Dear All,
I taught into this space for around 10 years. I ran three courses in
Design Concepts in parallel with other courses in Design/Fine Art History.
The concepts could be anything that informed design and designing.
Hence, there was a section on modernisms from the perspective of designers
as well as from social and cultural perspectives.
In many ways these courses were put together to confront students with
issues that I see arising from Terryıs complaint.
There is an agony in all of this which I see very well described in the
replies of other members of our group.
That is, for me, we are all attending to the issues in our own best fit
ways.
As a philosopher, I see the pedagogic concerns forming around a core
question: how do designers use history when they design?
The examples of teaching provided by Lubomir and Gunnar are, for me,
addressing this core question.
There is a fundamental requirement of academic programs to transmit and
articulate the body of knowledge they have inherited.
This requires that history be engaged.
Design programs need to engage history objectively as well as critically.
My Design Concepts course was talking to the critical end
while the Design History courses were talking to the objective end.
This requirement to transmit and articulate a body of knowledge is not a
requirement for skills courses.
This difference is often used as the basis for talking about trades and
professions.
Professionals have a requirement to embody and articulate the knowledge of
their field.
For me, the proper academic progress can be described in the sequence:
historical, analytical, critical, theoretical.
This doesnıt mean that things are taught in a linked-step way
but it does mean that students need to be exposed to this sequence
and, they need to be able to evidence this sequence in their formal
assessed work.
For some cultures, all discourse should start with the establishment of a
history.
Thatıs what I did at the start of this email.
Then I have gone on to analyse and critique aspects of the topic (the
location of history in the design process for designers).
So, have I a theory to end this little talk?
Design has no use for history it has not found a use for.
Cheers
keith
On 11/04/2015 10:16 am, "Ken Friedman" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>1) How would design education look if you removed all aspects of history
>from all the subjects in which it has any role?
>
>2) Would design education be better or worse for it in terms of producing
>innovative useful designs?
>
>3) What would a subject of Design Studies look like?
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