Victor Papanek
author of ...
The Green Imperative, 1995, Thames and Hudson, ISBN 0 500 27846 6 and
Design for the Real World, 1969, 2nd Rev Ed., 1999 Academy Chicago, ISBN
0897331532
This article, http://www.co-design.co.uk/victor.htm, written by Neil Maycroft, is a fairly balanced critique of the Green Imerative, a continuance of Papanek's 1969 publication, Design for the Real World.
The book (Real World) was championed by those who sought more human-centred and human-scale design. It was vilified and ridiculed by many of those who aimed to protect design from ethical and political scrutiny. http://www.co-design.co.uk/victor.htm
Consider the following quote from Design for the Real World
To create lipstick for honest whores is one thing, but to create deodorant for her pimp is another.
The Green Imperative, Papyek's follow up, as understood by Mr. Maycroft, is not as divisive a book because it ultimately seems to only call for the shortened work-day: Essentially, a reduction of the time people spend working for others and a return to what we all do innately--design: The organization and simplification of large amounts of information.
...to tell things (via poster, film, tech drawing, rendering, printed page, etc.,) and to organize parts into a meaningful whole. Looking Closer Three (see below)
Because there are other well written arguments for this outside of the design profession, Maycroft feels that perhaps this book is simply a follow up of Papanek's main themes:
- The Myth that Design is a Profession
- The Myth that Designer's Have Taste
- The Myth that Design is Commodity
- The Myth that Design is for Production
- The Myth that Design is for People
- The Myth that Design Solves Problems
- The Myth that Designers Have Special Skills and that These Skills are Developed through Six Years of Higher Education
- The Myth that Design is Creative
- The Myth that Design Satisfies Needs
- The Myth that Design is Time Related
Victor Papyek died in 1999, but his criticisms of the design field, particularly that Academy's of design should be forming an ethical code similar to the medical profession--one that includes design as a...
...basic human ability to help autonomous self-realization. Designers and Design educators are engaged in withdrawing this ability from all but a carefully selected group of people, through mythologizing who we are and what we do. Looking Closer Three (see below)
With this closing thought:
The difference between designing things and making things is only about 250 years old. From then on, the idea of design was increasingly connected to the appreciation of things deemed "beautiful" by an upperclass culture that created a moral and ethical basis for the concept of beauty.
Louis Sullivan's Form Follows Function, Frank Lloyd Wright's Form and Function are One, and Truth to Materials, like the Bauhaus Fitness for Purpose and Unity-in-Diversity were all basically ethical and moral imperatives. Often the moral imperatives ousted the practical realities, as anyone who ever sat on a Frank Lloyd Wright chair or read by a Bauhaus Kugellicht can testify. Looking Closer Three (see below)
Bibliography
Looking Closer Three, 1999, Bierut, Helfand, Heller, Poyner. Allworth Press, ISBN 1 58115 022 9
CoDesign Website, Created by the Institution of Engineering Designers, the Royal Academy of Engineering and Sharing Experience in Engineering Design. http://www.co-design.co.uk/
The Green Imperative, 1995, Thames and Hudson, ISBN 0 500 27846 6 and
Design for the Real World, 1969, 2nd Rev Ed., 1999 Academy Chicago, ISBN 0897331532