No Comments Written by Robert on June 15, 2008 – 11:11 pm

Streamlining in the scientific sense is used for bodies that have little resistance or “drag” when put into motion through an external medium usually air or water. In the design context, streamline design refers to an important stylistic movement as well as a more general description of aerodynamic forms.

One quantitative measure of a streamlined form is “drag coefficient,” also known as cd value. The lower the cd value, the more streamlined the body. cd was once measured through aerodynamic experiments in wind tunnels that quite literally observed the course of stream “lines” in the external medium; today, modern technologies have made it possible to access this information through computer simulations. Such studies lent their name to Streamline Design, one of the most important stylistic movements in twentieth-century design, with its heyday during the 1930s and 1940s.

Because streamlined forms remain influential today as models for design, however, the phrase “streamline design” can be understood more broadly to refer to objects designed to be streamlined. The basic laws of aerodynamics and the behavior of fluids were already being explored in the early decades of the twentieth century. In design, this research was applied first to building cars, airplanes, and ships, where minimizing drag both reduces fuel consumption and makes higher speeds possible. One of the earliest attempts to create a low-drag design was a bodywork by Pierre Selmersheim (1895).

Among the most famous examples of streamlined forms in the decades that followed were the cigar-shaped locomotive, the German construction series 03.10 and 05, and the aptly named Tropfenwagen (Teardrop car) by Edmund Rumpler (1921), one of the first and most famous examples of streamlined forms. The Tropfenwagen’s fairing was based on the knowledge that the teardrop form is one of the most streamlined possible, and indeed the design had an outstanding cd value of 0.28. In its wake, streamlined fairings in the automobile sector grew more significant, as Ferdinand Porsche’s precursor to the VW Bug (1938) demonstrates.

For many designers and architects of the 1920s, the speed, progress, and mobility suggested by streamlined forms embodied “a genuine liberation from the constraints we have till now been subjected to” (Le Corbusier 1927, trans. Frederick Etchells). By the late 1920s, the enthusiasm for streamlined design led to its establishment, alongside the strictly rectangular ideal of the Bauhaus, as a model for style. Streamline Design was quickly embraced by those working in fields outside of the transportation sector as well, and its impact was soon evident in the design of everything from roof terraces to building facades to tubular steel furniture.

The stylistic movement achieved its real breakthrough during the 1930s in the United States, evolving froman avant-garde aesthetic to a mass phenomenon. In the wake of price regulating in 1932, intended as a measure against the Depression, a product’s “look” and effective advertising became crucial factors in determining its economic success. In turn, designers began to pay more attention to aesthetic surfaces, creating everyday objects with attractive designs. Among the first famous advocates of this newunderstanding of design were the “Big Four” Raymond Loewy, Henry Dreyfuss, Walter Dorwin Teague, and Norman Bel Geddes.

Embracing slogans like “never leave well enough alone” (Raymond Loewy), these designers used streamlining not only to improve the ergonomic qualities of industrial products, but also to stimulate consumption and appeal to new markets (such as female consumers) through the use of exciting new forms. Streamlined forms were made possible in no small measure by technical innovations in metal and woodworking that made it easier to produce curved three-dimensional forms.

The movement became associated with technological progress, and became the epitome of a futuristic design aesthetic that also appealed to the masses. Initially used in the design of American cars like the Harley Earl and Chrysler models of the 1930s and 1940s, streamlined designs quickly moved on to influence the design of household appliances like Raymond Loewy’s 1932 Coldspot refrigerator. The aesthetic eventually became symbolic of the American way of life, dominated by colorful paints, chrome fixtures, curved forms, and dynamic printed letters.

American influence on European consumer behavior in the postwar period brought Streamline Design back to Europe, and in the 1950s it became one of the first global design trends. Despite the worldwide popularity of the movement, Streamline Design had its share of critics (including Edgar Kaufmann Jr. of the Museum of Modern Art in New York). In particular, it was criticized as a superficial formal aesthetic, and was often regarded as synonymous with “styling” the design of attractive surfaces to encourage sales. By the end of the 1950s it had largely become a purely aesthetic gesture with at times absurd results. With the rise of new plastics and the organic design of the 1960s, the significance of the movement waned though its influence continued to be apparent in work of designers such as Luigi Colani and Olivier Mourgue among others. Since the 1990s, streamlined forms have gained in currency again.

This is the result of, on the one hand, a revival of Streamline Design as part of retro fashion (Retro Design) and, on the other, new scientific discoveries in aerodynamics. In particular, bionics has identified new streamlined forms and surfaces based on natural models, and breakthroughs in computer simulation have considerably simplified the analysis of fluid behavior. Contemporary examples such as Chris Bangle’s redesign of the BMW model series or designs for athletic shoes illustrate how streamlined designs can still be used to appeal to buyers who value speed and mobility. The continuing significance of reducing fuel consumption that low air resistance can provide ensures that streamlined forms will remain very important in design and will be continually refined especially in the case of sports cars and airplanes.