Design: Fashionable Is Not Enough

The year's finest work is not so much chic as helpful, with flair

The distinction between design and fashion was further blurred in 1982. Design (of buildings, industrial products and graphics) was dominated by fickle fashion. And fashion (of clothing and other non-durables) made free with the word design, relying slavishly on the signature and authority of the fashion designer.

The verbs "to design" and "to fashion" have always been closely related. But when it conies to the nouns, there is a clear distinction, or ought to be. Design is supposed to combine the practical and economical with a dash of artistic flair so that the result is pleasant, perhaps even a joy, both to use and to behold. Fashion does not have to be practical or, heaven knows, economical. Fashion design is all artistic flair. It is all ephemeral. It is all styling. A dress designer is not primarily concerned with the function of clothing. He tries to wrap you in something that is the "real" you. His enemy is not malfunction but boredom.

Nothing wrong with that, up to a point, and nothing wrong with the hero worship of fashion designers. They are every bit as deserving of celebrity as the celebrities they dress. One begins to wonder only when such fashion kings as Pierre Cardin, Givenchy, Bill Blass and Ralph Lauren bestow the knighthood of their labels on wines, automobiles, chocolates or home fashions. It merely makes these things fashionable, which is not enough. Caveat emptor. Enjoy the presumed prestige, but do not confuse high-priced celebrity labels with design.

Design is no luxury. At a time of lagging U.S. productivity, a dangerous imbalance of trade and a deteriorating living environment, good design is nothing less than a matter of survival. The tendency in 1982 to acclaim buildings, not because they solved urgent urban problems but because they carried the signature of currently fashionable design celebrities like Michael Graves or Charles Moore, was a trend in the wrong direction.

The year's best designs are designs that are not necessarily chic. They are helpful.

>Old Post Office, Washington, D.C. Snatched from the bulldozers, this imposing, romanesque pile of granite on Pennsylvania Avenue has been recycled by Arthur Cotton Moore Associates, architects, to house a festive market for tourists and offices for the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities and others.

> Levi's Plaza, Levi Strauss & Co., corporate headquarters, San Francisco, Calif. Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum Inc., architects. Located on the fringe of the city, this office complex frames a pleasant garden and proves that corporate prestige does not depend on scraping the sky.

> Cabrillo Village Farmworkers Cooperative Housing, Saticoy, Calif. John V. Mutlow of the Mutlow Dimster Partnership, architect. Subsidized by the Farmers Home Administration, this adobe-style project was designed for low cost, conservation of energy and family privacy.

> Evac Chair. Egen Polymatic Corporation, manufacturer. David Egen, designer. A lightweight, easily stored wheelchair to help elderly or handicapped persons down high-rise fire-exit stairs in case of emergency. A 250-lb. invalid can easily be evacuated by one assistant.