AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN CULTURE: AESTHETIC TRENDS ORIGINATED IN TECHNOLOGY

摘要

Ever since the Futurist's Manifesto, first to see the inner beauty of speed and progress symbolized in the form of early automobile's mechanical parts, automotive history has often experienced paradigms of technological breakthroughs grown popular to establish aesthetic trends. The car, this highly influential cultural icon of the last century, has often drawn its stylistic inspiration in the product's technological nature, in the attempt to express visually human's inherent need for more power, for "better and faster". Great pipes on early racing cars (1910's), recalling images of "snakes with explosive breath", had soon given their place in a new formal language, an aesthetic refinement known as streamlining (1930's). The expressive force of streamlining, made it synonymous with 'design', sculptural intensity and 'vigorous motion' even when standing still. It provided an effective visual metaphor for progress, which soon became a formal topos and established an aesthetic trend later extended to a whole series of industrial products, often alien to the idea of motion. Aircraft-referential tailfins on American cars of the 50's, took automotive styling into the supersonic age, expressing the power of flight and the optimism of the post-war period. The 1973 oil crisis brought up an automotive culture, which shifted the goal from maximization of speed to the optimization of effectiveness. Within this context, streamlining has retained its significance, now justified in terms of ecology and environmental politics. Having managed to split the ultimate goal of the least possible wind resistance from the 'shape in which it appears, modern aerodynamics defined a new formal language, quite different from that of streamlining, but still attached to our inherent tendency in Modernism. Such tendencies have met their formal expression through other engineering achievements as well. Following Ralph Nader's book "Unsafe at any speed", stricter laws and the extended research upon passive safety, have turned protection into a major issue in automotive culture. Consumer's attitude towards safer cars, apart from engineering improvements, has brought about aesthetic changes necessary to serve the subjective 'feeling' of safety. Low seating position and protective surrounding interiors, bold and muscular door sections, generous pillar dimensioning, surface development to convey substance and durability, and prevalence of full over empty space, are typical styling features of recent automobiles, modeled to look robust and safe. Further developments in technology of glass, have allowed penetration of light via extended sunroofs, resulting in lower side windows and high waistlines in favour of dynamic and protective body profiles. While, achievements in advanced materials and lighting technology already introduce minor styling cues effecting consumer’s perceptions of progress and modernity. This paper, forming part of an extended PhD research on social issues in car design, aims to research the inner relation between technology and socio-cultural trends and how effects of the former upon the latter are reflected on styling of industrial products such as the car. Study of this complex interaction between engineering achievements, cultural horizon and perception of progress and beauty is crucial for a deep understanding of market trends and an effective design manipulation of contemporary technologies (regarding drive by wire, ITSs and alternative fuels) towards more friendly and desirable automobiles.