Aveiro 2014

Tradition, Transition, Trajectories:
major or minor influences?

Chairs' comments
Comments on five papers in "History of Design Education" session by Haruhiko Fujita and Henrique Cayatte

Verónica Devalle's paper made it clear that the "Vision" course played an important role in the creation of the Design programmes in Argentina.

In Graphic Design: A Consolidation of a Discipline, María Restrepo showed us that a consolidation of the discipline is important and will be realized by transcending the idea that design productions are only for visualizing communication.

Ana Moreira da Silva's paper, Design Education - The case study of Daciano da Costa, showed the historical significance of Daciano da Costa's teaching and that his teaching presented a critical and operative character which conferred it a permanent actuality in Design training.

In Together, but different: two co-occuring new degrees at the school of architecture in Antwerp, Els De Vos analysed their history of organization and nomenclature. It was interesting, because we also experienced this kind of changes in various countries. This study suggests us a kind of comparative studies in many countries in Europe and beyond Europe.

Zsuzsanna Böröcz's paper, Design, Craft and Architecture in Flanders was very original in two aspects. One was that she paid attention to Craft which is now in a difficult position and difficult to analyze. The other unique aspect is her attention to the Bologna Process which forced to "accademize" even art schools in Europe.

As I wrote above, each of five papers in Design Education session was very interesting. One missing thing was a group discussion after presentations, although Q&A after each presentation was held.

I hope we can have a heated group discussion regarding these interesting papers for "Design Education History" session in the future.