With this issue, TIME introduces a new section, one that will encompass numerous areas of human activity and focus them in a fresh, invigorating fashion. The title: Design.

"Form follows function" has been the anthem of much 20th century architecture and design, but it will be the function of the Design section to follow form--to trace its myriad varieties and analyze its influence on the way we live, work and play. The section will interpret, in the widest possible sense, the patterns and shapes of our world. Design, noted the celebrated architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, includes everything from teacups to city planning. Accordingly, says Senior Editor William Ewald, who will edit the new section, "Design will deal with, say, the silhouette of a new telephone, with why the Susan B. Anthony dollar was doomed from the start, with eggcups, airports, flowerpots, type faces, shopping centers, shoehorns, bus seats and world's fairs." As long as something has a purposeful design in terms of function, structure or goal, it will fall within the broad province of the section.

The writer of the Design section will be TIME Contributor Wolf Von Eckardt, 63, former architecture and design critic of the Washington Post. Ever since fleeing Berlin as a political refugee in 1936, Von Eckardt has been involved with the multifarious aspects of design as a typesetter, graphic designer, critic and author of such books as A Place to Live: The Crisis of the Cities (1968) and Back to the Drawing Board! Planning Livable Cities (1979). Von Eckardt was a recipient of one of the first Ford Foundation grants for writers in the arts, and is the holder of an American Institute of Architects medal for distinguished criticism of architecture. Two weeks ago he was in the noted "new town" of Tapiola, Finland, to receive the Tapiola medal for promoting the idea of well-designed planned communities.

Von Eckardt sees the new section as "taking a practical approach to design, to encourage the kind of design that makes the world more livable." Noting the historical discrepancy between the vagaries of elitist taste and what people really want, Von Eckardt believes that "we have a right to say we like this and we don't like that: we must participate more actively in the design of the world around us. The problems of living are not simply engineering problems. It makes sense to solve them artistically." This week Von Eckardt assesses a novel Dutch idea for redesigning streets. In the process, he raises a vision that will be a touchstone of all the Design sections to come: the harmonious coexistence of man and machine.

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