In literature music and art the term Romanticism refers to an era that began around the time of the French Revolution and continued into the Victorian period. Today we associate the word with attributes such as dreamy rhapsodic and poetic but also with selfabsorbed or even kitsch. This volume identifies a shift in contemporary design toward themes of metamorphosis heroic individualism reverie and pastoralismall key concerns of the Romantic era which may be seen as offering an alternative he