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This backlash against Victorian values and Edwardian frills was later whole-heartedly embraced by designers – with British designers finally getting in on the act from the 1920s onwards – who believed the design of an object should be based purely on its purpose: that “form follows function”.
British intellect Herbert Read – who founded the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London –was an avid promoter of modernism throughout the middle of the twentieth century. He asserted that design is a form that must appease the senses or intellect, but which must also be of use.
An object, he argued, will maintain its value regardless of its historical or social context because its values are absolute or universal. Cultures such as Ancient Greece (5th Century BC) he saw as successful because they are "…Without an aesthetic. What they did they did as the result of practical problems, without taste, without academic tradition".
Modernist designers strived to instil in their products and architecture a kind of timelessness, creating forms with a universal appeal which would transcend individual taste differences and grab a person whatever their social class. Such pieces were also supposed to be immune to the ever-changing fickle faces of fashion.
In weaving their creative spells, modernist designers rejected tried and tested methods, opting instead to use new materials and technology wherever possible and attempted to take an objective view of the product they were designing.
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