Figure 1. Zaha Hadid, “Genesy”, 2009

Zaha Hadid (1950 – 2016), an architect who was very well known for her radical deconstructivist design and who became the first female architect to be awarded the Priztker Architecture Prize in 2004 (Zukowsky, 2019). Recently, one of her work was displayed at the The NGV “Designing Women” exhibition which outlined and praised the roles of women in design in the contemporary culture (NGV). Out of all the pieces displayed at NGV, Hadid’s work interested me the most which is a floor lamp designed by her in 2009, called the Genesy Lamp (Figure 1). I find it appealing for both being functional and has its own unique personality. In this blog, I want to talk about how Zaha Hadid delivered her exploration and research about systems of growth in the natural world via the the Genesy Lamp while referring to the piece of work to “Good Design” and “Bad Design”.

The Genesy Lamp is a floor lamp made out of Polyurethane with gloss finish. It has a very organic shape as it is inspired by the growth of trees in the forest, like a sweeping canopy that grows through a strong supporting network at the base.‎ The main components of this organic analogy are transformed into the Genesy Lamp’s fluid design. The design gets more and more complex further up as it spreads out into more branches, which makes the design more dynamic. With the height of 195cm, one can stand underneath the light and feel like standing underneath a tree, or a tall natural creature. The negative space between the branches adds more contrast to the piece, the contrast between positive and negative, convex and concave, tension and compression. With a linear halogen light in the head and and LED light projector covered in the lower section, together with the touchpad power and dimming controls built in the middle part of the body, the Genesy Lamp has both direct and indirect lighting which can be adjustable.

The Genesy Lamp lamp is a good example when talking about “Good Design” as it can serve both sides: Functions and Aesthetic. Design work are meant to have their own personalities and stories, and design is not always about just the aesthetic (Christoforidou, 2012). It is also about originality as its value is taken away when the designer is just trying to imitate someone’s previous work. While talking about the beauty of good design, “Beauty” was divided into three different ways, one is “pure beauty” which means non-functional, another type of beauty is the one that has purpose, such as architecture and the last one is the kind of beauty that exists in the ideally beautiful, morality for instance (Christoforidou, 2012). Furthermore, it is suggested that instead of “taste”, designers usually choose to focus more on “forms”, therefore “good taste” becomes “good forms”. Form language is sometimes used as a criteria for criticism and a good understanding of forms is based on subjective values such as balance and symmetry (Christoforidou, 2012).

Looking back to Hadid’s work, a floor lamp, which is definitely functional, has a very organic, beautiful and distinct shape that reflects Zaha Hadid’s style very well and the audience can also easily tell where she got the inspiration from. It is suggested that “Good Design” can only be measured in relation to the intention of the designer and “Bad Design” are the ones that cannot deliver the designer’s intention (Christoforidou, 2012). In an exclusive interview with Zaha Hadid by Wow Magazine in 5th of May, 2013, she said that her work was about working with concepts, logic and methods that examine and organize the complexities of contemporary life patterns. Moreover, in an another interview with Phillip Stevens from Designboom, she also stated that her design approach was very abstract as a result of her interest for fragmentation and with ideas of abstraction and explosion. Hadid was also very famous for her fluidity in her designs and she was called the “Queen of curve”. Her intention and design approach were shown clearly in the Genesy Lamp as she came up with a unique concept she she brought the fluid, complexity and patterns into the lamp, which matches the statemenr above about what “Good Design” is. From that, it is concluded that to make “Good Design”, a designer’s competency is very crucial to criticize whether a design is good or not. If one practitioner wishes to  be acknowledged for their creativity and imagination and skills, designing something just for the aesthetic is not enough but there has to be a certain depth in their thoughts and objectives.

The terms “Good Design” is still very vague in our modern life nowadays and there are a lot of discussions and arguments around it. It is also about the barrier between being functional and being aesthetical. Some believe that good designs should only serve the visual purpose and some think that designs are made to improve the living standards of the society, not to think about the appearance. Should designers shift their design principles to just one side or should they try to keep the balance in between, just like what Zaha Hadid did with the Genesy Lamp? The question has yet to be  answered because of the variation of the definition of “Good design”.

Reference:

Figure 1. Zaha Hadid, Genesy, 2009. Exhibited at National Gallery of Victoria (NGV).

Designing Women, NGV International, Melbourne, accessed 01/04/2019.https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/designing-women

Christoforidou, Despina. Olander, Elin. Warell, Anders.  Svengren Holm, Lisbeth. 2012. “Good Taste vs. Good Design: A Tug of War in the Light of Bling.” The Design Journal, Vol.15, No. 2 (2012): 188- 191.

Stevens, Phillip. “Zaha Hadid Interview Discussing Her Shoes for United Nude.” Designboom. October 11, 2016. Accessed April 01, 2019. https://www.designboom.com/design/zaha-hadid-interview-united-nude-re-inventing-shoes-5vie-milan-design-week-04-11-2015/.

“Zaha Hadid Architects | Genesy Lamp.” Arthitecturalcom Zaha Hadid Architects Genesy Lamp Comments. Accessed April 01, 2019. https://www.arthitectural.com/zaha-hadid-architects-genesy-lamp/.

Zukowsky, John. “Zaha Hadid.” Encyclopædia Britannica. March 27, 2019. Accessed April 01, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zaha-Hadid.

