Point 5: Exploration - Never Ending Cycles

According to dictionary.com, exploration is defined as an act of exploring or investigating. I would normally lean more towards exploring than investigating. However, based on what we have covered in class, investigating seems more accurate. It appears cycles of style have always been present throughout time but they come in revolutions. Revolutions repeat themselves over time, specifically the idea of completely going against the previous style – usually to make a point – such is the case in the Arts and Crafts Movement.


The Industrial Revolution started in the 18th century and Arts and Crafts followed through a movement that considered the Industrial Revolution as having dehumanized society. In other words, the Industrial Revolution took away the human qualities in design and replaced them with machine which was thought to have led to immorality. The reaction against the Industrial Revolution and the ‘immoral society’ it created, which became known as Arts and Crafts, was to bring back morality through craftsmanship. Just like the Industrial Revolution and Arts & Crafts, there have been many ¬¬¬¬cycles of revolution. There are many other examples throughout time. Some of been in the past, such as Gothic against Classical style, the Renaissance against Gothic, Neoclassic against Rococo, and so forth. A couple of examples of more recent ones have been Art Deco against Beaux Arts, Bauhaus against Art Deco, and Post-modernism against Modernism.

Exploring is based on having something to go either against or further expand on. In the case of design, it is never ending. We will always look back at design that will always be our starting point. The next step is to explore it through doing the complete opposite or continuing to develop it and turn it into something else. Below is a graph that I believe best represents how styles continue on through time.





Ideal cycle of design styles