Seeing Design as Intellectual Rather Than Just Practical

Until recently, treating design as an intellectual medium, rather than a practical one, was rare in Europe and rarer still in the United States, where designers are more deeply rooted in the “build a better world” optimism of 20th-century modernism than in other countries. For years, the Boyms’ conceptual approach cast them as outsiders in American design, as did their obsession with the “undesignerly” phenomena of tragedy and neurosis. They had other “outsider” traits too: Nationality for Mr. Boym, who was born in the Soviet Union and emigrated to the United States in 1981 on a legal technicality; and gender for Ms. Leon Boym, as design is still a boys’ club in America and just about everywhere else. They also came to design from other disciplines. He from architecture, and she art. Those differences remain, but “conceptual design” — or “critical design,” as it is sometimes called — has become increasingly influential, even in the United States, particularly among young designers for whom the Boyms, who are 54 and 45 respectively, look like seers, not mavericks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/arts/12iht-design12.html?ref=arts&pagewanted=all