“Ways of Designing: Zaha Hadid.” WOW! (Ways Of Working) Webmagazine. March 15, 2018. Accessed April 01, 2019. https://wow-webmagazine.com/ways-of-designing-exclusive-interview-zaha-hadid.

In the design industry, there have been many talented design practitioners out there with their names not being well-known, especially for women in the design industry. A while ago when the society still had a strong negative view on working women, a lot of female designers found it hard to shine. Today, I am going to talk about the career path of Ruby Lindsay (1885 – 1919), one of the very first female designers and illustrators in Australia back in the day, by referring to women in design and analysing one of her work which is called “Illustration for Punch, title ‘The Ascent of Woman’, by Ruby Lindsay, 31 October, pp. 639,1907” (Figure 2).  

Ruby Lindsay pursued a full-time career in magazine and book illustration In the early-20th century. Lindsay was born in a family with five brothers and she was described by one of her brothers, Daryl Lindsay, that she never went anywhere without her notebook and pencils. She created many beautiful work during the Arts and Craft movement, the period when designers focused more on handmade design instead of the mass production of the Industrial Revolution.

Figure 1. Ruby Lindsay, Image downloaded from http://www.normanlindsay.com.au/events/ruby-lindsay-exhibition.php

Even though Ruby Lindsay contributed a lot to the design industry, her name was not that well-known as it should be because of the society at the time. During that period, working women were marginalised. Lindsay also separated herself from the articles with full of discrimination toward women which was said to be very extreme in its Nationalist tone, which marginalised and flouted women (Connory, 2019).

Ruby Lindsay was also overshadowed by her own brothers, Percy Lindsay (1870–1952) and Sir Lionel Lindsay (1874-1961), who also worked in the art and design industry, specialised in cartoons and they got their work published in the Bulletin, an Australian magazine at that time. Norman Lindsay (1879-1969) who was the author and illustrator of The Magic Pudding,  and Daryl Lindsay (1889-1976), who was knighted for his services to art in 1963 (Connory, 2019). To separate herself from her famous brothers, she had to change her work name several times, such as ‘Ruby Lyn”, “Ruby Lyne”, or “Ruby Lind”.

In 1907, Lindsay had a chance to show her work at the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings hosted the extraordinary Women’s Work Exhibition. The event was said to draw both royal and international audiences and over 250,000 spectators and exhibited women’s craftwork and patriotism showcasing a distinctly feminine response to the Australia society (Connory, 2019).

Figure 2. The Ascent of Woman’, by Ruby Lindsay, 31 October, pp. 639,1907

One of Lindsay’s illustrations that appeared in Punch at the time, shown in Figure 2, communicated her will for women to succeed at the exhibition . As shown in the artwork, we can tell from the background that the setting for this work is ancient Greek. The main subject is a woman standing straight while holding an axe and a pot. In the ancient Greek culture, women were not expected to work and be the main income source as the modern days. They were expected to get married, stay home and raise their children and they were only involved in indoor work, such as running household work, wool working and weaving (Cartwright, 2016). Moreover, women could not even attend public assemblies, vote, or hold public office and their names were not to be mentioned in public. They had very few rights for themselves, their lives were mostly controlled by their husband, father or male relative in their life. Based on the information above and compare with Lindsay’s artwork, we can see she was trying to encourage women to contribute more to the society outside of their homes and to demonstrate that women are much more valuable than just domesticated objects (Cartwright, 2016).

In an article called “Plotting the Historical Pipeline of Women in Graphic Design” written by Jane Connory which talks more about their presence in the Australian graphic industry, the amount of female students studying graphic design was higher than male students. Connory did an interview with Lynda Warner, who graduated from Swinburne University in 1973 and found out that she got a very mixed feeling about the design industry. According to Warner, when she started as a graphic designer, the industry was more male dominant. It’s the society and industry’s point of view that made the female designers career much harder. Refer back to Ruby Lindsay’s design career, she became marginal as she was overlooked by the society as a female designer and by her own brothers (Connory, 2017).

Women in design has always been an interesting topic not just in the past but also at the present. In the past, the main reason that held women back was the social perspective on the women’s role. Ruby Lindsay was a talented designer and illustrator but could not shine under such pressure from the society. Today, when people have a much more positive view about the issue, however, there are still a lot of obstacles that hold a lot of  women back from pursuing their career. Even though Ruby Lindsay’s career did not make to its prime time, her almost forgotten legacy is very valuable because it created a strong base for the Australian design community.

Reference:

“Ruby Lindsay – The Gentle Illustrator.” Ruby Lindsay – The Gentle Illustrator | Norman Lindsay Gallery & Museum. Accessed April 2, 2019. http://www.normanlindsay.com.au/events/ruby-lindsay-exhibition.php.

Connory, Jane. “Hidden Women of History: Ruby Lindsay, One of Australia’s First Female Graphic Designers.” The Conversation. January 22, 2019. Accessed April 2, 2019. https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-ruby-lindsay-one-of-australias-first-female-graphic-designers-109184.

Cartwright, Mark. “Women in Ancient Greece.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. July 27, 2016. Accessed April 2, 2019. https://www.ancient.eu/article/927/women-in-ancient-greece/.

Connory, Jane. (2017). Plotting the Historical Pipeline of Women in Graphic Design, p.1-5.