Dear David,

and Friends

Sorry for this late reply, some other matters caught my attention these 
days. I’ll start my vacations next Saturday so…

This thread evolved greatly with great contributions. This happened 
necessarily because it corresponds to something in the core of our 
professional/academic concerns.

I agree with David when he says:


“I don't concern myself much with the history of why we are at the 
position we are at now. It is of more concern to me to understand the 
current position, possibly try to change the future for the better. But 
then, not being a historian, I can gaze towards the future unfetter.”

I agree that David's position is that, but it is not mine.

So I just got back to a conference by my former professor Daciano da 
Costa in 1992 (I was his teaching assistant then) where he urged for a 
delimitation of a TERRITORY of Design (I like this expression because it 
encompasses both the academic and the praxis) although separated from 
the MARKET). For him the Territory was the field of research of the 
Discipline and Market the social place for the professional practice 
(note that market is not the professional practice, only the place).

Daciano diagnosed a malaise in design those days cause by the lack of 
clarity in the process of Design.

To mend this malaise he suggested that, first:

“it would be necessary to make new readings of History that could 
structure the knowledge of a History of Material Culture so that all the 
artefacts (cultural objects) may win back their lost sense when the 
creative process differentiated the works of art destined to the 
pedestals from the common use artefacts. Any human vestige in the 
visible, tangible world has a function of use and a symbolic function.”

Daciano urged for a matrix in which all these objects should be analysed 
historically with no “ghettification” of the common use objects 
ackording to their use and their symbolic functioning. .

Second, it was necessary to differentiate TERRITORY form MARKET (as we 
have seen).

“The delimitation of the Territory means:

- the identification and deepen of its [Design's] theoretical matrix, to 
give body to a Theory of Design;

- the development of research procedures for the observation and 
critique of the human environment.

- The study and experimentation of evolutional methodologies pertinent 
in the socio-economic framework.

- The modernisation of the techniques of representation within the 
culture of Drawing without the loss of the hand-made.”

This was what I call the bow and arrow method. You can only throw the 
arrow far if you pull the string back.

This means (as I said before) that winning the future depends on writing 
the history.

Just an anecdote to illustrate this:

A few days ago I found in an old books store a History of Technology 
Book written in English. As good Portuguese I moved through the pages to 
find the Portuguese innovations in shipping in the 1400’s. In the 
“Transportation in Early Modern Age” section, the action started with a 
Henry the Eighth carrack! Vasco da Gama, after a century of constant 
maritime innovation, arrived in India when the nice old Henry was seven!

I leave the conclusions of this anecdote for you guys and try to get 
back to Daciano.

Defining the Territory would help the Designer to occupy his/her 
rightful place in the Market.

So we have this sequence: HISTORY – TERRITORY – MARKET.

It is my conviction that Design Higher Education Institutions (where 
doctorates happen) should be fully concerned with the History and the 
Territory and lead its writing and delimitation. Putting aside History, 
the Territory becomes evident in all its dimensions with a PROJECT. I 
would hesitate dramatically in giving the title of Philosophy Doctor in 
Design (the higher degree) without addressing the four vectors 
enunciated by Daciano for delimitating the TERRITORY. I don’t know of a 
better way of doing it than by a Project.

By the same order of reason, I would only award a PhD to a body of 
Design Work if the mentioned work would address all these four vectors.

Just a last note about writing and science:

In recent conference that I attended by Professor Martin Kemp he told a 
story about Einstein in which he described is thoughts and ideas as 
wordless and being of the order o schemes, or structures, images I would 
say.

I whish all a good come back to work. I’ll move now to the Kingdom of 
Algarve where I will soak in salt water during the day and new rosés in 
the evening.

Best regards,

Eduardo

Eduardo Corte-Real
Doctor Arch.
Ass. Professor IADE School of Design
Researcher at UNIDCOM/IADE

IADE, Av. D. Carlos I, 4
1200-649 LISBOA

Portugal

www.eduardocortereal.wordpress.com