‘Cold War Modern: Design 1945-1970’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Scarf, printed cotton. Pablo Picasso, August 1951
Produced to commemorate the World Festival of Youth and Students for Peace, Berlin. The black, red, white, yellow, inclusive multi-culti design later caused problems as communists, freedom-loving capitalists and peace-campaigners all attempted to keep left-winger Picasso's design as their logo.
Messerschmitt Kabinenroller KR200. Fritz Fend, 1955
Manufactured by Fahrzeug und Maschinenbau, Regensburg, 1959. In immediate post-war years, the production of cheap but under-powered micro-cars flourished in Europe; they were affordable and could be quickly manufactured in large numbers. This model (its name means 'scooter with cabin') found fame in Terry Gilliam's dystopian 'Brazil'.
Garden Egg Chair. Peter Ghyczy, 1967-8
Lacquered, moulded polyurethane with synthetic textile upholstery over polyurethane foam padding. Manufactured by VEB Synthesewerk Schwartzheide, East Germany, 1972-4/5. The plastic chair was the most visible symbol of the era, a departure from traditional cabinet making and a gesture of faith in the materials of the future. Hungarian-born Ghyczy's ingenious powder-compact design was one of the best.
'Jo-Jo La Colombe' (Jo-Jo the Dove). Anonymous, 1952
Anti-communist propaganda poster issued by Paix et Liberté, France. Ink on paper, colour lithograph. The French graphic tradition exemplified by this Stalin caricature would later flower into the left wing, cheaply printed student agit-prop masterpieces of '68.
Set of dishes made of Meladur (plastic). Albert Krause, 1959
Plastic was given a heightened significance in the 'Thaw' years, particularly in East Germany with socialist party leader Walter Ulbricht describing it as 'an essential element of socialist revolution'.
'Save Our Planet, Save Our Cities'. Unknown designer, 1971
Poster featuring Richard Buckminster Fuller's Dome Over Manhattan scheme of the early 1960s. Visionary American engineer Fuller argued that the earth was approaching the critical point of over-consumption that would lead to its eventual extinction. The competitive conditions of Cold War politics had hastened this crisis.
Braun SK55 Stereo Radiogramme (a later version of the 1956 SK4 model). Dieter Rams and Hans Gugelot, 1956
Metal, wood and acrylic plastic. The SK4 radiogramme was known as 'Snow White's Coffin' (Schneewittchensarg) due to its transparent lid and box-like form. The design was a product of the collaboration between Braun and the design school at Ulm (the Hochschule fur Gestaltung) that was founded by Swiss architect/artist Max Bill in 1953, effectively as a successor in both moral and aesthetic terms to the Bauhaus.
Storage unit. Charles and Ray Eames, 1949-50
Zinc-plated steel, birch-faced plywood and laquered fibreboard. In the same way that the Eames conceived architecture as a modular system, this storage unit is an assemblage of parts which allows it an adaptability to specific conditions. It acts both as standalone furniture or as an architectural element, a room divider and, in the abstract composition of its elements, becomes a decorative feature, its abstract grid deriving from its function.
Model of the Russian satellite Sputnik I on display at the Soviet Pavilion during the 1958 World Fair
The Sputnik became a pivotal influence in Cold War design and decoration, versions of it appearing on everything from wallpaper to toys. A blend of comet and globe, it remains a potent image.
'American Interior No. 7'. Erró (Gudmundur Gudnumddson), 1968
The Paris-based Icelandic artist's series of paintings American Interiors addressed the theme of the penetration of revolution into the consciousness of the West.
'From oil we take for the needs of the country gasoline, petrol and oils and on top of that thousands of other things for the home and for domestic comfort'. Poster, Soviet Union. Viktor Koretsky, 1960
How topical could you get? This year's Venice Architecture Biennale features a big yellow gas pipeline running between the Russian and German pavilions installed, to the bigger nations' chagrin, by the Estonians who object to the real pipeline being laid in their territorial waters. Some issues just don't go away.
Publicity photograph of Stalinallee from the roof garden of the 'Children's House' on Straussberger Platz, Berlin. Horst E. Schulze, 1956
Stalinallee was the most important Soviet thoroughfare in Central Europe, its architecture a graphic illustration or catalogue of the changing political-aesthetical climate in East Berlin on the 1950s.
Apartment block, Händelallee 3-9, Berlin. Constructed as part of Interbau, 1956-7. Walter Gropius/TAC
Interbau was the West Berlin response to Stalinallee. This was a German modernist, now US resident, showing the East Germans how to do modernism for the masses. In the US his practice was by then sustained by major corporate commissions.
Vice President Richard Nixon with USSR First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev during the 'Kitchen Debate' at the American National Exhibition, Moscow, 1959
Perhaps the most iconic encounter of the Cold War. Amidst the gleaming appliances of the General Electric kitchen in the 'typical American home' on show there, the leaders thrashed out the competing claims of Communism and capitalism to provide the best life for the greatest number of people.
