Clara Porset. A Modern Designer for Mexico

Abstract

The idea of design came about, following various approaches, at the end of the 1920s in the last century. The design and production of furniture and household appliances, as part of the work of a specialist, is an experience that evolved from the Bauhaus and wanted “to serve in the development of present day housing, from the simplest household appliance to the finished dwelling”, as Walter Gropius explained in 1927 in the Principles of Bauhaus Production. Other architects like Hugo Haring, in 1927, talked about “objects that are on the one hand works of art, and on the other are intended for use”, while 24 architects headed by Le Corbusier founded the CIAM in 1928 and sated “the need for a new conception of architecture that satisfies the spiritual, intellectual and material demands of present day life”. This was the atmosphere laid out by the avant–garde movements in Europe when Clara Porset arrived in Paris to pursue her graduate studies in art and architecture.