Designed Life

de Charles Gute, Margaret Re, Symmes Gardner

"This revelatory volume recovers and presents the history of three exhibitions organized by the US State Department's Traveling Exhibition Service almost 70 years ago: Contemporary American Textiles, curated by Florence Knoll, Contemporary American Wallpapers, curated by Tom Lee, and Containers & Packaging, curated by Will Burtin. These exhibitions were made for presentation in West German schools, museums and trade fairs, and through the Amerika Haus program. By joining consumer choice with political choice, the State Department tried to convince West Germans and other Europeans that the United States, its system of government and its capitalist values offered more and better lifestyle choices than those of the Soviet bloc" -- "The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture presents A Designed Life: Contemporary American Textiles, Wallpapers, and Containers & Packaging, 1951-1954, an exhibition based on three historically significant traveling exhibitions of contemporary mass-produced, American-designed consumer goods that were commissioned by the U.S. Department of State in the early 1950s. It recreates and interprets those early Cold War exhibitions -- including American textiles, wallpapers, containers, and packaging --restating and interpreting part of each display as it might have appeared in the early 1950s. The three historical exhibitions -- Contemporary American Textiles designed by Florence Knoll; Contemporary American Wallpapers designed by Tom Lee, and Containers and Packaging designed by Will Burtin-- were each developed as collections of industry-specific consumer goods, designed and manufactured in the spirit of American modernism. The Traveling Exhibition Service (TES), an organization later known as the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, organized these exhibitions for display in post-WWII Germany on behalf of the U.S. Department of State in order to help promote the grown of democratic governments within postwar Europe." --From the CADVC-UMBC's website.