If I may modestly comment, not being a german native speaker, but
having tried to dig out the field of meaning of the world some years
ago…
In my understanding, "gestaltung" is less processual/procedural than
designing. Of course, the "Gestalter" uses his/her knowledge and
experience to create a new artefact. You could roughly say that the
"Gestalter" gives a form to an entity (and one can sometime find the
word "Formgebung" as a synomym). While in english the word "design"
suffers from a broad meaning, ranging from giving a shape (e.g. to a
pot) to planning a process, therefore not distinguishing between what
is tacit and explicit, formal and embodied : the point of focus, the
"agency" is less the output and rather the human behind the process
(motivation, method, justification etc…).
It seems to me that the german notion is much more focusing on the
output (the form) and less on the author. In addition, Gestaltung
conveys a notion of form that is difficult for us to understand :
there is a sense of integrity, balance, order (out of which the
gestalt psychology attempts to derive rules). But these notions
(integrity, balance, order) should not be understood for their
current acceptance, but from the tradition of aesthetics, which has
nothing to do with good taste or cultural relativism. While the
notion of form is more looked at today as the aspect (and primarily
the visual aspect), my understanding of the concept of form in the
"gestaltung" has more to do with an embodied emotion. A balanced
shape is like an animal, say a tiger, when he moves, jumps, falls
etc. : it feels right, not it looks right.
Ultimately, it says a lot about the cultural traditions in which
design practice(s) and theory(ies) are rooted. Understanding swiss
typography of the last century or Dieter Rams without understanding
the aesthetical background from which their logic of form stems is a
bit like looking at flowers without any knowledge of gardening : you
will certainly enjoy it, but you hardly see how precious (i.e. how
much experience, attention and work) it embeds.
Best regards,
Jean
Le 31 janv. 14 à 12:08, judithd a écrit :
No, I would not say that a theorist in whatever domain is a
Gestalter. Gestaltung is always practical/ implicit/ tacit knowledge.
But a Gestalter could well be active in the field of reflection or
theory about his/ her knowledge.
Judith
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