Architecture, Graphics, Design and Fashion

Utility Furniture

Dalton, Hugh, et al.
London: His Majesty's Stationary Office, 1943.

Oblong 8vo; illustrated throughout with sepia toned photos; printed endpapers; staple bound printed wrappers, staples have rusted through and have been neatly replaced; near fine.

First edition. A clean copy of an important publication, the first to describe and depict the utility furniture made to conserve resources and manufacturing capacity during World War II. It includes an introduction by Hugh Dalton, President of the Board of Trade, and sets forth the aim of the regulations as being furniture that was “sound in construction, agreeable in design and reasonable in price. The Utility program was one of several government sponsored programs in the U.K. and the U.S. which, though concerned with the maximization of resources not issues of taste, nonetheless firmly established methods of fabrication and a modernist “good design” philosophy so that later when wartime restrictions came to an end there was not only the capacity to produce much of the furniture now seen as classics of mid-century design, but also a growing appreciation for it among the general public.

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