Abstract

An essential overview as well as a theoretical critique for all students of design history. Walker studies the intellectual discipline of Design History and the issues that confront scholars writing histories of design.

Taking his approach from a range of related fields, he discusses the problems of defining design and writing history. He considers the different methods that leading scholars have used in the absence of a theoretical framework, and looks critically at a number of histories of design and architecture.
'The best introduction to the critical study of design that I have encountered.'
Building Design
'The most systematic, the most comprehensive and the most comprehensible account of what design history would like to be ... I would not hesitate to recommend it.'
Designer’s Journal
'The scope of the book is admirable'
Times Higher Education