The Émigré Designer: A Pioneer of Interaction

This chapter analyses the role of émigré designers in reshaping American visual culture during the late 1930s and early 1940s through the career of Herbert Matter. Arriving in New York in 1936 amid the socio-economic conditions of the Great Depression, Matter rapidly entered a network of modernist designers centred on Dr. Robert Lincoln Leslie’s Composing Room and its publications PM and AD, which served as key platforms for transatlantic exchange and experimentation in graphic design, typography, and photography. Through his early commissions, Matter developed a distinctive visual language characterised by dynamic photomontage, typographic innovation, and editorial integration, contributing to the emergence of modernist design discourse in the United States. The chapter further examines his work for Plus (1938–39), an experimental supplement to Architectural Forum that embodied the modernist ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk by integrating architecture, art, and technology within a unified editorial structure, while also situating him among leading figures of international modernism. Finally, it considers his contribution to the 1939 New York World’s Fair, particularly the Swiss Pavilion, where he translated Swiss modernist montage into immersive exhibition design, reinforcing national identity through contemporary visual strategies. Collectively, these projects illustrate how émigré designers such as Matter were central to the transformation of American graphic and exhibition design, redefining its aesthetic and conceptual frameworks in the mid-twentieth century.