Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge Berlin presents Object Lessons. The Story of Material Education in 8 Chapters

Understanding materials has helped contemporary society develop as it has. And remains as relevant today as ever. If not more so. Ergo material education is as relevant as ever. If not more so.

Object Lessons. The Story of Material Education in 8 Chapters at the Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge Berlin

“We daily call a great many things by their names, without ever inquiring into their nature and properties; so that, in reality, it is only their names and the things themselves with which we are acquainted”

John Aiken’s words appear on the title page of the 1830 book “Lessons on Objects”, one of the earliest attempts to provide just such information on everyday objects’ “nature and properties” and thus to educate the general public about “materials”.

How material education has evolved and developed since the early 19th century, and the contemporary relevance of such, is explored in the exhibition Object Lessons. The Story of Material Education in 8 Chapters at the Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge in Berlin.

Object Lessons. The Story of Material Education in 8 Chapters

Opening, as it were, with the aforementioned 1830 book “Lessons on Object” by the Pestalozzi pedagogue Elizabeth Mayo, or perhaps better put the transportable display box she developed to be used in conjunction with the book and which contains examples of a wide range of, largely naturally occurring, objects and materials, Object Lessons moves sprightly on to explain the changing function and importance of material knowledge and material education in context of the industrial and commercial expansions of the 19th and 20th centuries, the role played in the early 20th century by the first Applied Arts museums in helping transfer knowledge on, new, exotic materials, before, as it were, bringing the story of material knowledge “home” with the so-called Werkbund Case – an educational device developed by the Deutscher Werkbund and which throughout the 1950s and 1960s was loaned to schools to help pupils understand the relationships between form, function and material through examples of, in the Werkbund’s opinion, well designed objects. Much like Elizabeth Mayo’s display box, just with  a contemporary design focus rather than a  general education focus. The historic objects from the original Werkbund Case are complimented in the exhibition by contemporary objects which, we presume, would appear in such a box today.

Object Lessons ends with contemporary material education as represented by the Schweizer Material Archiv – the Swiss Materials Archive – an example, if you will, of the application of contemporary, digital technology to update Elizabeth Mayo’s display box. Established in 2009 the Schweizer Material Archiv unifies the collections of eight Swiss institutions, drawn from the worlds of art, design and architecture, in one searchable online database.

No, you can’t touch the materials, but, as with Lessons on Objects, you can learn about them, about their nature and properties

Times may change, the basics of material education don’t.

Material Education as Culture

In addition to the main journey through the institutional, scientific and commercial methods of material education, Object Lessons also makes two very, very pleasing detours into more informal, cultural, methods.

The first explains material education in literature as expressed through The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea or the encyclopaedic material wisdom of Sherlock Holmes as described in Conan Doyle’s novels; a brief presentation but one which neatly underscores not only the everyday value in understanding materials, objects and production processes but also that such is everyday knowledge that we should all possess.

In which context, the exhibition also neatly highlights the transfer of material knowledge down through the generations. The exhibition uses the example of information on household materials being passed from mother to daughter, but in a wider sense information on materials has traditionally been passed down and along, be that master to apprentice, professor to student or indeed mother to daughter.

Development through material knowledge.

The history of mankind is intimately connected with developments in our understanding of materials, their properties and potential: Stone Age, Iron Age, Bronze Age standing as the most obvious testament to such; but also advances in those areas which have primarily brought global society where it is today, for example, medicine, transportation or warfare have been greatly dependent on an increased understanding of materials their nature and properties.

Similarly the development of our industrial society was largely only possible through on the one hand a better understanding of materials and thus the opportunity to develop new handling processes and spheres of use, but also through the development of completely new materials, in which context plastics would be the most obvious example.

Yet despite the central role materials played and play, Aiken’s words remain largely as valid as ever, not least because in comparison to then we now have a lot more materials, and, and even with the best of intentions, for the vast majority of us the vast majority of materials remain words we are familiar with, words we may even use, but materials we don’t properly understand.

Empowerment through material knowledge

A second important comparison between then and now can be found when one considers what was described in “Lessons on Objects”. As a book it was intended for “children between the ages of six and eight” who attended a Pestalozzian school ran by Elizabeth Mayo and her brother Charles, and includes descriptions of objects such an egg, a wax candle or slate.

Simple, everyday things.

And exactly the sort of simple, everyday things that in our contemporary world with its focus on the finished, the instant, the processed, the temporal, we are increasingly losing touch with. And not just in the sense of losing touch with natural materials and their origins, but also in terms of products, clothing et al. Does it look nice? Is it cheap? Is it fashionable? Does it reflect my social status? Is it a nice colour? Today such questions are important, rather than enquiring into the production process and the nature and properties of the materials.

Yet enquiring into where objects come from, of what they are composed and how they are processed not only alters, improves?, our relationship to and with objects and thus the value we attach to them, but also allows us to make more informed decisions about an object, for all in terms of durability, sustainability and necessity. And thus helps make us more responsible consumers, or even more responsible non-consumers.

Such however requires understanding materials’ properties and natures.

Wisdom through material knowledge

Eloquently proving that less is more – in terms of less scope results in a more rewarding exhibition experience – the very fine focus of Object Lessons means that despite the large number of objects and, relatively, large amount of text one is never overtaxed and as an exhibition Object Lessons never losses its way far less the visitor’s attention; something that much broader scoped exhibitions regularly do. Or end up skipping along at such a pace that one is left with the feeling of having learned nothing.

Such a feeling won’t trouble you in Object Lessons. Quite the opposite

The real lesson in Elizabeth Mayo’s Lessons on Objects is that understanding materials is about understanding the world around us. Today we have become far too lackadaisical about materials, invest far too little effort in understanding them, be that naturally occurring materials, synthetic materials, intangible digital material or immaterial social material.

As an exhibition Object Lessons isn’t about materials, it is about learning about materials, about how one learns about materials, where that can take you/us, and as an exhibition reminds us that previous generations invested large efforts in learning about materials. Why shouldn’t we? Or perhaps better put, explains why we should.

And that in many ways is the first lesson we need to learn.

Object Lessons. The Story of Material Education in 8 Chapters runs at the Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge Berlin, Oranienstraße 25, 10999 Berlin until Monday January 16th

Full details can be found at www.museumderdinge.de