Design Doesn’t Escape Time, It Belongs to It.

Today I’m at Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. I walked through a collection of objects from the last century. And at some point, I got stuck on a feeling I couldn’t really ignore. Some of these objects feel… honest. Not perfect. Not impressive in an obvious way.

In that way, they carry a strong awareness of their own time. And that made me question something we say all the time: design actually timeless? Or do we just like the idea of it being timeless?

Because when I look at these objects, none of them feel like they were trying to escape time. They were just doing what they needed to do. Right there. In that moment.

we don’t design in isolation

I think we sometimes forget this. Design doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It never did. There are always forces around it. Economy decides how much material you can afford. Production tells you what’s possible and what’s not. And sometimes crises come in and basically say: this just needs to work. everything else can wait. So no, design is not this pure, free thing. It’s always reacting to something.

constraints don’t always kill creativity

We say this a lot that constraints limit creativity. To be honest, walking through this exhibition, I started to feel the opposite. When things get limited less material, less budget, harder production… design becomes more direct. There’s less noise. Less unnecessary decisions. It’s like the design doesn’t have the luxury to pretend anymore.

bauhaus wasn’t trying to be minimal

Bauhaus is a good example of this. It didn’t come from a comfortable place. There was urgency. Instability. A need to rebuild things fast. So of course things became simpler. Of course ornament disappeared. Not because someone said “we don’t like decoration anymore.” But because the conditions didn’t allow it.

something feels off today

And this is where it got a bit uncomfortable for me. A lot of design today feels like it’s trying really hard to not belong to its own time. We chase trends. We optimize for attention. We talk about being timeless. But the objects that stayed with me today weren’t doing any of that. They weren’t trying to last forever. They were just… honest about when they existed.

maybe timelessness is not the goal

So now I’m thinking: Maybe good design is not about being timeless. Maybe it’s about being specific. About being grounded in its own context. Being able to say: this is what we had, this is what we needed, this is what we could do. No wonder it feels more real than trying to design something that never ages.

so what shapes design today?

If design always reflects its time, then what is shaping ours? Is it still material and production? Or is it something else now? Algorithms? AI? Attention?

I don’t have a clear answer yet. But I feel like that’s the real question.

see more from Co-Hub!

I also captured these same highlights in a short video for Co-Hub’s YouTube channel.
The video is in Turkish, but the insights are the same as what I’ve shared here.