THERAPEUTIC OBJECT CULTURE AND DESIGN
Endre Béla Huff
Senior Lecturer, College of Szolnok, Szolnok, Ady E. u. 9
College of Kecskemét (GAMF) 7000 Kecskemét, Izsáki u. 33
E-mail: hebke@freemail.hu; Telephone: 36-(30)-905 6474
Summary
Our objects have two states, a normal and a therapeutic state. The normal state has
something to do with the object's function but the therapeutic one is in connection with an
extra aim (medical, psychological or ergonomic). For instance, in the case of a chair, its
function is to rest on it. The therapeutic aim can be illustrated by a dentist's chair or by a
chair which has specially designed for relaxation. According to J. Baudrillard, some chairs
make us feel tenser while others make us feel more relaxed. Small children are not afraid of
objects until they have some negative experience with them. Also, for some people they form a
taboo while for others they conjure up pleasant memories.
Consequently, in recent days, every designer becomes a therapist.
Content Part
Our objects exist in two states; a normal and a therapeutic one.
Let us consider it the normal state when an object fulfils a function. It has its authentic
engineering and aesthetic appearance as well as a form accepted by society.
Let us consider it its therapeutic state when the object satisfies some therapeutic need as
well, that it gives more than its basic condition. It may serve the purposes of medical or
psychological therapy. It may satisfy the needs of ergonomy serving our everyday life
with its additional opportunities.
Let us illustrate our point with the chair we are sitting on at the moment.
As long as we are able to sit on the chair in an appropriate manner, it fulfils its function. We
are not sitting on the floor, nor on the table or leaning against the railings, we are sitting on a
chair corresponding to our European tradition. Furthermore, our object also satisfies certain
needs of comfort. We have reached the concept of the "ideal chair" in the Platonic sense.
(Platon: The State, Vol. 7) But let us admit that, after a while, even our ideal chair turns
uncomfortable. With the passage of time we realise the need for the therapeutic state.
Feeling of comfort / t
The designer Eero Saarinen (also a theoretician for chairs) noticed that people today are
sitting in a different way than they used to. They have an urge to wriggle and need a chair to
accommodate for that. The designer must consider the symbolic interaction between man and
the chair.
The example of the chair clearly illustrates that a good designer today cannot be
satisfied with the perfect design for the basic function of an object but must become a
therapist himself.
2
J. Baudrillard has come to two very important recognitions:
Objects are capable of creating and ease tension.
Our cognitive relationship to things is influenced by our trustful or distrustful attitude to
objects.
For a small child objects seem natural partners. It is the distrustful adult who begins to be
afraid of them. Anxiety about objects always refers to neurosis. Baudrillard claims that this is
nothing but the natural reaction of man living under the circumstances of the modern world.
The anxiety can be eased by recalling our "traditional" objects of "human dimension". The
source of the problem is our modern world with its modern culture of objects and
environment. (J. Baudrillard: Le systéme des objets /1984/)
Man is a creature constantly looking for relief. We are trying to find relief from the effects of
our modern world driving us neurotic.
Knowing the anthropology of Gehlen and Freud we may believe that the problem stems from
man himself. According to A. Gehlen man is a biologically determined "creature of want". He
can be "relieved" of this feeling only by the culture he created (technology, science, religion
and art). (A. Gehlen: Das Mensch /1965/) However, relief does not always work perfectly.
Mind is incapable of reflecting the outside world perfectly. According to Freud, the world
beyond the Ego as a "form of energy" influences man's conscious formation of opinion.
We are in need of the biological relief, we create a culture and follow models. We try to
suppress the urges of the subconscious but in vain. Should we succeed in doing so, there will
be no need for the therapeutic culture of objects, it would be enough to create the Platonic
ideal chair.
The normal state
The neurotic man of our modern age has a definite need for the therapeutic culture of objects.
Because of this therapeutic expectations arise towards the normal condition of objects as well.
When designing a chair we must do it along the lines of the Saarinen principles.
E.g. In earlier times, the normal state for a milking stool was simply to fulfil the function of
milking. A throne symbolised the power of the monarch. Functionality still exists in the realm
of work but the relief from "unpleasant work" in the Gehlenien sense has become a
therapeutic expectation. At the same time, the chair of a bank manager appears as a throne
reflecting his office authority as sacred power. Modern man cast into a suppressed state and
trying to escape from its neurosis languishes in the phoney pretence of power expecting relief
from his object culture. Although his chair is made of cheap material using simple technology
- wood imitation plastic with certain support materials - a mass product but maintains the
touch of class. When he scrambles into it, he also demands power, class and respect.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the original task of the designer was interpreted as to
create "the adequate form" conceived by J. Russkin. For W. Gropius and the Bauhaus School
the essence of design was the harmony achieved between function and form. This modernist
concept came to be questioned very late, only in the 1960s. We must consider all these
approaches when we contemplate our therapeutic aspects.
