A reformed and integrated approach to every area of the child's experience emerged through the New Art, an amalgam of the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Nouveau, both of them tendencies that emphasized the unity of all art forms, the revival of handcraft, and the revitalizing of design through the use of organic forms and imagery. In emergent artistic centers in Europe and America—from Glasgow and Chicago to Rome, Vienna, and Budapest—the leading designers and intellectuals of the day, many of them women, used this approach to shape the material world of the modern child.
These aesthetic roots coalesced with a social, democratizing concept of art in the kindergarten movement, in which emphasis was placed on the child's enjoyment of the creative process and an intuitive investigation of materials. Like the New Art, the new pedagogy emphasized authentic expression, the inspiration of the natural world, and the creative potential of every individual, every child.
Many such avant-gardists sought to refresh their creativity through recapturing a playful, untutored attitude toward the world—the "innocent eye" of the child—and stripping away extraneous elements such as historicist ornament to get back to the purest forms of human experience and language. Children's naively subversive modes of questioning the world around them offered a model for creative experimentation, and for probing social attitudes or revealing the absurd. Opening themselves up to children's perceptual worlds, avant-garde designers set out to create innovative forms of furniture, toys, books, and interiors that might release youthful energy and imagination, and thereby help shape the society of the future.
Medical, educational, and design reformers of the interwar years believed that light, hygiene, and air should permeate all aspects of a child's early environments. Harnessing the language of abstraction as well as new materials and industrial production, designers developed new modern schools, nurseries, clothing, and furniture that were simple, light, and flexible: a tabula rasa upon which the modern child could inscribe his or her identity. Physical education, delivered through schools and clubs, encouraged children to participate in forms of modern dance, gymnastics and sport, whether as a means of inculcating collective values or of promoting health and self-expression.
If the built environment was central to shaping the larger awareness of modern society, the mental environment of the child also required attention. Interactive picture books and construction toys led children on spatial, temporal, and imaginative journeys into the wider world of things and ideas, preparing them to function as members of a modern industrialized society.
Children became the focus of patriotic consumption on the part of their parents, and there was a growing demand throughout Europe, the United States, and Japan for modern books, clothing, and toys that would inculcate the appropriate political beliefs, thereby transposing adult politics into the imaginary and material worlds of children. But an equally powerful theme emerges: design as a therapeutic agent for children damaged by war, informed by the unshakeable belief of many artists and educators in the power of design to transcend politics and heal wounds.
Soaring toy sales furthered economic regeneration but, in the aftermath of such brutality and devastation also triggered debates about a field of design some saw as imbued with militarism, pernicious nationalism, and negative racial or gender stereotyping. Many avant-garde designers instead sought to recover a lost innocence embodied in the spontaneity of children's art, and to emulate the constructive impulse of children's play. International groups of concerned child psychologists, manufacturers, educators, and designers joined forces to promote "good toys" that were well designed, safe, and nonviolent. Meanwhile, in the ruins of many European cities, similarly interdisciplinary groups of professionals worked with children to reclaim bombed-out areas through therapeutic play, and to reconsider the place of children in the modern city.
In this period, design for children has demonstrated tangible advances in materials and techniques as well as the influence of external factors such as the Cold War. Power has been a prominent and slippery theme in this narrative: the power of global brands and companies, the power of electronic and digital media, and the power of children themselves, who, over time, have come to wield more purchasing ability and exert more influence on adult consumption. As retail consultant Paco Underhill observed at the close of the twentieth century, "You no longer need to stay clear of the global marketplace just because you're three-and-a-half feet tall, have no income to speak of and are not permitted to cross the street without Mom. You're an economic force, now and in the future, and that's what counts."
In the last half-century, complex and often contradictory ideas about the status, rights, and needs of children in the modern world have emerged through passionate public discourse among adults—educators, parents, politicians. It has been through design that these changing notions, abstract but directly felt by children, have been made manifest. Starting in the 1960s designers broke with established conventions in order to challenge institutional, authoritarian, and commercial structures, and among the results were alternative living environments that responded to the idea of a community's collective responsibility for children, the movement toward an ethical, sustainable design culture, and the increased visibility of inclusive, therapeutic, and assistive design for children with disabilities and other challenges.
Among the divergent new objects and environments produced for children in the closing decades of the twentieth century, those presented here herald a pronounced progressive or idealistic philosophy; they attempt to communicate to children that they deserve a better world and that this world might be possible.
Did the 20th century live up to what Swedish design reformer and social theorist Ellen Key, writing in 1900, envisaged as “the century of the child”? Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000 takes both its title and its launching point from Key’s landmark book, which predicted a new preoccupation with the rights, development, and well-being of children; Key argued for progressive design as the means of shaping children’s experience of living in a rapidly changing world. Arranged in seven sections, this exhibition and website tracks the confluence of modern design and modern childhood, presenting individual and collective visions for the material world of children, from utopian dreams for the citizens of the future to the dark realities of political conflict and exploitation.
A diverse array of ideas, practitioners, and objects illustrates how progressive design has informed the physical, intellectual, and emotional development of children and, conversely, how models of children’s play and pedagogy have inspired experimental design. Toys and books, playgrounds and schools, political propaganda and therapeutic products—all are brought together here in a kaleidoscopic narrative that remaps an international history of modern design.
Check out this free family guide with activities, questions and ideas for viewing the Century of the Child exhibit. Print it at home or pick up a copy when you get to the museum.
See additional photos and content, including video and slideshows of the designers featured in the exhibition.
Explore a multitude of materials in our latest interactive space.
For kids ages four and up, a chance to come inside MoMA and play. Explore, build, and create with everyday and recycled materials to create a pop-up play space at MoMA. Free with Museum admission.
This halfday symposium explores the impact of play in urban environments on childhood development. Three sessions feature play theorists, architects and designers, developmental psychologists, educators, and others as they discuss topics such as the importance of childhood play and the design of playful cities. Participants include Jane Chermayeff, Juliet Kinchin, and others.
Organized by Juliet Kinchin, Curator, and Aidan O’Connor, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design.
Major support for the exhibition is provided by Lawrence B. Benenson and The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.
Additional funding is provided by the Nordic Culture Fund, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc., The Modern Women’s Fund, the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, and Marimekko.
Support for the publication is provided by The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art and the Jo Carole Lauder Publications Fund of The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art.
Special thanks to Stokke AS–Ålesund, Norway.
Design and Development by Hello Monday
Curatorial Direction and Text
Department of Architecture of Design
Juliet Kinchin, Curator
Aidan O'Connor, Curatorial Assistant
Mia Curran, 12-month Intern
Kate Carmody, Curatorial Assistant
Department of Digital Media
Allegra Burnette, Creative Director
David Hart, Media Producer
Sara Dayton, Freelance
Department of Marketing and Communications
Jason Persse, Editorial Manager
Special thanks to Alexandra Krueger, Intern, Department of Digital Media, MoMA