With Torino as the World Capital of Design for 2008, Jon Banthorpe sought out Torino based creatives to deconstruct the meaning of the Design Capital moniker.
What follows is the evolution of a discussion between Jon and Stefano Mirti and Michele Aquila from Torino based think tank Interaction Design Lab warts and all.
hello jon,
here is stefano mirti,
a colleague of michele who worked on the geo-design project (as well as being one of the consultant of the whole year of activities) michele forwarded me your last mail, asking me fi have anything to add and/or answer to you [added as additions to an earlier mail from Jon]
Currently I am researching an article on Torino's position as Design Capital 2008. Whilst looking through your work today I came up with a number of aspects I would like to suggest to you upon which you may be able to help.
ok.
Firstly, as a journalist sifting through the press releases on this years activities can be very dull, and doesn't communicate effectively the more exciting natures of the event.
yes, this we know.
Given that your company specialises in processes and thinking techniques related to design processes I was interested in the prospect of being able to imagine a new structure for an article,
this would be nice.
a new approach that could communicate the essence of Torino as city of design 2008.
here we are.
The possible results of this sort of debate really excite me - maybe it's because it's Friday and I'm suffering from pre-weekend optomism (!) But I'd like to hear your thoughts on an idea of this nature.
this would be very nice. i often write myself, and i know what you mean. a possible way could be to have an interview to us. in the interview you should be sharp, witty, eventually mean, underlining the weaknesses and the things not convincing, you should play the role of the bad cop and then, we reply and the exchange should be quite fascinating to read. also, quite easily we can involve some other smart people out of the torino design community. a system where the main communication goes from you to us and then we add/insert other voices in the overall.
Secondly, a more traditional approach I was intending to adopt consisted of contacting creatives involved and impacted by this years event and describing the situation through they're thoughts and responses to a couple of simple questions. I noticed on your site you had a kind of Torino creative network and this was my starting point for this idea.
as i wrote above, this is also good, of course it makes timelines slightly longer, but i am sure we can make it.
Thirdly, as I'm in the world of publishing, deadlines are god, and are normally an angry god! I have approximately ten days to wrap this whole thing up. Sorry to flood you with ideas after your initial kind response, but if the chance arises to achieve something fresh that excites I'm determined to grab it.
you're lucky because as soon as the exhibition opened i took off to bangkok (where mygirlfriend lives) and i have more time than normal to play with unknown journalists..
I look forward in hearing your thoughts on the above ideas, and thank you in advance for your time.
send twenty questions, then we reply, we add new ones, then you correct, add something more, twist, cut,add, paste, we redirect your mail to get more juice from other people etc.etc.etc.
at the end it will look like an interview where you talk with some 5 designers from torino some young,some old but good, traditional, innovative... (eventuallywe can also add paola zini - director of the whole show - or non-designers...) this should be also ok.
ciao
let us know
Stefano
Hi Guys,
Well I've put on my bad cop hat have come up with some fundamental problems surrounding Torino's Design Capital designation that really bother me. I'm keen to instigate debate, though I don't wish to be overly negative. But I am interested in producing another article that doesn't just sing the praises of an event without addressing it's fundamentals. So, here goes:
Firstly, the concept of appointing a 'Design Capital' brings certainpoints and key words to mind. These are:
• Design as charity
Design as charity = Though essentially part of a creative process Design Weeks focus on the perceived rejuvinating power of design within it's economic framework. Hence Torino is looking for a new identity and direction and looks to design for help.
Ok.
Actually, if you take a look to the last 5/10 years in Torino, we could say that it is not “design”, but rather “culture”.
Torino is trying to move from a city living on the manufacturing of car, to a city where you manufacture cars and do a lot of other things (mostly related to culture and service-based economy).
This year they added a new ingredient to the whole recipe, called “design”. I don’t feel Torino looks to design for help. Rather, Torino eventually uses design to its own purposes.
Does it makes sense? Up to acertain point… Still, it is a reasonable thought/ gamble.
