Pioneers (Products from Phaidon Design Classics)

This volume demonstrates how the industrial revolution transformed the world of manufacturing. The technological advances it brought and the new cost-effective production techniques it utilized allowed a huge variety of goods to be affordable to ordinary people for the first time. During the nineteenth century
an incredible number of new inventions, new techniques and new materials radically altered the lives of everyday consumers. From the introduction of the first cars to the development of trains and trams, from the electric light to the telephone, standardization and industrial production had an immense impact on every aspect of human life.


The book includes both humble objects created by anonymous inventors and masterworks by such pioneering designers as Christopher Dresser, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe.

Design Classics comprised the most comprehensive collection of timeless industrial designs. The three volumes featured the 999 most innovative, beautiful and influential products created in the last 300 years, meticulously researched and selected after wide consultation with designers and design-world insiders.