Strange Design

In recent years, strange objects have been appearing in the world of design, dysfunctional, enigmatic, complicated objects, which put into crisis the categories of the project, of objects, of function for the benefit processes, explorations, deviations. These objects are part of a posture that the English designers Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby have defined Critical Design: a speculative, reflexive design that does not want to not to propose solutions, but rather to ask questions, who wants to challenge the Quick statements, prejudices and commonplaces about the role of products in everyday life. A design that does not intend to be assertive, that is to say, subject to the imperatives of the systems of power, but on the contrary critical. From these four salient moments that are the radical Italian design of the late 1960s and 1970s, Dutch conceptual design of the 1960s 1990, English critical design of the 2000s and finally the scene contemporary, particularly in France, this work shows how this strange design is not so much a style as a critical posture that continues to irrigate the field of design. New edition of the book published by it:editions in 2014 (ISBN 978-2-917053-18-8).