Atomic, Molecular and Orbital Iconography in Post-War Design

The project will investigate the role of visualisation techniques in communicating, reflecting and shaping professional and popular understandings of science in post-war Britain. The historical case study concerns the diffusion of images developed from new X-ray crystallography techniques for imaging structures at the atomic and molecular scale: their inroads into daily life through designers' adaptation and adoption of these images for surface patterns and 3D objects for purchase and use by the British public. The context for the research is historical-interest in clarifying our understanding of post-war British culture and society through new perspectives-but also contemporary, namely current renewed interest in understanding and communicating the impact of scientific discoveries in areas such as DNA sequencing and sub-atomic particle physics in society today. In this aspect, the project supports the strategic initiative in Science and Culture proposed for this round of research funding.
The student will be based within History of Design at the Royal College of Art ('RCA') and the curatorial services department of the Science Museum. These two institutions share not only their origin in the 1851 Exhibition and location in Kensington, but also internationally-recognized expertise in historical research that uses artefacts-objects, images-and oral histories to illuminate the contexts within which these artefacts have had meaning, and of the impact these artefacts have had on culture and society in the period they were made and subsequently. In History of Design and the RCA , the student will become part of a vibrant cohort of emerging and established researchers working in design and visual communication history and practice. At the Science Museum, the student will join a research community concerned with the presence of science in everyday life, and with the effective communication of the history of science and contemporary developments to a general audience, a concern that parallels the subject of this research.
The project aims to contribute to the scholarly and general understanding of post-war British design, cultural and social history by sharing new knowledge of the impact of scientific discovery and its popular imaging on design practice and production, and to the history of modern British science by raising awareness of the importance of design in communicating scientific understanding and discovery to the public.
Expected research outcomes include not only scholarly publications that will contribute to specialist and student knowledge in the history of post-war Britain, the history of modern science and the history of design, but also a major contribution to the X-ray crystallography exhibit in the Making of Modern Science Gallery at the Science Museum that will communicate and interpret the import of scientific discovery and its imaging in everyday life for a broad public audience. Research findings about the relationship between scientific visualisation techniques and the visual and material culture of everyday life in the post-war period may also serve as comparison for contemporary analyses of the impact and popular understanding of new imaging techniques being developed and deployed in areas such as climate science, genetics and sub-atomic physics today.

This summary begins with benefits to the design and scientific interpretation communities, then suggests more general benefits to national well-being and public engagement with science and possibly technology, medical and environmental policy.
The project will directly benefit the Science Museum and other organisations concerned with interpreting and communicating scientific concepts to the general public. Other principal beneficiaries will include researchers, educators and students at institutions like the RCA which develop and disseminate effective communication design practices, designers in both the private and public sector who deploy strategies for science and technology communication for a general audience, the museum sector including the V&A and a wider public seeking interpretive insight into the objects and scientific discoveries that shape our physical world, our experiences of that world, and our understanding of it. The dissemination of the project's findings through publications in both museum and design history sectors will heighten awareness of the research, and the presentation of research findings through the Science Museum's flagship Making of Modern Science Gallery ensure a wide impact across museums, design-related organisations and the public at large. See the Case for Support for further details on direct benefits to the Science Museum.
The project extends the Museum's connection with design historians at the RCA and elsewhere, thus providing a template for further collaboration between the two scholarly communities. As such it will encourage the study of science-based design in general as well as more critical reflection on design's engagement with scientific research, itself a growing area as evidenced by such projects as the recent ESPRC-commissioned Impact! project at the Royal College of Art.
As this project would increase our understanding of design in postwar Britain and the relationship between the public engagement with science and design, it will have an impact of the interpretation and display of design as a cultural artefact at other museums of design, modern history and material culture including the Victoria and Albert Museum and comparable institutions outside the UK (the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design and Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Museum of Japanese History, etc.).
The public impact of the project will be achieved via dissemination in popular media, ideally a radio and television documentary in addition to online material on the Science Museum website. The Science Museum's collection management database is now available to the public online, and the Museum is experimenting with new ways of engaging audiences with narratives about the collections. This collaborative mode of online interpretation is designed to engage new audiences with the Museum's subjects and objects, with a variety of public 'expertises' building new narratives around the collections.
Finally, the potential application of the project as historical comparison for studies of effective visual communication techniques for emerging scientific, medical and technical knowledge today cannot be stressed enough; at a time of scientific technology R&D into new imaging protocols and newspaper, television and online experiments with visualisation techniques for interpreting and explaining scientific developments in areas such as DNA sequencing, cancer research, sub-atomic particle physics, alternative energy sources and climate change, an analysis of the impact of earlier new technologies on the public and specialist understanding of science technology and medicine may provide insight and innovation for emerging techniques, and stimulate public debate on the best course for new funding, use and development.