This compact volume represents good value for money with many fresh ideas and perceptive overviews. As a handbook of ideas about the history of British design from the post-war years to the 2010s, it is useful and thought provoking and gathers together leading experts, emerging and established researchers and polemicists.
Journal of Design History
Anyone who's wondered how ... Read morethe Britain of utility furniture and wartime rationing managed to evolve into `Cool Britannia' will find this a remarkable book. The authors work from case studies, achieving a remarkably nuanced portrait of a country in transition. From the trend setting crafts for sale at the London boutique Primavera to the fun furniture available at Mr Freedom, the examples presented in this edited volume are like a breath of fresh air; they also provide a counterweight to older, decorous studies of British good taste. The interiors of post-war country house decorators like John Fowler and modernist architects like Mary Crowley and David Medd receive equal treatment. British interior design emerges as transgressive and eccentric, romantic and
at its best
ingenious.
Elizabeth Guffey, State University of New York at Purchase, USA Show Less