Hi Ken, François,
We must point out, underline and don't underestimated that between guild
and universities there were, since the 1500's, the modern academies. Of
Letters, Sciences and Design (!) if we consider that the definition of
Disegno encompasses Design like trillions of art historians translating
Italian to English did before us.
In the period you mention, François 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, these
Academies spread throughout Europe and the Europeanized (:0) world.
One thing we must recall about these Academies (and I'm focusing in the
The Florentine Accademia Del Disegno, founded in 1563 under the
patronage and funds of Cosimo Medici) was that they were places of
research (production of knowledge) and vocational learning. There is no
news in saying that we use the word "academic" in university's
activities for good reasons.
The fact that modern industrial design had its up-rise precisely pining
the crises of the art academies do not mean that most of design teaching
and learning was originated in the academia's traditions. At least Art
History (and Archeology) research was highly produced in those "houses"
not to mention applied mathematics and geometry.
I don't know were did the idea that research is new to design but I
sense that it is very poorly substantiated in the history of Design.
I would like to know more about the programs Breuer and Gropius
developed in the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Can someone help me
on this?
Best regards,
Eduardo
Eduardo Corte-Real
On 12-10-2011 13:59, Ken Friedman wrote:
> Hi, Francois,
>
> The answer to your question is that universities did not offer
> vocational education in the 17th, 18th, or 19th centuries. It was only
> within the past half century or so that vocational education entered the
> university. Before then, other systems offered vocational education.
>
> The first universities that still exist today under that name began in
> the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. These universities offered the
> professional schools of law and theology, training professionals in the
> royal and ecclesiastical administrative disciplines. They also offered
> medicine. In the early years, the studium generale – the lower faculty
> – prepared students for promotion to the professional schools. The
> stadium generale taught the trivium and the quadrivium, as well as
> philosophy. As the preparatory faculty, the studium generale grerw to
> embrace the liberal arts and sciences. It was known as the lower
> faculty, where the professional schools were the higher faculties. As
> adjunct arms of church and state, the higher faculties held the power
> within the university.
>
> A debate erupted in the 1790s when Immanuel Kant’s works were subject
> to approval and censorship by the Faculty of Theology. Kant electrified
> the university world with a book in which he argued that the lower
> faculty was the foundation of the university. In The Conflict of the
> Faculties (Kant 1992 [1798]), he argued that the soul of the university
> resided in the humanities, the sciences, and philosophy, and he called
> for the independence of the lower faculties from censorship. The modern
> chrestomathic university emerged from this debate, taking shape in
> Germany with the Humboldt reforms and the foundation of the University
> of Berlin in 1809.
>
> For the previous centuries, vocational education had been the province
> of the guilds, not the universities. Physicians studied at university.
> Barber-surgeons were members of a guild. Some professions were partially
> vocational, such as engineers who might be trained at military academies
> or technical high schools and colleges, as well as coming up from the
> shop floor. In Napoleon’s France, the grandes ecoles took
> responsibility for some fields, but these were special school distinct
> from universities. The 19th century saw the foundation of some technical
> institutions that have now grown to become chrestomathic universities.
> In North America, industrial design was first established in such an
> institution when the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh
> became the first academic program in the field in the early 1930s.
> Carnegie Tech is now Carnegie Mellon University. Most design programs
> entered universities with art and design in the years after World War
> II, with the vast majority taking root in the 1980s and 1990s. This took
> place as universities expanded, and it also took place as polytechnics,
> teachers’ colleges, agricultural colleges, technical colleges, and
> other tertiary educational institutions merged into or grew to become
> universities.
>
> There was no rationale for including vocational training in
> universities before this transformation took place.
>
> If you wish to learn more about the history of universities and the
> shift of design into universities, you can find a short but reasonably
> detailed history in “Design Curriculum Challenges for Today’s
> University” at URL:
>
> http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/47336
>
> If you wish to learn more about the guild system and the way that
> vocational education began to become professional education, please read
> “Design Science and Design Education” at URL:
>
> http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/189707
>
> Yours,
>
> Ken
>
> Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
> Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology
> | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61
> 39214 6078 | Faculty
>
> --
>
> Reference
>
> Friedman, Ken. 1997. “Design Science and Design Education.” In The
> Challenge of Complexity. Peter McGrory, ed. Helsinki: University of Art
> and Design Helsinki UIAH. 54-72. URL:
> http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/189707
>
> Friedman, Ken. 2003. “Design Curriculum Challenges for Today’s
> University.” [Keynote conference lecture.] Enhancing the Curricula:
> Exploring Effective Curricula Practices in Art, Design and Communication
> in Higher Education. Center for Learning and Teaching in Art and Design.
> First International Conference at the Royal Institute of British
> Architects (RIBA) London, UK, 10th - 12th April 2002. Co-sponsored by
> ELIA (European League of Institutes of Arts) and ADC-LTSN (The Art,
> Design and Communication - Learning and Teaching Support Network).
> London: CLTAD, The London Institute, 29-63. URL:
> http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/47336
>
> Kant, Immanuel. 1992 [1798]. The Conflict of the Faculties. (Der Streit
> der Falkultaeten). Translated with an introduction by Mary J. Gregor.
> Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
>
> --
>
> Francois Nsenga wrote:
>
> Could someone reminds us what - since the 17th - 18th centuries in
> Europe, until 4-5 decades ago??? - was the rationale to host vocational
> training within universities? Perhaps knowing such a rationale will help
> debating more objectively whether or not 'PhDs are a threat to design
> education'.
>
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