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Conditions for a therapeutic object culture:
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
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The normal state of object culture must be completely satisfied. The object must be
perfect from the aspects of ergonomy, ergonometry both technically and functionally.
The object must be rational from the economic and marketing points of view.
The object must satisfy some existing social need.
Only with the joint existence of the above factors can an object fulfil therapeutic needs.

However, to reach the therapeutic state an object other therapeutic means
and conditions are also necessary.
Means and conditions available
&
Normal object state - Therapeutic object state
Therapeutic objective
Therapeutic object culture of a medical nature
When relief serves some medical objective the object must conform to the given medical
problem. In the relationship of man-object the designer considers the sick man as his subject.
The object must serve the therapeutic objective. At the same time he must pay attention to the
work culture of the doctor and the medical staff.
When designing a multifunctional chair - serving as operating table in the ambulance car, a
safe means of carriage in the hospital - it is not enough to consider only aspects of engineering
or hygiene; we must treat the patient suffering from pain. It needs rounded shapes, the use of
natural materials, soothing cool colours. For a patient recently undergone eye surgery, the
wrong design of lighting or a yellow sun shade can cause gnawing pain.
The therapeutic world can pose a special problem for children. The hospital with its
instruments and accessories or even the white-painted chairs can look menacing to them. The
well-known "white-robe hypertony" means a special therapeutic task for the designer both
with children and adults. For a young child life appears as a fantasy world even in a hospital.
The characters in this world are menacing because they are not on a child's scale. Some
hospital managers believe if they hang children's drawings on the walls or the chairs are
painted in attractive colours they create a friendly environment. While it should be the entire
object culture that serves the recovery of sick children.
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Work culture as therapeutic field
The neutralisation of factors burdening our work - heat, light, physical, acoustic and chemical
conditions - is also a therapeutic task. The designer, as therapist, contributes to the content
aspect of the job. According to the conditions of ergonomy "a job must be feasible, bearable
and acceptable". (W. Laurig: Grundzüge der Ergonomie /1990/) Among the psychological
requirements of acceptability we may include the proper, therapeutic world of objects.
Special attention must be paid to the treatment of psychologically extreme working
conditions, too. They can be increased attention, sense of responsibility and being exposed to
constant stress (e.g. with pilots, in acute medical care and with drivers).
Chairs play a dominant role in driving. Since the 1920s, the so-called "maximum car"
principle proposed by Le Corbusier emphasized comfort and the principle of safety became
important only from the 1960s. In both cases, a lot depends on the design of the driver's seat.
As long as we wish to ease the stress of driving, e.g. the neuroticising factors appearing
during driving, we must carefully chart the conditions of driving and make them the tasks of
design. In our modern world the neuroticising factors may include the presence of the motherin-law but also that of the husband, wife or children and their interference with driving. The
use of certain objects like the mobile phone or car radio may come to the same effect.
Masculine, feminine, sporty style of driving can bring the feeling of comfort or discomfort at
the same time. The designer attitude of G. Giugiaro has been applying instinctively the
therapeutic aspects in his models for nearly twenty years.
Therapeutic object culture of our homes
When assessing object culture serving the needs of resting, relaxation or recreation the
effectiveness of therapy must also be our standard.
In most cases, the environment culture of our homes does not serve the principle of effective
recreation. The object environment of active or passive resting includes sports activities and
gardening just as well as a recreational chair, water bed and an environment poor in stimuli.
The tube-frame relaxation chair of Le Corbusier (1928) was meant to serve maximum resting
and he may not have realized its therapeutic effect. Psycho-therapists, on the other hand, were
contended with a comfortable chair and did not care too much about its shape. Effective
relaxation became a topic for research only after World War II. The method of relaxation
training was further assisted by the relaxomat machine.
The object environment of our homes has been dominated by the object design based on the
work-principle. The kitchen conceived as the field of work. The living room as an area of
activity. The bedroom as an area for sleeping. Therapeutic aspects are expressed only through
them and their transmission.
Based on the above we can conclude: Designers face plenty of unexploited opportunities. At
the same time, therapists have also neglected a wealth of potential inherent in object culture.
We may all try to convince ourselves of being modern people equipped with modern objects,
which give us satisfaction. We exploit the state of objects. We either do not believe in their
therapeutic potentials or do not know about them at all. Would it be enough to contend that
we are sitting comfortably at the moment?