Lubna Chowdhary transforms spaces using colour

2

3

4

The Aesthetic Movement: Art for Arts Sake

Exhibition: The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement is at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London SW7 from 2 April to 17 July 2011.

"The movement started in a small way in the 1860s in the studios and houses of a radical group of artists and designers, including William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. These were angry young reformers who explored new ways of living in defiance of the horrendous design standards of the age as revealed in the 1851 Great Exhibition.

Over the next two decades aestheticism burgeoned, drawing in architects and craftworkers, poets, critics and philosophers to create a movement dedicated to pure beauty. The aesthetic movement stood in stark and sometimes shocking contrast to the crass materialism of Britain in the 19th century. "Art for art's sake" was its battle cry, a slogan that originated with the French poet Théophile Gautier."

(Fiona MacCarthy, 26 March 2011, The Guardian)

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

London Underground Victoria Line ceramic tiles

The Victoria Line that opened between 1968 and 1971 "provided the opportunity to produce a new and consistent look across the whole line, from the trains themselves to the stations and platforms. All aspects of design were overseen by Misha Black, the Design Consultant for London Transport (1964–1968), who previously had a similar role with British Rail. He employed the talents of the The Design Research Unit (DRU) – a collective of designers, artists and architects who designed all aspects of the VIctoria Line.

Each platform was designed with a very muted colour scheme, described by some of the press at the time as the 'late lavatorial style' (1, P58). The tiled designs in each seat recess provided much needed colour and decoration, and gave each stop its own visual identity. The results were a mixture of direct inspiration from the station name and references to historical details of the local area."

(Ian Moore, Design Assembly, 3 May 2010)

Fig.1 Stockwell by Abram Games – a semi–abstract swan, representing the nearby pub of the same name.

1

Collaborative Design: V&A - Design A Tile

"Visitors have been encouraged to become more involved with the V&A website through a number of projects. This demonstration will focus on four of the more interactive elements of the site. Some of these features have already proved to be very popular, others are still in the trial stages – all of them provide excellent scope for further development.

Design a Tile interactive
This Flash interactive was an extremely popular part of an Arts and Crafts exhibition microsite. Users are able to design their own tiles by adding and manipulating patterns and defining colour schemes through an intuitive Flash interface. Finished tile designs are added to a gallery and, crucially, users are encouraged to comment on each other's creations."

(Toby Travis, Victoria & Albert Museum: Archives & Museum Informatics)

1