Design for the Community

The Contribution of Giovanni Klaus Koenig

Abstract

In 1997, Francois Burkhardt wrote about Giovanni Klaus Koenig: “he left us the testimony of intense and busy life, in the name of the passion that inspired him the themes with which he measured himself for almost half a century and with the aim of ensuring to men — within the limits of their specific means — the freedom of democratic life in a dignified and human environment, towards which he has always taken sides” (1995, XXXIV).
These words admirably summarize one of the central objectives that Koenig recognized in design, namely its function as a social corrector (a field that in the early 1980s was still rather uncultivated as he himself had defined it). Starting from these premises, this article aims to historicize Koenig's contribution in the specific field of social design, favouring the interpretations that the historian himself has introduced (design for the community, aesthetic socialization, the entropy of design). The aim is to highlight its original and fundamental contribution and to understand if it has influenced the development of the future or if, instead, it remains only the reflection of an intellectual who has not been able to change the natural course of things.