This paper considers the concepts of ‘zeitgeist’ and periodisation with a particular interest in how metaphors of ‘evolution’ and transformation have been used to describe the trajectory and adaptation of ‘things’ and stylistic categories in history. It considers the vital part played by the literature of ‘period styles’ in the genesis of design history, the importance of the idea of ‘anonymous design’ and the strategies developed for understanding objects and ensembles as mediators of sensibility. Drawing on the work of Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Giedion it speculates on the ways in which the insights of more recent theories that conjure with ‘flat ontology’, ‘vibrant matter’ and ‘quasi objects’ were foreshadowed. Speculating on categories of the ‘obsolescent’ and ‘futuristic’, it examines the claims of ‘speculative realism’ and the insights afforded by the appeal of objects that are dislocated in time.