Beyond the object in design / John Thackara -- The experience of modernity / Marshall Berman -- Place-form and cultural identity / Kenneth Frampton -- A city is not a tree / Christopher Alexander -- Architecture and cognac / Richard Bolton -- Street signs / Nigel Coates -- The search for a postmodern aesthetic / Peter Fuller -- The ideal world of Vermeer's little lacemaker / Peter Dormer -- Design and "avantpostmodernism" / Fran©ʹois Burkhardt -- Invisible design / Claudia Don©¿ -- Culture as commodity : style wars, punk and pageant / Peter York -- The system of objects / Jean Baudrillard -- From Socrates to Intel : the chaos of microaesthetics / Thierry Chaput -- The demise of classical rationality / Philippe Lemoine -- From Brunelleschi to CAD-CAM / Mike Cooley -- The product as illusion / Tom Mitchell -- Softecnica / John Chris Jones.