“Beauty has an incredible power,” explains Austrian star designer Stefan Sagmeister, who lives in New York and has devoted himself intensively to the subject for years out of a conviction in its positive effects. He offers a new view of the value of aesthetics and its function.
For centuries, art and design aspired to beauty. It is a complex question that has always occupied philosophers and thinkers, from Plato to Kant. While the subject remained essential until the end of the nineteenth century, the American architect Louis Sullivan formulated the principle “form follows function” in 1896, emphasizing that the form of a building or object should derive directly from its function. In 1908, the Viennese architect Adolf Loos declared ornament a crime in an essay, describing it as a remnant of a bygone era that no longer had a place in modern society. These ideas became principles of modernism and banished beauty from society, design and architecture as kitsch.
Throughout almost the entire twentieth and twenty-first centuries, beauty has carried a rather negative connotation in design discourse. Sagmeister counters this antipathy with compelling arguments and makes beauty tangible as a central, functional aspect of appealing design. “Beauty is more than a purely superficial strategy. It consists of a combination of form, color, materiality, composition and a shape that appeals to our aesthetic senses, especially our sight.” Beyond its human value, Sagmeister argues, beauty has an incredible power. Things only work well when they are beautiful. He is convinced that beauty can influence our mood and our well-being. Surrounding ourselves with beautiful things also has the power to help us cope with difficult moments in life.
In his book Beauty, co-edited with Jessica Walsh, Sagmeister offers a profound reflection on the concept of beauty and its significance in art, design and everyday life. It inspires us to think about the meaning of aesthetics and beauty in our world, and how we can bring these principles into our daily lives.
Beauty, Sagmeister & Walsh, Verlag Hermann Schmidt, 2019 (2nd edition)
