THE NEW WORLD-VIEW
The revolutionary technical discoveries of the late 19th and early 20th cen
turies have been only slowly followed by man's ability to make use of his
new opportunities and develop them into a new pattern of life. "Civilization"
and the too-rapid penetration of all classes by these new technical discov
eries have led to complete cultural chaos. caused by the failure of the
affected generation to draw the right conclusions for a new way of life from
the new facts.
The new generation facing this state of affairs is free of the prejudices
against the New that obsessed the previous generation. The technical ad
vances in every tool and service used by man have been enthusiastically
accepted by the younger generation and have brought about a completely
new attitude to their surroundings.
The objects in use by the new generation suffer from the fatal compromise
between a supposedly "artistic" intention and the dictates of technical
manufacture ; from a feeble turning back to historical parallels; from the
conflict between essence and appearance. Instead of recognizing and
designing for the laws of machine production. the previous generation con
tented itself with trying anxiously to follow a tradition that was in any case
only imaginary. Before them stand the works of today, untainted by the
past, primary shapes which identify the aspect of our time: Car Aeroplane
Telephone Wireless Factory Neon-advertising New Yo rk! These objects.
designed without reference to the aesthetics of the past, have been cre
ated by a new kind of man: the engineer!
The engineer shapes our age. Distinguishing marks of his work: economy,
precision. use of pure constructional forms that correspond to the func
tions of the object. Nothing could be more characteristic of our age than
these witnesses to the inventive genius of the engineer, whether one-off
items such as: airfield, department store, underground railway; or mass
produced objects like: typewriter. electric light-bulb, motor cycle. They
have created a new- our own- attitude to our surroundings. An immense
enrichment of our lives comes from the new inventions which confront us at
every step. The collective whole already largely determines the material
existence of every individual. The individual's identical fundamental needs
are met by standardized products: electric light-bulbs, gramophone
records, Va n Heusen collars. Zeiss bookcases. tinned milk, telephones.
office furniture. typewriters. Gillette razors. The standardization and
electro-mechanization of the things we use daily will be further increased.
Economies in production and use of materials will lead to constant im
provements. But electro-mechanization as an end in itself is nonsense: its
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(Elle)
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