy, 1 these more radical factions sought to drive design out of its comfort zone established in the prosperous postwar period. This article explores how the more radical components of design ideology that slowly gained momentum throughout the 1960s now and then came to the fore in the Norwegian design community. In various and not always coherent ways, petitions were made for increased attention to the social and moral responsibility of design. Nevertheless, a discernable shift in focus in the course of the decade can be identified: In the early 1960s, critical design discourse aligned with consumer activism, campaigning for product longevity and against faddishness, whereas ideas associated with ecology, resource management, and environmentalism emerged as the most pressing topics toward the end of the decade. At the risk of slightly anticipating events, one might say that this criticism questioned what design for the real world would entail. The critique arose both within and outside the design profession. Some outsiders pigeon-holed design and designers as immoral minions of capitalism and catalysers of consumption. At the same time, a small but vocal group of insiders engaged in serious soul-searching, questioning established practice in the profession. One of the more interesting expressions of these radical design ideals came with the declaration from a young design educator that “We have teacups enough!”—conveying a (symbolic, if not actual) break with the applied art movement and its devotion to more beautiful everyday goods.