La divulgación industrial en Holanda tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial: el caso de The Way Ahead

• Autores: Rafael García García
• Localización: La imagen de la industria: VI Seminario Internacional sobre Patrimonio de la Arquitectura y la Industria. Propaganda, representación y percepción como patrimonio, 2019, ISBN 978-84-09-10223-5, págs. 451-468
• Idioma: español
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Among the initiatives of general information and advertising of the European national industries after World War II, the Dutch case occupied a veryspecial position given the interest with which its economy was orientedtowards foreign markets. A special external link that must be rememberedis the unique treatment received from the help of the US Marshall Plan,with the highest percentage economic support per inhabitant in all of Europe. In this context, the presence of industrial propaganda in the writtenand graphic media reached a significant development. It is of interest thatin a country without a national corporation for strategic industries, important independent publications arise not linked to specific sectors orcompanies but to the knowledge of general industrial progress.In this work we want to highlight the role represented by one of them, thequarterly magazine The Way Ahead published between 1947 and 1962.This had a totally exceptional character and was a singularity among thoseof its kind being difficult to find parallel in those years in Europe. Luxuriously edited in full colour and splendidly illustrated, it was conceived as adirect and suggestive means of disseminating the achievements of theDutch economy and industry abroad, offering a positive and optimistic image in contrast to the austerity and difficulties of the moment.This publication is practically unknown outside of his country and almostforgotten inside it, however, in it the most important statistical data of theDutch industrial development were poured in an exemplary graphic way.Both from the point of view of its design - with beautiful examples of industrial advertising and elaborated diagrams, maps and statistical presentations - as well as the information it offers, it is an original document of themaximum interest not only of the Dutch industrial reconstruction but, aswell same, of the trends in graphic design of the first decades of post-war.Represented therefore an exceptional testimony of dissemination of theindustrial image in its many facets.