Includes bibliographical references and index.

Addressing histories of modernism, the discourse of modernity and modernisation processes in national and transnational contexts, this book examines different designs for and meanings of 'modern living' across 20th-century Asia. Design and Modernity in Asia contributes to the fast-growing body of literature on postcolonial modernism and non-Western global design history, with particular focus is on post-civil war and postcolonial years in Asia. The book develops methodological approaches to studying Asian modern design history and explores how marginalised individuals and groups encountered or experienced modernity. Most previous research on modernism and modernity in Asia has focused on certain geographical pockets and within particular national boundaries such as China, India and Japan. This book expands the discourse of modernism to include geographical areas or countries in Asia that have been under-explored in scholarly debates such as Bangladesh, Iran, Korea and Turkey. The newly unearthed histories complement and challenge the existing paradigm of modernism debates. Developed from extensive primary research and a great variety of case studies, each chapter in this book illuminates commonalities and particularities of the trajectories of modernism, and their translation and manifestation in Asian living.