Introduction

Department stores are almost unrecognizable from their original form. In the 1940s and 1950s, industrial designers used efficiency to establish new standards in store design. The postwar era brought myriad changes in patterns of daily living and shopping habits; in response, department store designers worked quickly to offer attractive hubs for urban and suburban shoppers with merchandising as the core driver. The duality of “design” is revealed in the ways in which retailers or reporters discussed the practical design of a department store in comparison to how a designer, such as Loewy or Le Maire, used the term to imply a larger theoretical framework. Efficiency in the “modern” store affected both customers, who expected to quickly and easily navigate through the store to locate merchandise, and retailers, who hoped that well-planned interiors would reduce overhead while encouraging sales. The chapter also presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book.