This new edited volume of critical essays examines designs for modern living in Asia between 1945 and 1990. Focusing particularly on the post-World War II and postcolonial years, this book advances multidisciplinary knowledge on approaches to and designs for modern living. Developed from extensive primary research and case studies, each essay illuminates commonalities and particularities of the trajectories of Modernism and notions of modernity, their translation and manifestation in life across Asia through design.

Authors address everyday negotiations and experiences of being modern by studying exhibitions, architecture, modern interiors, printed ephemera, literary discourses, healthy living movements and transnational networks of modern designers. They examine processes of exchange between people, institutions and with governments, in and across Asia, as well as with the USA and countries in Western Europe. This book highlights the ways in which the production and discourses of modern design were underscored by economic advancement and modernization processes, and fuelled by aesthetic debates on modern design. Critically exploring design for modern living in Asia, this book offers fresh perspectives on Modernism to students and scholars.

Yunah Lee is Principal Lecturer and teaches History of Art and Design at the University of Brighton, UK. Her research interests are design history and material culture in Korea and East Asia, transnational and cross-cultural studies of modernity and modernism, representations of national and personal identities, and political agencies and cultural diplomacy of art and design. She is based at the Centre for Design History at the University of Brighton and is a founding member of the Korean Design History Society since 2019.

Megha Rajguru is Principal Lecturer and teaches History of Art and Design at the University of Brighton, UK. Her research is in South Asian design history, material and visual culture. She has published articles in the Journal of Design History, Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, Journal of Museum Ethnography and the Journal of Visual Arts Practice. She is based at the Centre for Design History at the University of Brighton and has recently acted as a Trustee and Teaching and Learning Officer of the Design History Society, UK.