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Design as a Practice of Modernity

A Case for the Study of the Coffee Table in the Mid-century Domestic Interior

Winchester School of Art, Winchester

The material culture of the everyday resides in the kind of objects that have an uneasy status within the boundaries of conventional design history because they have little to say about aesthetics, functionality, or the pro fessional practice of design. By taking up the invitation to undisciplinarity offered by this journal, it is possible to challenge that definition of design which blocks discussion of it as a common activity and enables its re- definition as an everyday practice of modernity. This essay focuses on the transformation of the visually banal 'occasional table' into the stylish 'coffee table' and its popular appropriation as symptomatic of the partial welcome given to modern design in the post-Second World War British household. The informal conviviality embodied in the coffee table gave access to a sector of the population not in possession of the taste required by the rules of 'good design' to some of the innovatory social features of modernity.

Key Words: coffee table • design • design history • domestic interiors • modernity • 1950s

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