Art History and Visual Culture Program Presents

Fordist Production Methods and the Modern Industrial Aesthetic

A range of social and spatial factors—from decentralization, suburbanization, and the rise of sprawl to automobile culture, the leisure society, and the new society of the spectacle—have been attributed to Fordism, the unique association of mass production with mass consumption initiated by the Ford Motor Company. An associated Fordist “way of life” was responsible for the postwar consumer capitalist culture that shuttled the American economy to the center of global politics and initiated late–twentieth century global neoliberalism. While these perspectives on the Fordist “way of life” have focused largely on its relationship to the culture of consumption, it was the culture of production behind the manufacture of automobiles that generated the industrial aesthetic emerging from Fordism. This industrial aesthetic, identified and celebrated by European modernists seeking a new international style of design, reflected keen associations linking working (class) bodies, modern buildings, and efficient machines. As the the spatial, architectural, and urban manifestation of the cultures of production emanating from the American system of manufacture, Fordist production methods lay central to the modern industrial aesthetic that would overtake architectural discourses and practices in the mid–twentieth century.

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For more information, call 845-758-4388, or e-mail [email protected].

Time: 10:10 am EST/GMT-5

Location: Preston

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