Émigré Cultures in Design and Architecture

…its scholarly contribution to the ongoing critical discussion of early 20th century modernism and the influence of the European experience, and a newly lived American experience, offers a worthwhile read. * ARLIS/NA Reviews *
This innovative anthology on the émigré and exile experience of designers and architects in the United States invigorates the long-overlooked theories of Vilém Flusser, who argued that transnational cultural production in exile was essentially dialogic. Rather than dwelling on exile as an experience of loss and isolation, the authors in this book consider concepts such as otherness and creativity, European modernism and American commodity culture, local assimilation and global imaginations, and the hybrid tensions between past and present to consider various exilic design languages. * Sabine Eckmann, director and chief curator at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, USA *
By taking émigré cultures in the plural this set of essays reaches a nuanced understanding of the experience many designers of Central European origin entailed when negotiating their new identities in 20th-century America. The book addresses contributions both to new design thinking as well as anti-design languages, and in this, it is an original and important contribution. * Jeremy Aynsley, Professor of History of Design at the University of Brighton, UK *
Émigré Cultures in Design and Architecture provides much-needed analysis about how European émigré designers and architects engaged with America during the twentieth-century, an episode previously alluded to mostly in passing. These new essays advance our understanding of the complexity of these encounters, explaining what was gained, what was lost, and what is still be learned from them. * Timothy M. Rohan, Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA *