Hi Fellow Design PhDiers,
Thank God there is someone that knows what Design isn't. This
particularly symptomatic. Although Terry and others have always defended
a broad concept of Design that encompasses almost all human activities
he must stress that, from that multitude, we must exclude Art. Caramba!
But there must be a reason for Design being taught in Art Schools
(against Terry's fierce will). The reason is very simple: because
historically it started to be taught in Art Schools. In some cases like
the National Academy of Design in the early 1830's. Design was taught as
Art. In the foundation manifest of RISD in 1870's (I guess you all
imagine what the D stands for) you read in the first commandment:
"First. The instruction of artisans in drawing, painting, modeling, and
designing, that they may successfully apply the principles of Art to the
requirements of trade and manufacture."
This means that Design (as a social project, and I mean by social
project this: 1. Recognition of the State of the activity as a
profession 2. Self Organization of the Practitioners. 3. Teaching at an
Academic level) was meant to be exactly what was is in the RISD
commandment. There was these crazy guys that thought that applying the
principles of Art to the requirements of trade and manufacture was a
good idea!
You will find a multitude of this kind of Birth declarations of Design
as a social project within, side by side, embedded in Art. You will find
it in the Bauhaus, the New Bauhaus, even in Ulm. The fact that art was
changing rapidly at the time may sometimes make us confuse some Ethical
and Technical underlying in art with the absence of Art.
The confusion of design with Design (only existing in English, I must
stress) is the only thing that justifies this Terry's kind of Nuremberg
speech about Art and Design.
My dear Fellows if we persist in this confusion we will end Design as a
social project, annihilating the State Recognition, the Self
Organization and the Academic Teaching.
Plus we will perpetuate confusion in Design Research and Design Doctoral
Studies that anything goes as long as it is related with designing and
not as related with Design as a social project that defines someone as
Designer.
Greetings from a cloudy Lisbon silently (hate vuvuzelas) waiting for the
World Cup,
Eduardo
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