Goldstein Museum of Design

More than eighty designs--iconic, archaic, quotidian, and taboo--that have defined the arc of human reproduction. While birth often brings great joy, making babies is a knotty enterprise. The designed objects that surround us when it comes to menstruation, birth control, conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood vary as oddly, messily, and dramatically as the stereotypes suggest. This smart, image-rich, fashion-forward, and design-driven book explores more than eighty designs--iconic, conceptual, archaic, titillating, emotionally charged, or just plain strange--that have defined the relationships between people and babies during the past century. Each object tells a story. In striking images and engaging text, Designing Motherhood unfolds the compelling design histories and real-world uses of the objects that shape our reproductive experiences. The authors investigate the baby carrier, from the Snugli to BabyBj rn, and the (re)discovery of the varied traditions of baby wearing; the tie-waist skirt, famously worn by a pregnant Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy, and essential for camouflaging and slowly normalizing a public pregnancy; the home pregnancy kit, and its threat to the authority of male gynecologists; and more. Memorable images--including historical ads, found photos, and drawings--illustrate the crucial role design and material culture plays throughout the arc of human reproduction. The book features a prologue by Erica Chidi and a foreword by Alexandra Lange. Contributors Luz Argueta-Vogel, Zara Arshad, Nefertiti Austin, Juliana Rowen Barton, Lindsey Beal, Thomas Beatie, Caitlin Beach, Maricela Becerra, Joan E. Biren, Megan Brandow-Faller, Khiara M. Bridges, Heather DeWolf Bowser, Sophie Cavoulacos, Meegan Daigler, Anna Dhody, Christine Dodson, Henrike Dreier, Adam Dubrowski, Michelle Millar Fisher, Claire Dion Fletcher, Tekara Gainey, Lucy Gallun, Angela Garbes, Judy S. Gelles, Shoshana Batya Greenwald, Robert D. Hicks, Porsche Holland, Andrea Homer-Macdonald, Alexis Hope, Malika Kashyap, Karen Kleiman, Natalie Lira, Devorah L Marrus, Jessica Martucci, Sascha Mayer, Betsy Joslyn Mitchell, Ginger Mitchell, Mark Mitchell, Aidan O'Connor, Lauren Downing Peters, Nicole Pihema, Alice Rawsthorn, Helen Barchilon Redman, Airyka Rockefeller, Julie Rodelli, Raphaela Rosella, Loretta J. Ross, Ofelia Perez Ruiz, Hannah Ryan, Karin Satrom, Tae Smith, Orkan Telhan, Stephanie Tillman, Sandra Oyarzo Torres, Malika Verma, Erin Weisbart, Deb Willis, Carmen Winant, Brendan Winick, Flaura Koplin Winston

In 1900, Swedish design reformer and social theorist Ellen Key published The Century of the Child, presaging the coming century as a period of intensified focus and progressive thinking around the rights, development, and wellbeing of children. Taking inspiration from Key - and looking back through the twentieth century - this volume, published to accompany an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, examines individual and collective visions for the material world of children, from utopian dreams for the 'citizens of the future' to the dark realities of political conflict and exploitation. Surveying more than one hundred years of school architecture, clothing, toys, children's hospitals, nurseries, furniture, posters, animation and books, this richly illustrated catalogue illuminates how progressive design has enhanced the physical, intellectual and emotional development of children and, conversely, how models of children's play have informed experimental aesthetics and imaginative design thinking - engendering, in the process, reappraisals of some of the iconic names in twentieth-century design and enriching the unfolding narrative of modern design with other, less familiar figures.

Over the course of the past century, the kitchen, more than any other room in the modern dwelling, has been the focus of intensive aesthetic and technological innovation. Historically, European and American kitchens were often drab, poorly ventilated, and hidden from view in a basement or annexe. Towards the end of the 19th century, however, the kitchen became a central concern of modernism and a testing ground for new materials and technologies. Since then, the room has come to articulate and at times actively challenge society's relationships to food, consumerism, the domestic role of women, and even international politics. Counter Space examines the 20th-century transformation of the kitchen through the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, featuring a wide variety of design objects, architectural plans, posters, archival photographs and artworks - ranging from the iconic Frankfurt Kitchen, massproduced for German public housing estates in the aftermath ofWorldWar I, to an electric kettle, heat-resistant glassware and colourful plastics.With an introductory essay by Juliet Kinchin, this volume is a lively introduction to the kitchen as a barometer of changing technology, aesthetics and ideology.