SPOD #5 Drei Vorlesungen zum Design

“If consumer potential is to be reached, production must be tailored to those who have it. Valuable materials, sophisticated surface treatment, astonishing material combinations and artistic composition become highly traded design categories. However, the whole thing is not an exploratory desire to expand the necessary repertoire, rather the design is being artificially created. The trade in these goods is combined with the propaganda of designer personalities. They appear like ‘cultural’ idols, like ‘stars’, only not on such a massive scale. This is particularly true in the furniture and interior design sector. Myriads of chairs, armchairs, shelves and lamps fill the international design journals. The main interest is in the sensual qualities of things. Their context of use is primarily representative. Their use becomes a demonstration of luxurious circumstances, a display of wealth and abstract modernity, a cheeky decoration. Strange !”
Chup Friemert

Re-print of the first publication in the series Materialien Nr. 4 / 83, published by the Press and Information Office of the Berlin University of the Arts 1983.

The open-ended publication series Studienhefte Problemorientiertes Design SPOD makes historical and contemporary reflections on the social and political dimension of Design accessible. It is a collection of irregularly appearing texts that critically examine the practical, cultural, methodological and everyday functions of Design. The problem-oriented approach aims to link design to the contradictions, potentials and circumstances of reality.

Based on a critical examination of the possibilities and limitations of Design, alternative models of Design are outlined that contradict the established market-based design practice.