Bonjour Jean !
And which are the nuances conveyed through the term "conception",
respectively in French and in English, in comparison with Gestaltung and
with Formgebung?
Merci et Best Regards !
François
On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 2:36 AM, Jean Schneider <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> 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
>
>
>
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