Design and Cultural Politics in Postwar Britain: Britain Can Make it Exhibition of 1946

Marking the 50th anniversary of the Britain Can Make It (BCMI) exhibition, this collection of essays, documents and commentaries is a re-examination of a major design initiative in the immediate post-war period. BCMI encapsulated many of the problems which the newly-founded Council of Industrial Design was to face over the following decades: the tensions between a state-funded body, with its metropolitan bias, and British manufacturing industry located in the industrial regions; persuading the public that good modern design had a key role in everyday life; and the manifestation of a particular set of social and cultural values in the selection of exhibits and the means of design propaganda. The book draws on the documentary sources in the Design Council Archive.