I should probably apologize to anyone who spoke to me after the design dialogue last week; I don’t think I had the chance to ask anyone their opinion because I was too busy voicing mine. I was being a poor communicator, but I just had a lot of concerns about what was said and I didn’t necessarily agree. I was frustrated when I thought that this is theBIGGG lecture everyone has been pushing out of all of these lectures, and this one was the one that seemed so far away from what is really happening in design.

I got the impression that the design dialogues were specifically ways to get WVU students, faculty, alumni and community to think about design and the possibility of a design school at WVU. So I was concerned that this was the “biggest lecture” — and the most romanticized, unrealistic view of design and what it needs to be today.

I’m not ignorant however; I did get a lot from the lecture… I just think that certain statements got my wheels moving.

James Hillman started the lecture, and I took time out this past week to read a bit about him. I really liked his ideas and his thoughts, and this isn’t something I found from the lecture, it’s something I foundpre-lecture and wanted to share it here (see side).

I like the Hillman started the lecture saying that greatest mistake of our way of thinking is the idea that the soul is only inside individual people. Meaning… objects have a soul… He then went on to say that… The design’s of our interior spaces (ei. Where we shop, work, eat, sleep) has designed our interior. Hillman also made an interesting point about ceilings and depression. He said that looking upwards; meaning to move your chin and point it up is a natural thing. So being able to look up is important. A lot of ceilings are so… insulting to look at, they are too low, they are littered with plastic fixtures that hold light bulbs, sprinklers, security cameras, exit signs, air vents… so if it’s not pleasing and we look down, that can effect your mood. (I am missing where this study came from, did he mention this?)

I also agreed with Hillman when he said, Form Follows Function… but function is not always enough, you have to consider the idea of the thing. Meaning… what is this for? He used the example of prisons. Alessandro Guerriero also mentioned time he spent volunteering (?) at a prison, and how he was able to help inmates with ideas of their imagination.

(This is the point where I should confess, it took me awhile to get used the translator for Alesandro… my most sincere apologies, if anyone has a better understanding of what was said about Alessandro’s work with inmates at the prison, please share them with me!)

I think Guerriero was saying that the prison is an interesting place to work with people, because it is almost like a crossroads. There is a labyrinth of ideas and design of wonder… it’s a project of human kind. But they didn’t go in to detail about the work or the project, so again, I am left to wonder what happened?

Hillman followed up by stating a study in which the guards at a certain prison took away the drawings, journals, letters, etc of inmates and how that repression caused the inmates to act out, and ultimately led to violence.

So when Guerriero asked tried to answer his own question, or the question he get’s asked all the time about the future of design, or art, or architecture, or all three he gave a very poetic answer about “passing from paranoia to schizophrenia” and several poetic metaphors of types of directions one might take.

Somehow we got back to the idea of every object has a soul… here Guerriero made a funny statement about furniture and how some pieces you inherit, and it’s a piece of life, and it’s also probably something you don’t want either way… but you’ve inherited it, it’s been handed down and you keep it, the other is something your wife bought, which you don’t love (the furniture that is… the wife is another story, Guerriero cracked). But the point is that every object has a purpose, a history, a soul. Everything means something to you, and you wouldn’t go live in a home that has not been emptied by someone else because you aren’t comfortable with those things… Which is a beautiful illustration of the point… if they didn’t have a soul, if it was just about function, it wouldn’t be a problem.

So from here on out I think it was audience question time here are a few things I had in my notes, but unfortunately I don’t have which speaker said what:

1- The judgment is not all at the end of the work, we have to start thinking about design as the usefulness of the useless?
2- The best thing to do is to forget economics, just don’t think about it…. Don’t Fight the things you don’t like, it only reinforces it.
3- If something is just for aesthetic, isn’t that art (question regarding a statement made about designing objects just for form… and not worrying about function)

I think my high from the lecture is wearing out. I ultimately enjoyed the dialogue it created in the lobby, and look forward to talking to others now and tomorrow. I am now even more anxious for the round table discussion… and seeing if there is a unique connection between the conversations.

Ultimately I have to say I enjoyed Dan Boyarski’s lecture and the Umbau lecture (which I’m not going to blog about but if you read this discussion

http://www.nextd.org/02/06/02/index.html on NextD you’ll get an image of what it was like, and also my fellow classmate Marcie has gathered her thoughts about the lectures on her blog, which can be found here:

http://mlkreative.wordpress.com/2007/10/26/design-dialoque-lecture-12/, and think that a combination of the two ideas would make the ultimate D-School… and that brings us back to the beginning and thinking about ideas… so I think I’m going to let mine go for a little walk.