You’re right, it’s more about culture. Artists complain that culture is underfunded and overabused, but I can’t see a way out of that. Though here in Malta we sorely lack a cultural strategy, maybe we can’t have one? At IDL you specialize in creative strategies, what’s their importance? Shouldn’t makers just make?
Of course you can develop a strategy related to culture. The problem is that you see the results in a very long time. You talk about “creative strategy”, I would call it “cultural strategy”.
A city can plan culture in the same exact way you plan a subway system or a park. Simply, sometimes it is not so visible (you do see a new museum, while you do not see the long-term results of housing for students).
In Id-Lab we just started to work on the “service” part of the new Milan masterplan. Very fascinating because very seldom cities try to plan the overall services looking 5 / 10 years ahead. It is “services”, still, culture is within that frame.
When I teach, the most difficult thing is about “social competence”. The most important ingredient in designer’s life, the one that is impossible to teach.
Next, comes your ability to develop your social network (closely linked to the previous ingredient). If I am able to sketch, it is something you see right away. If my network is good or bad, this you don’t see it (neither my skill to improve it).
Now, move from a single person to a“city”. If you open a museum or you organize a movie festival with Hollywoodstars, this you see. At the same time, you could develop a strategy in order to foster the “city” invisible network. Less visible, but actually much stronger. The results of network design, you see them in years…
Shouldn’t makers just make?
Makers who just make, we call them craftsmen.
To design implies some kind of intellectual activity. In my understanding (I might be wrong), a craftsman does thing, while a designer tell stories (using things as medium). Apparently very similar, actually very different.
• Rhetoric, internationalisation
This second element is right onthe spot. Of course the whole TWDC concept is plenty rhetoric. By the way, this makes perfect sense: design is narration, is telling fairy tales. Design is not any more about satisfying needs, design is about desire.
The world does not need another chair (or another skyscraper), the world needs stories. In this extent, of course the overall thing is about rhetoric. This I like. At its best, design is manipulation. And this is good (as long as youare aware of it).
Manipulation of ideas as if they were materials is good. By rhetoric I meant the cliches that all organisations repeat before they have any answers to their questions, hence the boring press releases.Maybe this is the interference of politics, it's assumed that politicians are unable to be honest and direct without employing rhetoric. When will we start with "We don't know, let's begin...".
No. The politician had no role on this. It can be that the overall result is a cliché. People in charge (not the politician) should take responsibility. The press releases are boring probably because a lot of events are boring. Or, looking in retrospective, the overall website should have been organized in completely different way. Now it looks like a newspaper, an agenda. It should have been thought as a knowledge-platform, A hub where I go and upon my keywords I am linked to all kind of content related to the various activities.
It should have been a mashup. The choice was for a lean appearance, and you get bored and you don’t find the edgy bits.
Surely politicians play a part! Policy makers, controllers of budgets etc., of course they can be bypassed and more often than not should be. I think one of my points was a lack of honesty – fear of seeming stupid.
Maybe vice versa. Eventually we could say that there was a lack of courage. The fear was not seem stupid, the fear was to seem completely off-track. If you play safe, no one can blame you. If you go edgy and then at the opening no one is there, then you are f***ed up. If you play within the “public” institution to be defined “boring” is a reasonable tag. To have an attack from media because you are blowing public money on useless stuff (or stuff people/journalists don’t get), with that you go home.
In Italy politics generally doesplay an horrible role. In this case the politicians were perfect (almost perfect).
About honesty… Generally dull things are honest (in their dullness). At the opposite, as soon as we get into something very cool, edgy, special, we start to wonder about its inner“ honesty”….
As designers, we were involved inthe “New Year” thing in the big piazza Castello and in this Geodesign project. They were not “boring” at all. At the same time, once you have 300events, you can’t have experimental stuff all the time. On this “boring / daring” issue,anyway you are probably right. The organizers could have beenslightly more daring. They preferred to be safer.
