After modern, what's next? That question began to trouble architects, philosophers and artists well before the 20th century slipped into the new millennium. As Judith Gura stresses in <em>Design After Modernism</em>, 21st-century designers embrace the eclecticism of an era that claims to distrust dogma and the wider scope made possible by new technology. For example, the homely craft of crocheting gave rise to a chair of crochet and epoxy resin (which does not, by the way, look especially ergonomic, if the photo accompanying Gura's caption is any indicator). Gura adds that form no longer necessarily follows function in the brave new design world where the rigid, machine-tooled geometry of modernity is no longer enforced. (David Luhrssen)
