Foiling fear

摘要

Fear may always be with us, but the objects of it change with time. Victorian anxieties about premature burial produced a flurry of 19th-century patents for "safety coffins" with breathing tubes and with connecting rods that could raise a flag or ring a bell above ground. Now our worries include AIDS and avian flu, heart attacks and homelessness. These are the enemies against which modern designers and engineers seek to pit their skills, producing new deterrents and defences ranging from bandages to bollards, which aim to combine effectiveness with ease of use. "SAFE: Design Takes On Risk", a new show at the Museum of Modern Art, looks at how designers rise to the challenge. It has assembled 300 products and prototypes meant to protect human beings (and, in a few cases, animals and plants) against perceived current dangers.