Substance vs. Form

In June 1953, Bill gave a lecture on “art, business, culture, design” at the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado.22 He defended his position of artistic libertarianism in design, in opposition to other speakers whose products were more geared toward profit. The event offered Bill the chance to reconnect with Herbert Bayer, by this time an associated architect at the Aspen Institute and already one of the Bauhaus’s most influential students in the U.S.23 The conference reflected a split in design ethics.24 “The design world was going through this intensive … split between the libertarian artistic ideal (Bill) and the notion of design as business.”25