One thing I could say, is that from“boring” condition you can improve. If you are too “exciting” and no onefollows, then they kill you and the game is over. On the short-run, I agree with you.If I take a long-term span, to be cautious make sense. Some events worked very well. Nextyear we can do better (and/or more).••
•Rhetoric, internationalisation
About internationalisation, well, this is the ingredient allowing us to communicate in this precise moment. If i was doing my things in Italy for an Italian audience, and you were in your island in the middle of the Mediterranean sea (doing things for your friends there) we wouldn't get to know each other...
• Homogenisation
On this you are fairly correct and idon't have much to say. We live in an flat world, and it is difficult to escape.
We tried as best as we could with the"geodesign" exhibition. Mixing up fancy names with gipsy communities, unknown designers and superstars, local companies and the glorious ones. 48 workshops where we mixed designers, communities of practice and companies.
You might like or dislike the result, definitely it was not the typical product of a flat world... Finally, the result was quite good, and we understood that to go against flatness is a very good thing (although horribly challenging)
• The reduction of the specific power of design through generalisation.
This is a fact, like: "outsideis raining, i don't have an umbrella and therefore i will get wet" Design became a commodity. It is allaround us, it changed completely its nature (although a lot of designers didn't completely understand this fact). Once design became a commodity, itis not that its specific power has got reduced. Simply, it has got modified.
Bread is not less important than jewels. Simply, to run a bakery is a different business than to run a jewelry store. Of course, if you run a bakery thinking you own a jewelry store, this might turn out to be a big problem... (at the opposite, if you run a jewelry store like a bakery, this would be quite fun - unfortunately we don't know many examples of this kind...)
I like this a lot and have to agree. But are business models design?
Yes they are, of the finest level by the way.
In Torino you have Eataly, a brave move that seems to have benefitted from the intervention of design as well as sharp business judgement. We need more brave men with money.
Yes, we need more brave men with money. I would also say that we need more brave designers with energy, ideas, entrepreneurial spirit. To say that the business world does not understand your great ideas is a nonsense.
If you idea is great, get out and start a company of your own. One of the reasons why Italy is collapsing exactly because of this lack of young people with a lot of energy and entrepreneurial spirit. To dream to design (and someone else will get in production) some fancy lamp, this will not fix it….
I agree, we need more brave men with money, but Eataly, to me, is more well designed than brave. It is a business model that works well and I think design plays a big role in his succes. Eataly is no more than a mall, dedicated to a very well determined segment of consumers.
I guess this is moving toward my question of quality and it’s price. But nonetheless when faced with a supermarket model this level of quality is unusual – maybe out of reach of all. But don’t forget that in Italy you take quality food and take it’s appreciation for granted – or am I generalizing?
I don’t agree with Michele. Eataly is actually much more than a thematic mall (otherwise it wouldn’t be such an incredible success). Probably the point is different. Ikea brought design to the masses, and if I buy some Ikea thing I am very happy.
Would I like to be a supplier of Ikea? I guess not… Would I like to be the company having to produce at these costs? How does it look like the hidden part of the iceberg? In Eataly case, I don’t know. But surely, the interesting part must be there… That’s globalization I guess.
Still, I always respect entrepreneurs with new ideas.
Secondly, some questioning questions to challenge those involved:
• Does the world really need another design festival?
Most likely not.
Still...
Does the world really need another book? Another movie? Another world tour by the Rolling Stones? Keith Richards playing for the zillionth time "Satisfaction"? Well, it depends...
If you are Keith (or Charlie Watts), you could play like this for other fifty years and it always looks alright. If you are Mick, you look like an old clown and it clearly does not work…
What can I say? I hope we are on the Keith side of the spectrum…
If we agree that Guy Debord was right about his analysis on the society of spectacle, then the world needs a lot of festivals as well as the Rolling Stones touring forever to keep us entertained and numb. The ancient emperor in Rome knew this well: panem et circenses (bread & circus)...
Still, the question is: does Torino need another festival? I think so. it is a reasonable cultural experiment.
It is about the identity of the city: it used to be a city existing to make cars. This function pretty much faded away, the city needs a new identity, a new direction. In this extent the Winter Olympics of 2006 were great. They changed the way people look at their own city. You hear a lot that Torino has completely changed in the last 20 years.
