Book/Printed Material Designing one nation : the politics of economic culture and trade in divided Germany
About this Item
Title
- Designing one nation : the politics of economic culture and trade in divided Germany
Summary
- "Designing One Nation explores how East and West Germans negotiated their country's postwar division at the juncture of economic and cultural politics. It is especially concerned with historical interconnections between the two Germanies in industrial design, economic structures, corporate ethos, trade, economic foreign policy and consumer culture, all of which are subsumed under the term "economic culture." It shows that post-war reconstruction, as envisioned and realized by a network of politicians, entrepreneurs, and cultural brokers, did more than to modernize the respective parts of Germany. Rather, through the national re-inscription of their material culture, here explored in the realm of interior design and furniture production, the two German states pursued an unprecedented effort to regain economic stability and political influence in post-war Europe's order. Significantly, what started as a Cold War competition for ideological superiority quickly turned into a shared, politically legitimizing quest for an untainted post-fascist modernity. Following products from the drawing board into the homes of ordinary Germans, this book thus offers unique insights into how converging visions of German industrial modernity created shared expectations about economic progress and living standards. The resulting economic culture linked the two Germanies together and acted internationally in a pan-German interest"-- Provided by publisher.
Names
- Schreiter, Katrin, author
Created / Published
- New York : Oxford University Press, 2020.
Contents
- Form Follows Function: Industrial Design and the Emergence of Postwar Economic Culture -- Producing Modern German Homes: The Economy of National Branding -- Intra-German Trade and the Aesthetic Dialectic of European Integration -- From Competition to Cooperation: Cold War Diplomacy of German Design -- Conservative Modernity: The Reception of Functionalism in German Living Rooms.
Headings
- - Functionalism in art--History
- - German reunification question (1949-1990)
- - Industrial design--Social aspects--Germany
- - Germany (East)--Relations--Germany (West)
- - Germany (West)--Relations--Germany (East)
- - Germany--Economic conditions--1990
- - Germany--History--1945-1990
Notes
- - Includes bibliographical references and index.
- - Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
Medium
- 1 online resource
Call Number/Physical Location
- DD258.85.G3
Digital Id
Library of Congress Control Number
- 2019056855
Rights Advisory
- Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode External
Access Advisory
- Unrestricted online access
Online Format
- image