The Role of Ideology of a Designer: A Comparative Study Between Marianne Brandt and Christopher Dresser’s Teapot Based on Means of Production

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The post-Industrial Revolution era caused a shift in ideology of designers to follow a more functionality forward design language in their products. One beverage that gained popularity in this era was tea (Koli, 2020). This rise in popularity urged European designers to rethink what the vessel in which it is stored should look like. This research study will look into the teapots of Marianne Brandt (1924), and Christopher Dresser (1879). This comparative study will look into how the nuances in ideology affect the manufacturing process of seemingly simple and similar objects; we do this by looking at journal articles, websites and blog posts.

Although both the teapots were made from the same materials, due to the difference in ideologies of the designer’s the methods of producing each teapot was different. Brandt’s teapot was made from hand-forged Nickel Silver (Fund, 2019), whereas Dresser’s teapot was electroplated with it (Teapot, 2003). Another aspect of the teapots where dissimilarities arise are in the manufacturing process. Brandt’s teapot focused on functionality with a certain aesthetic aspect to it, making mass manufacturing of this teapot unsuccessful due to the complexity of assembling each individual part, and thus her teapots were hand-crafted (Rawsthorn, 2007). Dresser had a very utilitarian approach to his teapot- he used simple geometric shapes all throughout; which enabled him to make use of the latest techniques of mass production (Teapot, 2003).

Though both Brandt and Dresser were going for a functional teapot, the differences in ideologies are made especially obvious when we look at their history. Marianne Brandt was a student at the Bauhaus school of Design, (Teapot Marianne Brandt, 2014) which influenced her approach in the making of the teapot. She wanted to blend in modern ideology with deep-rooted functionalism (DR.Charles Cramer, & DR.Kim Grant, n.d) in her designs. Dresser on the other hand was a designer that believed in ornamentation to be the key aspect of a design (Messerli, 2020) in the early stages of his career and it was only after his trip to Japan where was exposed to various Japanese designs and the geometric forms within

Fig 1. Marianne Brandt, Bauhaus Teapot Fig 2. Christopher Dresser, Teapot Bibliography

DR.Cramer, C., & DR.Grant, K. (2019, September 28). The Bauhaus: Marianne Brandt. Smart History. https://smarthistory.org/bauhausmarianne-brandt/

DR.Cramer, C., & DR.Grant, K. (n.d.). The Bauhaus: Marianne Brandt. Khan Academy. https://www.khanacademy.org/ humanities/art-1010/german-artbetween-the-wars/bauhaus/a/thebauhaus-marianne-brandt

Fund, P. (2019). Collection works. Moma. https://www.moma.org/ collection/works/2438

Koli, M. (2020, November 17). A Brief History of Teapots. Freshcarton. https://www. freshcarton.com/blogs/news/abrief-history-of-teapots

Messerli, B. (2020, May). The crisis of ornament: evaluation and intercultural divergences in the visual arts of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Palíndromo, 21-23. https://www.researchgate.net/ figure/Christopher-DresserTeapot-1879-Electroplated-nickelsilver-with-ebony-handle-madeby_fig5_341200583

Pepall, R. (2021, Jan 19). The international tempest over the world’s most famous teapot. The Walrus. https://thewalrus.ca/theinternational-tempest-over-theworlds-most-famous-teapot/

Rawsthorn, A. (2007, December 16). The tale of a teapot and its creator. Nytimes. https://www.nytimes. com/2007/12/16/style/16ihtdesign17.1.8763227.html

Teapot (2003, March 27). Collection Vam. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/ item/O78328/teapot-dresserchristopher/

Teapot Marianne Brandt (2014). Shop Bauhaus-movement. https://shop.bauhaus-movement. com/teapot-marianne-brandt

Willette, J. (2018, November 9). The first modernist: Christopher Dresser and the teapot part two. Art History Unstuffed. https://arthistoryunstuffed.com/ the-first-modernist-christopherdresser-and-the-teapot-part-two/

Zamora, J. (2021, May 1). Marianne Brandt The Bauhaus Metallwerkstatt. Placida. https://placida.es/mariannebrandt-bauhaus/ them that he had a major shift in his ideology: Beauty in Functionalism. This was reflected in the design of his teapot, which has a very geometric and utilitarian look to it (Willette, 2018).

When one looks at the comparison from the larger perspective of design history, choosing a seemingly ordinary object that serves a common household drink like tea enables one to understand the nuances like ideology that urged European designers to rethink what a regular teapot should look like. The different timelines give one idea about the role of different means of production the designers chose, and how it impacted the production in the end. Both designers had opted for the same materials. Although both designers had a similar end result, the paths they took to achieve that were different. Their backgrounds and their resulting ideologies have impacted their methods of manufacture.

Overall, this is a comparative study that looks into two teapots from different designers, various design aspects influenced by manufacturing methods and the ideologies of the designers that shaped the teapot’s final form.