I was born there, and I can guarantee this is not true. What has completely changed is the perception of its inhabitants. Now, they like and love they own city, they think it is a cool place.
Then of course, if you come from outside, you perfectly feel this, and the city looks changed.
Did we need another Olympic game? Do we need another football season next year? Is design the answer? Probably not, most likely not.
Still, I like much more to try, to push, to kick, rather than wait and see what happens. Much better to work out what could happen with design, rather than waiting Juventus to win next Champions League (also because I am for Inter Milan and it will take Juve other thirty years to win anything)
I’m beginning to think these activities are essential, after all pride in a place needs to be nurtured, and these events provide a focus. I like the way that TWDC doesn’t seem to be elitist in the same way as say the Salone del Mobile.
Well, we are talking about another big theme: that is “identity”. What is relevant is the identity of the place. When I go around the world, if I say I come from Torino, people generally knows Juventus and Fiat. To work modifying that perception, is not bad…
TWDC is not elitist. Salone del Mobile has parts incredibly elitist, and other more popular. From my point of view (born in Torino and living in Milano), this is a great paradox because Torino as a city is twenty times more elitist than Milan…
We certainly have plenty of circuses. We just need more bread. Has Torino WDC come up with any new recipes yet?
Too early to say. We are five months in it. I think something will come out. But I am too much in it (right now), to come up with a clear answer.
• Most cities are finding it difficult to sustain engaging and original design weeks. How will Torino manage to maintainmomentum and engage it's audience for 356+1 days?
The first five months demonstratethat Torino was not able to maintain momentum (but this was obvious from theright start). This was not a choice, but rather a constraint from the Icsid (they wanted a year of things and not a week).
As a designer, I would have loved Torino World Design Capital for an hour in 2008. Or maybe a day (to be long).If Torino was world capital for a day, we would have got other 364 capitals,and you would have died out of festivals...
Torino is a test in this respect. The resultsof this year are going to go toward informing future design capitals. When does the evaluation begin? Any recommendations so far? Are ICSID willing to learn?
This is a great question to be asked Paola Zini or the other people on top.
One of the things I noticed working in the Geodesign process is that all the people we met always kept asking - and they probably do the same now -where is design. I'm talking about normal people,about the ones belonging to the communities involved in the workshops.
The city center is full of posters, banners saying that Torino is the 2008 WDC. So people are aware of it. But when a municipality embraces design as a method to promote itself has to face the judgment of dwellers.
But I don't think this happen with the Salone del Libro (book fair), or Fiera del Gusto (food fair), or the Torino Film Festival. People knows that Salone del Libro is about books. Fiera del Gusto is about good food, and so on. But when municipality promotes design they feel disoriented.
This may happen, in my opinion, for two reasons. First because those events (Fiera del Libro, Salone del Gusto,etc.) do not last one year. Second because it is like if people expect from the World Design Capital to see products, fisical objects that could solve, orface, the everyday problems.
A reccomendation, addressed to the next World Design Capital, could be to think about the idea people have about design.
Maybe this is simply a question of language. I noticed early on this event is instigated by an industrial design organization,and at no point do they declare their interest in industrial design, though a lot of the projects are concerned with industry, working products etc. It doesn’t help to have definitions of design and then not use them! Although maybe it’s not necessary to create a thoroughly involved public?
Is it important for people to understand design fully? What could they possibly hope to do with this knowledge? It’s a noble idea, but I’m not convinced of it’s benefits.
I don’t believe people have to understand design. They have to use it and enjoy when using it. I do not understand music very well. Still, when they took me to Mozart’s Don Giovanni I was on my knees.
In the same way, if I give mygrandmother some nice object and she appreciates it, this is nice. The difference is that design is more “invisible” than other disciplines. If I go to a concert I know it is “music”.
My grandmother she does not know about “design”, she likes the object. Do you use Limeware or some other software to download stuff? How do you call it? A website to download music and movies. Still, it is something that has anincredible amount of design embedded in it. Someone thought it was necessary towork on my desires, someone else designed a very easy interface, etc.etc. Finally it is an incredibly nicepiece of design. Simply, we don’t call it design.
