The Nature and Aesthetics of Design

by David Pye

Book Overview

This is David Pye's classic book on the theory of design. In it, he explores the many facets of good design, including the relationship of aesthetics with function. David Pye, who died in 1993, was an architect, industrial designer, and wood craftsman. For many years, he was a professor of furniture design at the Royal College of Art in London. He also wrote "Nature and Art of Workmanship."

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0442266510
• ISBN13: 9780442266516
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company
• Length: 159 Pages
• Weight: 1.90 lbs.

Customer Reviews

In the end, it's up to you

The first part of this book starts with a reasoned crtique of the Bauhaus mantra, form follows function. Start with the word "function" - he effectively takes it apart. Think of a car and its function for example. It can, at different times, demand attention from every girl on the block, it can open its back seat on lover's lane, rush a woman to the maternity ward, or carry kids to the soccer game. What is its 'real' function? It took me a while to catch the sense that Pye meant to convey. He uses a Zen-like approach of creating new meaning by undermining the old. Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, but people don't share eyes with each other. It's in each eye uniquely, and has to be defined again by each beholder. Beauty is also, he argues, a necessity of life and of society. Very often, beauty costs nothing. Any function can be met by an infinite family of forms, even within a rigid framework of requirements. Choosing an agreeable form is not just an option, it's a deep-set human imperative. This is a philosophical book. It's real point, I think, is that good design must be a personal act - the technical skills can be taught, but the craft must be learned. There is no advice here that you could follow, for example, in making a better chair. The advice is about how to make yourself a better designer.

Pye at his best (and worst?)

Pye's 'Art of Workmanship' was, somewhat like his definition of workmanship, precise and free, and while it might be unfair to compare this book on design with that book on workmanship (the 'Art of Workmanship' written after, I think, Pye's first book on design but prior to this revised edition), I think that this treatsie on design is somewhat imprecise and constrained -- perhaps compare that sentence I just wrote to Pye's 'Art of Workmanship', and that's my general impression.Pye gives us some good stuff on 'what is design', creativity, originality, taste and perception, he's a very fine thinker and writer, and also fairly unique in his field. I would buy this book.