With each year that passes, the manifesto ‘Beyond the New: A Search for Ideals in Design’, by Hella Jongerius and Louise Schouwenberg, feels ever more prescient. Launched at Milan’s Salone del Mobile in 2015, the pair argued that the design industry was stuck in a dangerous rut, promoting and fetishising novelty beyond sense. It was a rallying cry to the design community: change your ways or risk obsolescence. The manifesto was greeted with applause in more cerebral circles, but the juggernaut of design chugged on. Calling for a change of agenda was a noble act; but implementing change in a globalised, commercially driven industry is like trying to shift the course of a tanker with a sail from a yacht.
‘Beyond the New’ was squared at the design industry, but its messages find relevance everywhere. One of its core ideas states: “There is value in continually re-examining what already exists, delving into the archives, poring over the classics. What untapped potentials do the materials, colours, functions and forms, still hold?” This is quietly radical. The word ‘radical’ comes from the Latin ‘radix’ and ‘radicalis’, meaning root. And, as our various realities bend and sway like branches in the hurricane of uncertainty, we are all digging to find reassurance from our roots that we can grow again. The pandemic has exposed our fault lines and accelerated the urgent need for change. How ironic that a virus that distances us from each other has brought into sharp focus how closely connected our crises are. Environmental, social, economic and political – our actions and consequences are all intertwined, personally, societally and globally. We are our actions and the follies of our former lives have been laid bare. Who will fly across the Atlantic to sit in a boardroom for a morning before heading back to the airport? Who will commute for two hours every day across a city choked in traffic and air pollution just to sit behind a desk? Who will buy clothes for a dime on a whim for a night out? We no longer live in silos and vacuums. Investigating our roots for grounding and guidance means looking back quite a bit further than last year: roots are fundamentals.
British designer Ilse Crawford has a sage take on affairs, looking to the importance of social organisation. “We are best as humans when we have common goals,” she says. “Our social issues are so profound, and yet much of modern politics is divisive. There is a disconnect between authority and real life. Put simply, too many people’s basic needs are not being