A little bit like fashion: a very blurry thing. What makes a normal shirt becoming a fashionable item? My pants are pants. Someone else pants are fashion. Where is the boundary?
Here we go…
• Torino World Design Capital takes 'Flexibility' as it's core theme. Is this not a route to addressing everything and achieving nothing?
I would say that it is a route to address something. To achieve nothing, this i don't know. Although the difficulty to keep momentum, I do believe that this year of event is very useful for the city.
If I can say a thing, You can’t evaluate a cultural thing like the year of design, using the same parameters you would judge the success of a book or a movie. These things take longer time. It’s like when you run a school. The results, you’ll see them ten years later.
Action is certainly better than inaction. Your definition of flexibility depends on what side you get out of bed, a question of perspective. Cities certainly benefit from use and traffic.
• Torino WDC intends to represent Italian design as a whole.
This I know, and this I hate it. National identity is useful only when we play football or we go to the Olympics.
Italian design does not exist, like it doesn't exist Bolivian design, Indonesian design and so on. In the world of Ryanair, hundred thousand people studying abroad every year, national identities are only good if you need a platform for a right-wing (or fascist) party. Maybe it used be an Italian design. This I don’t know, I wasn’t’ born yet. Italian design is a category like “early mannerism”. Nice if you go to a museum, useless to understand what to do now, and where to head toward the future.
Surely Italian design has become a historic term?
Absolutely. it is like baroque, romanic architecture, Caravaggio's disciples... It is history. When a designer carrying an Italian passport starts to talk about "Italian design", we know he (or she) is lost. Is a signal of weakness, is like to carry a gun (you do because you need to feel strong, but most likely you are actually incredibly weak).
At the same time, the whole Italian boot is pretty lost (but this is good, I think). As chairman Mao said (or maybe was Confucius, i don't remember exactly):
"there is utter chaos under heaven: the situation is excellent!"
Surely national identities are a commodity?
Yes, still commodities are not all the same. Ice used to be a commodity. Then, when they invented the fridge, to be mr. ice was not so great…
Some commodities last longer than others. Italy is like a candle factory. A great commodity for more than thousand years. Then, Edison arrived, light bulb……kiss kiss good night.
When it comes to questions of identity check out: Slavs and Tartars
I love them! They are so bright, so sharp…
If I had to choose to be born in another country, it would be definitely a Slavic one. They’re crazy, they are always flying somewhere very high… They seem always on drugs. Drugs of the finest quality by the way… If the world was ruled by Slavic, it would be a complete mess, but it would be surely a great fun to live in!
There certainly is evidence of a national aesthetic - take Japan for instance. We all carry our history, is it possible to escape it?
Of course not. But the point is different. When I meet Naoto Fukasawa or when I was studying with Tadao Ando, they were not talking about the good old days when Tange or Noguchi were king. No. They work like crazy on what to do today, not caring so much about a supposed great past.
Furthermore, as much as I believe in cultural heritage or cultural DNA, I am suspicious about passport identity. In the global arena, to be Italian, from Belgrad, Greek, Turk, Israeli, from Egypt… It is the same. We are southerners, Mediterranean, we think and act all the same.
You and I, we never met. Still I am sure that once we are in Frankfurt or Osaka, we are twin brothers. Because ofcultural DNA (assuming you were born and grew up in Malta). I go wild for Inter Milan, the otherone dies for Real Madrid or Partizan Belgrad... We are hot-tempered, and we have a very specific idea about honor and clan/groups/family. One of the most horrible things of contemporary world are cultural stereotypes. Once this said, unfortunately they are 99% true.
You’re confusing me! So like it or not our thought processes are determined by cultural DNA, something learnt. But we digress. So this event is celebrating an Italian style – aesthetic nationalism.
No. I design a house in a very similar way to a Norwegian architect. Then of course if the house is in Bergenor in Palermo, there will be environmental rules that force us toward different directions.
In my understanding the cultural DNA is never explicit, is always tacit.
When I was teaching at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, we had students from all over the world. To have aclass with people coming from fifteen different countries, that is delirious. Because of cultural DNA.
