Relational Geographies in the History of Design

Keywords: History of Design, Relational Geography, Decolonization of History, Center, Periphery

Abstract

The historiography of design has overtaken the geographical horizons of modern history. Horizons that, for more than a century, have defined the boundaries of design, determining a great narrative that, regardless of cultural and ontological differences, has flattened the research rather than enrich the debate on what to include in the history. Through the theme of "relational geographies", the intention is to enhance studies and research that take typical approaches of the social sciences for the understanding and explanation of design. This, in fact, in addition to being made up of "things", materialized structures (such as the nation or the community), individuals and mechanisms, is composed above all of networks and social facts: an intricate and complex set of intersections, a network of flows and of relations...

Author Biographies

Marinella Ferrara, Politecnico di Milano

PhD, associate professor of Industrial Design at the Design Department of the Politecnico di Milano, she teaches in the design school and coordinates the research of MADEC, Materials Design Culture Research Center. Since 1989 she has carried out scientific activities and has taught in various universities and academies in Italy and abroad (University of Barcelona, ​​EMU Madrid, IADE Lisbon, University of Uruguay, the University of Zhejiang in China, and others). She carries out research on design-driven innovation in relation to technologies and materials. She is the author of books and essays that examine the relationship between design and new materials (for Lupetti, Alinea, Gangemi, Springer, ListLab). Other research topics are maker culture, design in Mediterranean countries, design and gender studies. Since 2011 she is the editor of the online magazine PAD. Pages on art and design» (www.padjournal.net); since 2019 she is a member of the editorial committee of AIS / Design. Storia e Ricerche. Since 2015 she is the coordinator of the Scientific Committee for Professional Training of ADI (Association for industrial design).

Francesco E. Guida, Politecnico di Milano

Francesco E. Guida author and assistant professor at Politecnico di Milano (Department of Design, School of Design, Bachelor in Communication Design). He holds a PhD in Design and Technology for the Enhancement of Cultural Heritage. Board member of Aiap (the Italian Association of Graphic Designers), actually he is the coordinator of activities and research for the Graphic Design Documentation Centre (Aiap CDPG) and, since 2019, editor of AIS/Design. Storia e Ricerche journal. His main research activities are in the fields of flexible visual identities, speculative and experience design, and graphic design micro-histories.

Paola Proverbio, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano

Graduated in Architecture from the Politecnico di Milano and received a PhD in Design Sciences from the Università Iuav in Venice. She teaches Theory and History of Design and Contemporary Architecture at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Milan. In particular, she deals with the evolution of the design of Italian lighting fixtures and contemporary decorative arts. Since 2010 she has also been involved in the relationship between product design and photography and has been a scientific consultant for the creation of digital corporate archives (Arteluce, Danese, Flos) and consultant for the iconographic archive of Domus magazine. She collaborated with the CASVA (Center for Advanced Studies on Visual Arts of the Municipality of Milan) for the study and cataloguing of design and architecture archives. Since 2019 she is one of the editors of the AIS/Design. Storia e Ricerche journal.

 
Published
2021-10-04
Issue
Vol 8 No 15 (2021): Relational Geographies in the History of Design
Section
Editorial

Copyright (c) 2021 Marinella Ferrara, Francesco E. Guida, Paola Proverbio

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons NonCommercial-NoDerivates 4.0 international License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).