Will Burtin: Design and Science

Burtin's exhibits are really amazing pieces that somehow always seem to escape traditional design canons. Like the Eames Office, he was really grappling with some amazingly complex topics—and like them he did't try to "simplify" or even "clarify" as most design jargon goes. They really seem to have embraced the complexity but presented in a manner that was neither a dumbed-down version nor flying over people's heads. I fear much of both offices exhibition work goes unnoticed or under-recognized because it can't be distilled into a few good pictures due to this.

Has there ever been any question as to rebuilding pieces of his Upjohn exhibits (as there has been some thought to reviving Mathematica)? It seems to me that much of his later work needed to be experienced to really understand how strong it was.

I wonder if collaborations such as these could even continue today. I realize most people my age are looking for alternative models of design practice, but something tells me that most of us don't want to get in bed with large pharm companies (or even an IBM like the Eames Office) today. Cynicism and (likely appropriate) caution persists. It actually opens up a huge question as to whether corporations, and by inclusion their designers, today: 1) have the funding to engage designers in this manner; and 2) even care to engage the public as they did then. Cynicism aside, its hard to fathom. There was such an intense optimism post-war that seems to be missing from much of our current world. The green movement seems to have some similarities, but I think its safe to say none of them have the budgets of those large internationals nor the huge audiences. I truly hope their are effective models blossoming that can be sustainable and deal with smaller budgets and more focused audiences.

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Burtin's work has always fascinated and intrigued me. Thanks for the lovely post about his work.

(1) Proper name is WILL Burtin, not William
(2) Yes there has been talk by Wellcome Trust in London to possibly recreate the Upjohn Cell Exhibit.
(3) Thanks to all who respond.

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i leafed through this book at the store a while back. the thing about his work is that it looks dated. good work should not have a cut-off date.

“the thing about his work is that it looks dated. good work should not have a cut-off date.”

I’m not sure. It seems to me that the notion of the ‘timeless’ work, a contested category in contemporary readings of art and literature, is even more problematic in the case of design. If design is, as is often attested, always design for something - aimed at communicating a particular message to a particular audience for a particular end – then the claim to timelessness (or a certain autonomy from the historical moment of its production) would seem to go against an essential aspect of what design is?

That a work of design (or body of work) will frequently speak to us outside of the context for which it was originally intended, even growing in relevance beyond its own historical moment, should not disguise the facts that it is this context, and that moment, which give the work its particular shape and vital force.

At the risk of uttering heresies, I wonder whether all great design might not be ‘dated’? Most canonical, historically significant design certainly appears so, if by 'dated' one means works that appear so much to be an expression of their era or of a particular historical aesthetic or ‘style’ that it seems impossible that they might have emerged in another time or place, and which evoke associations with these before any other content. Of course, such works never seemed ‘dated’ in their original context; the best design often simply appears, to those who are its original audience, to be ‘good’; much as what we designate ‘good design’ today will, and rightfully, appear hopelessly of our current moment to a later generation of design-observers.

Seem in this light, if Burtin seems “so ‘40s” (or ‘50s, or ‘60s), so ‘dated,’ it may be because his work so perfectly encapsulates a number of specific choices and concerns of postwar design: just as does Rand’s, or Glaser’s, or Hofmann’s, and so on. Such work did not just reproduce these choices as so many stylistic formulae; it helped create them, establishing new paradigms and raising new questions and possibilities that were eagerly taken up, reworked, modified (and, in many cases, diluted) by other designers. If Burtin’s work seems to be too much of a piece with certain attitudes and approaches in postwar design, it is, in part, because he helped to orchestrate them in the first place.

"Dated" and "timeless" are actually twins: two words used by carelessly by designers to avoid looking at how and why work is actually made, what it means, and why it might have any continuing value. One writes off work too easily, and the other is a fake compliment, since it has nothing to do with the circumstances that might help us understand why we are still drawn to the work. I'm with Mr. Bresnahan: it's all "dated," and that's a good thing!

Lorraine Wild mentions two of Will Burtin's "remarkable events," his Vision 65 and Vision 67 conferences. I had the good fortune to attend both. In the case of Vision 65 I had married Will's daughter Carol just weeks before, and travel to Carbondale and our delegate status were part of our wedding present.

I assembled the full list of speakers and presenters to be included in Design and Science, but want of space ultimately kept them out of our book. Readers can find the complete list of delegates to both conferences on the Design and Science page of my URL.

Robert Fripp,

Co-author, Design and Science: The Life and Work of Will Burtin

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well done ,At the risk of uttering heresies, I wonder whether all great design might not be ‘dated’?

Thanks

nice post

Thank you

In light of the only narrowly averted economic crisis, I enjoy the idea of a rising dissatisfaction among designers with the "conventional design practice", though I wonder how prevalent this dissatisfaction really is. The long standing designer-client paradigm has indeed grown stale and seems to function primarily in the service of commercialism, though I wonder how many designers have actually been driven to withdraw from the industry in any way because of this.

While I also enjoy the idea of the solo genius of design, honing his or her unique talents behind closed doors, then blossoming out into the world, finding their voice and all that, I am also skeptical as to how often this is occurring now, as opposed to at any other point in design's history. One might make the argument that today's conditions are actually less evocative of that genius quality, at least in the arts, as the last half century has failed to produce any recognized geniuses in any of the fine arts fields. Individuals like Will Burton seem to be fewer and farther between all the time.