Herbert Read: Art and Industry: The Principles of Industrial Design (1934)

One of the most important texts promoting Modernism published in Britain. The layout was designed by former Bauhaus tutor Herbert Bayer. “In this text, the designer is portrayed as an abstract artist working in industry, reconciling elements of design such as materials, form, colour, and proportion with modern mass-production technology. Read felt that the designer should play a central role in modern manufacture, rather than the low-paid, subservient role that generally prevailed at the time.”

Publisher Faber and Faber, London, 1934
Reprint Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1935
143 pages
via Joseph Allen

Review: Listowel (Philosophy, 1934).
Commentary: Robin Kinross (Journal of Design History, 1988).

PDF (146 MB, no OCR)