History of Design

Pat Kirkham is a professor at the Bard Graduate Center, where Susan Weber is founder and director.

"For those with deep pockets this season, the best titles are undoubtedly Susan Weber and Pat Kirkham’s History of Design, which is both a stunning visual survey of 600 years of making, and an in-depth look at the evolution of the very idea of design itself."—Michael Glover, The Independent"Masterminded by Susan Weber, founder of New York’s prestigious Bard Graduate Center for the study of decorative arts, the book is the culmination of a long-cherished aim to create an authoritative reference work treating the design and cultural context of useful and decorative artefacts with the same degree of intellectual rigour and enthusiasm that is generally accorded in scholarly circles only to painting and sculpture."—Stephen Calloway, House & Garden Magazine"This ambitious survey, which has been produced by the Bard Graduate Center in New York, grew out of the perceived lack of a satisfactory introduction to the applied arts that spanned historical and geographical borders. It looks set to fix that, gathering together 'adventurous scholars' and illustrating their incisive contributions with an excellent range of high-quality images."—Apollo Magazine"History of Design is a remarkable achievement and should play a central role for encouraging the ongoing studies of decorative arts and design among students, and, one hopes, a broader public."—Christopher Menz, Australian Book Review"This is an excellent resource not only for its breadth of content and its structure, but the opportunity it affords to approach and critically discuss the development of designed objects in relationship to their own cultures within a globalized world."—Carla Cesare, Journal of Design History