This blog focuses on traditional architectural design, so it is easy to overlook or forget the fact that any designed object can be designed in a traditional manner; indeed, in the not-so-distant past, all designed objects were traditional in their design. It is interesting to speculate on the positive impacts of living in such a design environment (or what Kon Wajiro called the fudo), where not only the buildings but every object, from the most rustic and utilitarian to the most refined and ornamented, was worthy of aesthetic contemplation, and contributed to the psychological wellbeing of the people who moved amongst and interacted with them, whether taken for granted at a conscious level or not. Even machines were traditional in their design and ornament. Compare this world with the ugly chaos of our own design landscape: take any modern design object with a historical continuity of at least 100 years, and line it up next to its ancestral counterparts. It is an understatement to say that the modern designs don’t come off well in the comparison.
19th century bollards. Old cannon barrels were often used as bollards, and the design was so well liked that eventually bollards were purposely cast in this shape.
Modern bollards.
An early 20th century car: the Ford Model T
A modern car
A 19th century cash register
A modern cash register
And before anyone objects that ‘materials like timber and brass are no longer affordable, nor the labour involved in ornamenting them’ — this may be true, but there is no practical reason whatsoever why traditional design and ornament can’t be achieved in injection-moulded plastic or other modern materials.