Theorization and commodification: The production and promotion of American decorative arts in the 1980s

This dissertation explores the conception, production and promotion of postmodern decorative arts in the United States between 1978 and 1990. The American architects Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, Richard Meier, Robert Siegel, Robert A.M. Stern, Stanley Tigerman, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown are of primary importance. The American companies Swid Powell, Knoll and Formica Corporation are also investigated in relation to their production and promotion of objects designed by architects. The study has two objectives. The first is to analyze the artistic, theoretical, professional and commercial mechanisms which both stimulated and enabled the production and consumption of postmodern decorative arts. The goal here is to situate this design within a broader social and economic context---the United States of America of the late 1970s and 1980s. The second objective involves describing the distinctive nature of American postmodern decorative arts, considering its promotion and reception, and ultimately pinpointing its significance within the extensive history of American decorative arts.;The study begins with an exploration of the development of the discourse of postmodern design and establishes the relationship between text and image or object. It subsequently progresses to consider designing architects in the context of their profession and contemporary social and economic trends; and to investigate the particularities of bringing together culture and commerce under a single corporate entity. The dissertation ultimately reflects on the lasting effects of linking theory, design and context in the late 1970s and 1980s. It is my assertion that the American architects engaged in the discourse of postmodern design re-conceptualized the decorative arts---expanding that historically bound category of cultural products---and popularized the consumption of architectural design and its theoretical constructs. The conception, production and promotion of American postmodern decorative arts in the 1980s blurred boundaries between architecture and fashion, commercializing academic architecture and developing a New York-centric designed subject for commodification and consumption.