ABSTRACT
The pervasive writing on design in contemporary life – found among Web pages, industry magazines, and museum catalogues – is plagued by a definite-yet-hazy formula that binds certain variables: style, function, and efficiency. These are the taken-for-granted qualities that, added together, make up the ineffable calculus known as "good design". The height of good design in America is witnessed in the language offered by Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Department of Architecture and Design in a series of annual exhibitions held from 1950 to 1955, under the directorship of Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. and cosponsored by the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. Despite, or perhaps because of, its presentation of a universal system of good design, Textiles U.S.A. presented a strange assortment of woven and knitted artifacts from various sectors of the industry. MoMA formulated Good Design as a Bildungsbegriff, to be sure, just as the philosophical concept was seized as a tool for consumer engineering.
