世界博览会与设计史:产品、进步和政治(下)

World's Fairs and the History of Design: Products, Progress, and Politics Ⅱ

美国德雷塞尔大学的大卫·瑞兹曼教授于2014年5月27日在清华大学进行了一次关于世博会的精彩演讲,《装饰》将其整理成文,已在2015年9月登载了上半部分。金秋10月,2015年米兰世博会进入尾声,我们继续发布论文的下半部分,以飨读者。在瑞兹曼教授访问清华大学期间,《装饰》杂志还就设计史研究领域的问题进行了一次专访,访谈收获也会在此与大家分享。

3. TECHNOLOGY Before returning to trade fairs and other contemporary venues for the display of design, I＇d like to touch upon the two other remaining elements of world＇s fair history and context. Technology certainly was an essential component in the origins of international exhibitions and their subsequent history and various transformations. The world＇s fairs of the mid-19th century were contemporary with the second phase of Britain＇s industrial revolution that transformed abundant raw and even waste materials into finished products such as carpets, wallpapers, and other home furnishings with astonishing speed and increased productivity： Indeed, it was, after all, engineering, and manufactures, that were represented among the four fields of human endeavor on the Prince Albert Memorial, the latter symbolized somewhat ironically by inclusion of the Herculean figure of a worker, whose alienation through machinery and the division of labor were seen by some as a negative social consequenceof industrialization and urbanization, but of which the world＇s fairs gives no hint.