Form Follows Finance

EDITORIAL TEAM: Asmus Lauridsen & Johanne Aarup Hansen
PREFACE:

What if the fathers of the famous principle of 20th-century modernist architecture and industrial design had preached ‘form follows finance’? And following this thought – how does the economy and the value of money relate to and affect the design discipline? And how does design shape the economy and the practice of economics, finance and the world of money?

These are some of the questions this compendium ‘Form Follows Finance’ will explore and articulate.

Today we see a close coherence between the built environment and the logics of the market, between the development of products and annual accounts of companies, and even in the way commercial strategies are formed by “design thinking”. On top of this, the financial market has been saturated by new forms of assets and financial products, which are specially designed to form new ways of trading.

The Intention with the compendium and its title should not be seen as a simple rearticulation of the old maxim, but rather as a way to frame thoughts and perspectives on the relationship between design, the economy and practice of economics. The title is therefore meant as a challenge, that addresses the state in which design cannot detach itself from its inherent connection to capitalism. Could we for instance imagine design in other future economies or outside the ‘wheels’ of the capitalist economy?

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