Dear members of the Design History List,
I have undertaken a project to create a CD with students as a
pedagogical tool for teachers and students in history of design.
I myself teach the history of design but my studies were in the history
of art.
When I began teaching the history of design, my first questions dealt
with the difficulty in defining this field of study.
We can find a lot of very interesting books on all sorts of subjects in
this field but very rarely books which offer any kind of methodology. I
found however an interesting book which indicates that we have a lot
of work to do in this area (John A Walker
Design history and th history of design , published by pluto Press 89)
You will find below a short text which explains the foundation of my
query.
I would be very interested in any thoughts anyone might have
concerning my research.
Happy New Year
[log in to unmask]
Director of Studies
L'École de design Nantes Atlantique - France
www.lecolededesign.com
To identify the characteristics of a research program in the history of
design
The difficulty in defining a field of study in the history of design points
to the various meanings of this word depending on denotative use or
the context in which it is used..
There are however three main research areas. They lead us to the
historical issues concerning industrial artefacts, beginning and
development of a profession born out of Industrial Revolution, and
aesthetic and philosophical theories came with it
For a long time, the development of Human sciences has focused on
the absence of a truth in history to the benefit of a multiplicity of views
where we find objective facts, reassuring analytical structures like the
legitimate obsession with possessing reliable methodological tools,
as well as sujective approaches.
The history of design has often been at the mercy of ideologies such
as Modernity followed by Post-Modernity , as has been the case with
the history of Arts and the history of architecture.
The history of design has often been confused with strong ideological
and necessarily militant discourses, around the profession.
These discurses include theoretical positions about the place of the
creator in Society, esthetical credos, integration of the current scientific
discourses.
To identify the characteristics of a research program in the history of
design would suppose precisely working to develop specific
methodological tools.
It is obvious that it would be useless to define an independent field, as
no discipine has this privilege.
But the relationships with other disciplines of knowledge would
obligatorily imply working towards the development of specific design
history questions whose implementation seems to be the first step in
defining this field of study .
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