Nikolaus Pevsner’s History And Theory Of Design In The Modern Western Context

This dissertation takes the history of art and design of Nikolaus Pevsner as research object,explores the relations between design history and art theory,looks for social and historical causes for modern ideas and concepts of design,and analyzes the theoretical structures,academic clues and narrative ways of the design history in the 20th Century.Based on the realistic and humanistic factors,Pevsner’s studies of social issues help to develop the system of early history of design,making some of his ideas incentive and inspirational to today’s design and design history;in the context of social and stylistic history,his academic gene and distinctive personality inheriting from traditional art history are integrated into the history and theory pattern,which stimulates contemporary design history to reflect itself.The pattern seems to be a return of the old method,but in fact it is but a turning point of new ways.On one hand,Pevsner’s history helps improve the humanistic connotation of design history;on the other hand,the monist system would destroy the diversity of contemporary history of design;it may either make the narrative of modern design history more wonderful,or lead to a subjective state and baffling paradox.By summarizing Pevsner’s academic vision and various research fields,the dissertation summarizes the five themes to explain the turning of his research interests and the development of his academic research.These five themes display Pevsner’s diversified achievement or points of interests in different times roughly in a chronological order as below:To start with,"discourse of interpretation:a style of writing of design history",is mainly about Pevsner’s background and formation of the history methods.It aims to analyze the discipline structure of early design history,compare different values and methodologies of design history,outline his system and method of art history,point out that the way of art history focusing on interpretation and reasoning is influential to today’s design history,which has increasingly relied on empiricism,and finally reveal the significance of contemporary history narrative.After this,"reflection of spirit:the concept and method of space",is mainly about Pevsner’s early architecture history.It points out the way to space—experiencing and space—interpreting by studying on the bipolar relationship of body and mind,matter and spirit,function and form,and so on.It also analyzes the contribution of the dual category of "space"and "decoration" to architectural history studies in Pevsner’s system,in which Zeitgeist is the core factor.Thirdly,"schema of visuality:picturesque and the design language",is mainly about the Picturesque Revival and its function for modified international style,laying emphasis on the definition of "Englishness" and the role of picturesque,encouraging the British public to rethink about their culture and love their art,and ultimately enhancing the level of British history of art and design in Europe.Fourthly,"tension of technology:art connotation of modern architecture and design",is mainly about the crisis in modern design because of interventional technique,analyzing the separation of art and architecture,and pointing out that Pevsner’s method is available to solve these problems by studying the relationship between the effectiveness of all kinds of art.Finally,"agent of style:the sources of the innovation of modern design",focuses on the development of system thinking and style problems in terms of the style of the time,emphasizing that the public is the source of style innovation,contemporary design,and the demonstration-oriented era,and the social public style innovation is the source of contemporary design,and at length proving that Pevsner’s history has more positive significance in a broader social context.