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The nature of design, even more than the traditional fine arts, responds to and is indeed inseparable from the culture and society in which it exists. This course provides a survey of design history from the nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution to the present, with emphasis on graphic and industrial design and art and architecture, examining the history of design as it corresponds to changes in economics, politics, technology, industrialization, and other societal factors. While focusing on the events and achievements in modern Western cultures there will be selected references to pre-industrial landmarks and developments and a global scope will be examined. Design will be studied as a social practice that contributes to the production, maintenance, and representation of culture and society. The course will focus less on aesthetics than on the cultural milieu in which designers have created images and objects that give physical form to intangible ideas. 3hrs. lecture/wk.