I wish design students would “read the classics” so as to deepen their knowledge. If you study the Bauhaus, for example, you will be face to face with the important issues of form and function’s relationship which is eternally relevant. When I was an automotive MA the study of previous work educated my eye and showed potential solutions and underlying problem categories.
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From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Don Norman <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 09 January 2018 20:19:01
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: History, the bauhaus, etc.
How important is the history of a topic to the work being done today?
This is a controversial topic. In the sciences, much of the history is
interesting, fascinating, and mostly irrelevant to the ongoing work.
Workers are expected to know the literature of past work from the very
recent past (say, the past 5 years, plus a few critical significant works).
In other fields, history is more important even for contemporary work. This
is especially true in the arts and humanities.
Design is a mixed bag: are we more along the science model, or the
humanities and arts model?
(I am always amused that when some topic is raised on this discussion list,
someone is going to immediately cite, often at great length, the dictionary
definition. To me, what the dictionary says (and what the origin of the
word might be) is completely irrelevant. I want to know what contemporary
thinkers believe. Modern dictionaries, after all, do not tell us what is
right or wrong: they tell us what current meanings and usages are, which
also means that they lag behind modern scholarship and research. And so,
when I use a word or grammatical structure that is different than what my
dictionary says or prescribes, I smile and say to myself, "I'll just wait a
decade or two and I bet that then, the dictionaries will agree.")
Finally, for your amusement (or vilification), I present to you a piece on
the Bauhaus that I just wrote and published in the Magazine "bauhaus *now*"
as part of the centenary celebration of the Bauhaus.
What did I say? Here is a summary.
The Bauhaus movement in Germany, roughly 1919-1933, marked a major turning
point for design and its role in society. It exerted a powerful and
influential role in the development of artist style. But today, for many
designers, it is more of a historical curiosity than a role model. Why?
What has changed? Aristotle is considered one of the forerunners of the
scientific movement, even as his actual words and writings of science and
technology are completely ignored by today's working scientists. That is
how I feel about the Bauhaus movement: I am grateful for what it
accomplished, but I do not find it relevant to the complex issues we face
today.
Am I right? That's not the correct question: it is simply my opinion. Some
of you will be horrified, some amused, some supportive. All those opinions
are correct.
(The full paper is at
https://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/then_and_now_the_ba.html )
Have fun.
--
Don Norman
Prof. and Director, DesignLab, UC San Diego
[log in to unmask] designlab.ucsd.edu/ www.jnd.org<http://www.jnd.org> <http://www.jnd.org/>
Executive Assistant:
Olga McConnell, [log in to unmask] +1 858 534-0992
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