Dear Christena,
Here's another one for you, very old but evidently a seed for this entire
thing we have speaking about (I mean Design):
In the first gathering of the Roman Academy of Disegno in the last years of
the sixteen century, Federico Zuccari, almost self nominated Principe of the
Accademia, exhorted the fellow academicians to not prolong the discussion
about the primacy of the Arts Architecture, Painting and Sculpturet hat
haunted the previous 50 years or so, because all three were the loving
sisters of the same father Disegno! Disegno had a sort of Jove like quality,
a generator of Life, generating girls. (o God, it occurred to me that I also
have three daughters...).
Amongst other things these gendered languages were very useful for
allegories. Imagine what the statue of Liberty would look like if Liberté
wasn't LA Liberté. A giant bear? A Kubrikean Monolith? O, that's why you
tend to use beasts in an allegoric way, beavers, elephants, and donkeys, and
eagles. yes. By the way, I know from my French friends that they were a bit
disappointed that you didn't build the other two statues: L' Egalité and La
Fraternité.
Maybe in the next French Elections La République will be presided by someone
we can also imagine with a Frisian beret and the right breast hanging
proudly facing the bullets of Reaction.and the chilly weather in Paris.
Maybe she (Ségolène Royale) will offer you the missing ones. At least
Egalité, isn't it François?
But let's get back to Disegno, father of three girls. Somewhere in the
process, someone forgot about engineering, La ingineria. Although highly
served by drawing, the modern ingineria (I'm speaking about Taccola and
other engineers from Sienna contemporaries of Francesco Di Giorgio) were
kept out of the Academia. Disegno was not about representation of
anatomical, mechanical relations, Disegno had to do with generating and
composing relations. That's why piping although being design research is
almost irrelevant and most of all dull design research. Although I agree
with both Terry and Clive, I sense the danger of overwhelming, galloping
piping research. That's why Christena, the core of my "poem" was not about
bringing soul to life but about my concerns about doing soulless things.
I reread Caradoc's speech yesterday. Caradoc is an architect, friend of the
leading characters of Lawrence Durrel's Tunc. (Durrel has been always around
the Mediterranean. Although justifiably known for the Alexandria Quartet,
the book I like most is the Sicilian Carousel). Well, Caradoc is a key-note
speaker in a conference held in the Acropolis but he show up heavily drunk,
Hyppolita and the narrator become very concerned that he will not remember
what he was doing there but he starts a terrific discourse about the nature
of a work of art deeply rooted in the humanity of things. His digression
moves from remote Freudianism to Classical erudition. By the way, he gives
account of the birth of the Jonic Order in the forms and proportion of
women. Unfortunately, in the book, Sipple, another character, that invades
the scene and snaps a bottle from the pulpit, interrupts him.
I really thing that you or we went to far on defining design and
consequently on defining design research. It is legit to embrace Richard
Buchanan's broad definition of Design but it has become of almost no use
because it encompasses nearly everything.
I'll be back on this,
Cheers,
Eduardo
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christena Nippert-Eng" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Eduardo Corte Real" <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 11:50 PM
Subject: Re: Gender 101 and design
>I feel as if I'm massively overstaying my welcome on the list, but I
> must respond to The Poet Eduardo. He says:
>
> "I like to think that a Designer is a producer of soul like
> qualities on products that elevates him/her above any other producer."
>
> This is a beautiful image. It is also an explicit reference to the
> incredible power wielded -- knowingly or unknowingly -- by designers.
> And why I think it is so important for designers -- maybe even more
> than some of the people they work with -- to be insatiably curious and
> well-informed about the social implications of what they're doing as
> well as aware (and welcoming) of the authority that is vested in them
> and their work.
>
> As one who watches designers work with a profound sense of awe and
> envy, I am sometimes struck by how little reflection there is on this
> profession as agents of social change and stability. It is a
> profession that directly and profoundly redistributes and concretizes
> the distribution of power on a daily basis.
>
> My friend Harvey Molotch at NYU shares this sense of wonder, by the
> way, and I think it comes through in his even-handed and charming book
> on the design profession, based on over a hundred interviews with top-
> level and up and coming practitioners: "Where Stuff Comes From."
>
> Another friend, economist and NYTimes reporter, Virginia Postrel, is
> equally admiring if a bit more stylishly provocative in her reflection
> on the growing power of designers in "The Substance of Style."
>
> Ciao!
>
> Christena Nippert-Eng, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Sociology
> Illinois Institute of Technology
> 312-567-6812 (office)
> 312-567-6821 (fax)
> http://www.iit.edu/~socsci/faculty/nippert-eng.html
>
>
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