Teaching Design History
by Jennifer Rittner
Every art history major surely has vivid memories of sitting in a darkened room, staring ahead into a brightly lit screen as awe-inspiring images of paint, pastel, marble and steel click, click, click into view. Paintings, drawings and sculpture from ancient history to the present: “This is Baroque,” “Here is Modernism.” The standard art history curriculum elucidates the common language of movements, genres, materials, techniques and mediums. It is often a chronological transmission of datapoints: names, dates, places, eras, all supported by a canonical text, either Gardner or Janson, determined by institutional choice.
Start with Seeing
The Design History curriculum often builds on the same paradigm, although with its own unique reference points. Raymond Loewy instead of Marcel Duchamp. Milton Glaser in place of Paul Klee. Form and function instead of art for art’s sake. Production and printing techniques over chiseling and glazing. Methods of distribution in place of exhibition sites. Meggs instead of Janson.
In SVA’s Design Research, Writing and Criticism MA program, it is critically important that students develop a keen visual sense as we ask them to consider the contexts and consequences of design. That work requires that students learn methods of active looking, developing a language for describing, analyzing and communicating oriented toward engaging others — what we often refer to as the general public — in dialogue around those ideas. Knowledge of the canon is therefore critical in that it reflects historical standards that are shared across the field.
Teaching the Historical Method to Circumvent Canonical Bias
While the canon is robust, however, it is also biased in ways that no longer serve our community of learners or professionals. This is not to argue that the names, dates and places in the canon are less worthy; only that the record is incomplete. It is incumbent on educators to address those gaps in our historical knowledge so that we are educating students for the world we actually inhabit, one in which underrepresented voices must be more adequately reflected in our understanding of design thinking and making.
To that end, we have rethought the Design History curriculum to provide students with the tools of discovery rather than datapoints, mitigating canonical bias by enabling students to become agents of their own curiosity and learning.
Our New Approach
This new approach centers a method of historical inquiry that allows students — in fact forces them — to ask new questions and engage with previously untold narratives. The reality of this moment is that we have an opportunity to build equity through education. That requires that we forgo standardized forms of institutional knowledge, including determinations of who, what, where and how we have prioritized forms of cultural making in the past. By teaching the historical method and asking students to follow new lines of inquiry — teaching them to define their own lines of inquiry — we are potentially writing new canonical practices that are increasingly inclusive, representative and varied. Diverse but not tokenized. Revealing new paths of possibility for what a future canon might contain.
Engaging the Historical Method
Students begin the Design History course with an Introduction to the Historical Method: an exploration of technique and guidelines for mapping lines of inquiry for further investigation. They are learning to center visual information — art and artifacts — in their inquiries, rather than simply following written texts that are often steeped in historical, cultural bias.
In leading their inquiry, I encourage them to hop around the globe to draw new connections among ideas and outputs. Students are discouraged from staying in one geographical region or one time period for the entirety of this initial process.
Each session centers a domains of design:
- Seating
- Sheltering
- Wearing
- Moving
- Communicating
- Futuring
Students investigate a line of inquiry related to each domain by: starting with a single object; looking closely to unpack its form, function and aesthetic principles; and learning to identify patterns of thought throughout.
The Range of Inquiries
An investigation of a late-14th century, Florentine palace stool reveals information about accumulated wealth; status relationships among individuals within and outside the royal court; dimensions of physical comfort, posture and balance; the relationship between fashion norms and seating; color and ornamentation as canvases for cultural borrowing between Italy and northern Africa; and trade and commerce related to the use of wood, alabaster and ebony.
In our class devoted to investigating the history of sheltering by design, students’ inquiries ranged from Algonquin longhouses, New York City hot dog stands, the United Nations headquarters; and protective prayer circles. The history of wearing by design disclosed ideas about the body as a site of gender and ability performance. While clothing, fashion and style are often centered in the discussion of wearing, independent lines of inquiry enabled students to investigate prostheses, the politics of hair and the social dimensions of posture, gesture and gaze as aspects of one’s presentation of self to the world.
Casting a Wide Net, Digging Deep
Throughout the process, students are encouraged to look closely. They reference material culture to guide them through an investigation of form, materials, intentionality and functionality. Inquiry therefore forms one initial step in the process of diving deep into an issue, identifying a line of inquiry for further research and analysis. Using the design methodology, they start with the top of the T to cast a wide net and then dig deep to uncover those new narratives that emerge through historical research.
Agents of their own best learning, students leverage the work they begin in Design History to inform their thesis investigations. They learn the process and develop the confidence to follow new paths unconstrained by canonical norms. We hope that these students take this learning into professional practice as well, focusing their skills on active interrogational practices.
Work in Progress
We see this curriculum as a work in progress. In truth, this year’s pilot run revealed some very real challenges in working outside of the canon. Without a shared knowledge base, students often feel destabilized and ungrounded. But I’d like to think that the goal of our educational space is to allow for uncertainty to yield new knowledge. I believe that we’re made more honest when we are asked to engage — students and faculty — in the process of learning together.
Student Deliverables
Research Paper (5–7 pages) on an historical design object, system or experience related to the student’s thesis research.
Resources
Metropolitan Museum of Art and metmuseum.org
The New-York Historical Society
Weeksville Heritage Center
Faculty Bio
Jennifer Rittner has taught Design Histories for the Design Research, Writing and Criticism MA program since 2018. She also teaches Design for Social Justice, Design & Politics, and Thesis Development in both DRWC and the MFA Products of Design program.
About SVA MA Design Research, Writing and Criticism
The SVA MA in Design Research, Writing and Criticism is a one-year, intensive MA program well suited to the circumstances of established professionals, in addition to graduates wishing to continue their studies at an advanced level. In providing the research tools and journalistic techniques for researching, analyzing, and critically interpreting design, the program amply prepares its graduates for future-facing careers in research-driven design practices and institutions, in journalism and publishing, or for continued studies in a design-related subject.
We are now accepting applications on a rolling basis. Our next application review will be February 15, 2020. Successful candidates will be granted significant scholarships. Apply here.
Please contact us for more information at designresearch@sva.edu.
