70S DECORATIVE ART

Edición trilingüe Inglés / Francés / AlemánThe 70s - An increasingly exciting and fast-moving hotbed of ideasIn 1893, as design progressed towards the 20th century, a specialist publication the ''Studio Magazine'' was founded focusing on innovative fine and decorative art. In 1906 it produced its first ''Decorative Art Yearbook''; its last in 1980. These Yearbooks became invaluable sources of inspiration for designers, as well as comprehensively tracing the history of the many fields covered - architecture, interior design, furniture, ceramics, metalware and glass design.

These TASCHEN reprints have carefully reproduced the original layouts, selecting the key pages from each year and grouping the disciplines, providing the professional and the enthusiast with an essential overview of trends and styles in each decade.

After the revolutions of the 60s, the world of design and architecture in the 70s became an increasingly exciting and fast-moving hotbed of ideas, rife with vehemently opposing schools and movements. In many ways it was a more extreme era for design than the previous decade. Experimentation was everywhere, and many projects were not practical, but rather brilliant glimpses into the many possibilities for the future of decorative art and design.

Various groups advocated returning to natural materials, rejecting style in favour of craft, or pushing the logic of industrial living to its concrete, high-rise extreme. Thus in retrospect it is a fascinating period that demands re-assessment. Many designers were at the height of their powers - Afra and Tobia Scarpa, Luigi Colani, Ettore Sottsass, and Achille Castiglioni were all featured in the pages of ''Decorative Art'', as were the architectural works of Kisho Kur0kawa, Norman Foster, Richard Meier and Theo Crosby.