<p>Huppatz’s book is a welcome addition to a growing field … [It] is hoped that viewpoints and writings on Asian<br />Design will multiply in the coming years to create a more robust and inclusive global design history landscape.</p>
Journal of Design History
<i>Modern Asian Design</i> is a rich and timely contribution to the emergent body of research on design histories beyond the West. The book expands our knowledge of modern design in Asia and provides methodological approaches to studying what are often viewed as marginal contexts in design history.
Megha Rajguru, Senior Lecturer in Art and Design History at the University of Brighton, UK
Modern Asian Design provides a comprehensive introduction to the development of Asian design in the modern period, both tracing historical threads and offering a theoretical framework within which to chart the history of design in Asia.
Rather than a singular “Asian history”, this book presents a series of studies centred on trade routes, colonial relationships, regional networks and cross-cultural exchanges. Modern Asian Design builds on existing resources beyond design history in an effort to map the field, focusing particularly on relations between Asia and the West and also across Asian design cultures.
Opening with a brief overview of trade and exchange networks in the 17th and 18th centuries, the bulk of this study comprises analysis of the development of modern design in Asia during the later 19th and early 20th centuries, a period of rapid modernisation. The book’s final two chapters bring these central ideas into a contemporary and highly relevant context.
Introduction
Chapter 1: Foundations, 1700-1850
- Part I: China from China
- Part II: Textiles from India
- Part III: Modernization, Globalization and Design
SECTION I: PATHS TO MODERNITY, 1850s-1930s
Chapter 2: Elite Paths
- Part I: Meiji Japan: Designing a Modern State
- Part II: Siam and Civilization
- Part III: Modernizing Everyday Life in Tashio Japan
Chapter 3: Colonial Paths
- Part I: Designing the British Raj
- Part II: Designing an Asian Empire
Chapter 4: Professional Paths
- Part I: East Meets West
- Part III: Shanghai Modernism
- Part II: West Meets East
Chapter 5: Consumer Paths
- Part I: The Herald of Civilization
- Part II: New Patent Medicines
- Part III: The Department Store
SECTION II: ASIAN MODERNITY, 1940s-2000s
Chapter 6: Postcolonial Design and the State
- Part I: Chandigarh
- Part II: Designing the People’s Republic of China
- Part III: Singapore
Chapter 7: Design and Development
- Part I: From Domestic Appliances to Digital Lifestyles
- Part II: Design for Development
Chapter 8: The Design Professional
- Part I: Kenji Ekuan
- Part II: Minnette de Silva
- Part III: Kan Tai-Keung
Chapter 9: Globalization and Consuming Asian Design
- Part I: Rebranding banks in Hong Kong
- Part II: Asian lifestyle brands
Conclusion