Priscila Lena Farias / Anna Calvera Marcos da Costa ... - Blucher

Imported design ideas and its spreading in Latin America
the increasing labor demands of the emergent industries. Clara
Porset’s worry would respond to this transition, from countryside
to city, from the craftsman’s perspective, a very basic foundation
in Mexico until that time, to the industries logic. It was necessary
to respond needs from the new inhabitants of the cities under a
progress scheme “Go forward” 5 .
In the second phase of the “Milagro Mexicano”, the “stabilizing development”
of the economic policy in which agriculture was subordinated
by industry was applied, and the Country was opened
to foreign capital with some limitations. The State assumed an active
role in the economy, giving way to a series of parastatal businesses
and generating benefits of health, education, etc.; all this
to counteract the unfair distribution of wealth that favored entrepreneurs
and halt foreign dependency in science and technology
matters.
Towards the 60’s, as a result of the general inconformity, the social
protest movements were becoming very common, also because
of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution of 1959 that originated the
anti-imperialistic freedom movements, whose counterweight by
U.S.A. was done through the “alianza para el progreso”, which consisted
in funds for Latin American countries to invest in education,
wealth and living conditions.
At the same time, the education and cultural development of Mexico
bloomed in a spectacular way. It was the Golden Age of Mexican
Cinema, many institutions were created: the “Fondo de Cultura
Económica”, the INBA, Churubusco Studios, The National Anthropological
and History Museum, “CU” and the Mexican television that
will become an indoctrination apparatus of unsuspected reaches.
5. Shows in the 70’s: The Industry
The stabilizing development model of Mexico was drained. The
Country was coming from a social discontent that had spanned
for over a decade, a result of the State authoritarianism and the insufficient
concentration of wealth, compensated with the policies
of the social well-being. In the economic frame, the Country had
stagnated in its growth due to an international crisis particularly
with the U.S.A. Faced with this critical panorama, President Luis
Echeverría (1970 – 1976) would launch a domestic alternative
model: “shared development” consistent with the redistribution of
wealth that was accompanied by a moderate leftwing approach of
the time.
The model sought to excuse the mistakes of the stabilizing development
model, serving equally to the countryside and stimulating
the modernization of industry to reach better productivity,
increasing the amount of exports and diminishing imports.
“First Mexican Design Showroom” 6 , 1971
In 1971, the first Mexican design showroom event was held at the
5 It was necessary to develop an object industry for modern everyday life,
availing to the resources at hand in that period of time.
6 MAM, Exhibition’s cataloge of “Primer salón mexicano de diseño”, 1971.
MAM 7 , and it was the start of a series of exhibitions of Industrial
Design, assumed as a discipline derived from industrialization.
These exhibitions, in which Academia had a notable influence on
the conception, had intended to integrate craftsmen’s talent to industrial
practices aimed to enhance mass production of objects.
The bases to create the “Consejo Nacional del Diseño” 8 were established
too.
“Design in Mexico, Prospective-Retrospective” 9 , 1975
Modernity in means of communication and transportation were a
clear example of progress. There was a clear articulation between
academia, government institutions and industry, and it was possible
to talk about an institutionalization of Mexican Industrial
Design. The exhibition “Diseño en México, Retrospectiva-Prospectiva”
made evident the interest in taking the beauty of arts and
crafts to utilitarian objects of mass production. It was trying to add
an own aesthetic value and promote exportation, and that’s why
the Mexican Institute of Foreign Commerce joins the committee.
“Craftsmen Designers” 10 , 1978
In 1978, the MAM hosted the exhibition “Diseñadores artesanales”,
in which a new aesthetic or, in Fernando Gamboa´s11 words,
a “good design”, pretended to incise in the general public. The intention
was that a group of artists with individual expressions in
relation to arts and crafts would establish the aesthetic foundations
in modern design. Interest for design began to move from a
fundamental instrument of social action to a question of aesthetic,
but still directed to the local market.
6. Towards a hypermodern world of neoliberal
gestation: Design as a Decorative Art
The 80’s started with great conflicts; it was a large tension between
the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. created by the “Cold War”. In Latin
America many dictatorships were overthrown as is the case in
Peru, Argentina and Chile in the beginnings of the nineties. The
A.I.D.S. epidemic claims the lives of victims across the world. Technological
achievements are even more impressive: the spaceshuttle
Columbia takes off in 1981 (ONU).
In a cultural context, many styles of music and artistic expressions
emerge. Mobility is one of the adjectives that best define
a decade where designed drugs take place and the synthetic is
incorporated not only to everyday life but into the human body.
In Mexico the decade starts with the government of José López
Portillo, followed by Miguel de la Madrid giving way to Carlos Salinas
de Gortari (Bolivar 2004). It is a decade that is characterized
by the gradual establishment of the neoliberal model that still
persists today. The main features of this model are: a restraint of
7 “Museo de Arte Moderno” (Museum of Modern Art).
8 “National Design Council”.
9 MAM, Exhibition’s catalog of Diseño en México, retrospectiva-prospectiva, 1975.
10 MAM, Exhibition’s catalog of Diseñadores artesanales Salon 78, 1978.
11 Technical sub-Director of the INBA (National Institute of Fine Arts) that year.
Design Frontiers: Territiories, Concepts, Technologies 176