HAD-666P Cold War/Hot Design

3 Credits

From the 1940s to the early 1990s, design played a critical role in the Cold War-from vacuum cleaners to fallout shelters, design was used as a weapon in a war waged over conflicting economic, political and cultural ideologies. This course investigates design's role in negotiating geopolitical tensions through a study of industrial design, interior design, architecture, fashion, and graphic design. With attention to the Eastern Bloc, Western Bloc, and Non-Aligned Movement, we will consider how designers operated within different environments of creation and production as well as how emerging materials, markets, technologies, and methods of production shaped design.