You have a Japanese student incredibly shy and never saying anything. At the same time, his Israeli colleagues are aggressive like I never seen before (in a normal school environment). They go to class like they are patrolling a street in Gaza strip.
The Americans they love to compete,while for the Scandi, competition is a social offense. They want to collaborate and cooperate. Half of the class love competition, the other half hates. In all this mess, the Italian is fine to compete with the American. Unfortunately they compete using an incredibly different set of rules. Conflicts starts, etc.etc.etc.
This is cultural DNA at full steam. Of course, if you go at the end of the year show, it would be not so useful to try to spot the French project from the Dutch one. When you do spot cultural DNA, very often is the product of some smart one who is able to play with it upon other people’s expectations (I deeply respect Japanese because he is a master on this game).
Aside from that, with major Italian producers looking to foreign designers to create it's products there can't be an Italian design language anymore.
On this, I perfectly agree. Not to sound boring, again, in the "geodesign" big event we had about 50 designers. Some italians, some foreigners, some from Torino, some from all over the world. No one wasted time thinking about his/her nationality and of course the result was great.
Were there successes you can mention? Of all the products used did the communities involved embrace them?
In a country were it is now common to set gipsy champ on fire (just because they are gipsy) , to have an opening where you have world design superstars next to the local gypsies is a great success. People flocked, they understood the concept, most of the community loved the overall process, designer enjoyed, companies collaborated… The city representative were happy.They felt that their money was well spent. Journalists came, understood what was done and they reported in very nice terms. More people came, etc.
We went very experimental, without losing on simplicity and easiness of communication.
Here is the video of the opening: http://www.flickr.com/photos/id-lab/2556504860/ Ready to think what to do next year…
Many comunities will embrace the products designed in the workshops.
In those cases, it means not only that the product "works", but also that the three actors involved inthe workshop (community, designer, company) ended up with an agreement that satisfies all of them. Moreover, some workshops ended up with services, other with objects.
Before the workshops started, the smart communities had exactly in mind what they wanted/needed. They worked hard, together with the designers and the company, to end up with a functional product. They will adopt the resulting product right after the Geodesign exhibition ends.
On the other hand, other comunities will have to find a business model to sustain the service or the object they asked for (the magazine for the albanian students, or the Radio for the african community, the non traditional berimbau, the objects for the Hamam).
As we touched on earlier, good design is reliant on good business / management. Does natural selection play apart? Time will decide if any of these projects were un-essential. Or maybe economics isn’t nature?
I may say that natural selection did play a role in Geodesign, mostly because it has been an experimental process.
Looking forward to a 2.0 versionof Geodesign i think that the experimental part of the project would affect a minor part of the whole process, allowing to diminish the variability of the results.
• The industrial design process has been migrating to countries with lower production costs for some time now. The laws of economics have decided to give the new guys a chance, shouldn't we all?
I am writing this mail from Bangkok, therefore, again, I completely agree.
My girlfriend is Thai, we have been together eight years and i find Bangkok much more interesting than any other European capital.
The point is not that here the production cost is lower. The point is that here you have much more energy, activities, ambition, flow...
Of course, in the same way i don't believe in the "Italian design", I hate all the buzz about Asia, China, etc.etc. It is not that there is a magic place. Simply, to move around is much simpler and easier and therefore i find very nice to take advantage of it. Finally, history tells us that the good stuff comes when you cross blood.
In this extent, to bring all these different people from all over the world to Torino, it is very good for the stiff capital of the Savoy kingdom....
Interesting, but it's a fact that production costs are lower in 'less developed' societies - for reasons most of us find offensive. I see a lot of companies pushing toward the luxury markets to avoid the hassles and economics of mass production. Quality is exentuated, people are looking for craft and individuality. Uniqueness it seems comes with a price tag.
This would be another interesting conversation, isn’t it? As I said before, we all love Ikea, just because we use it to furnish our house, and we are not in the supplychain…
Too complex to go through it with an answer. Still, ready for another interview (but first, let’s finish this one…)
You’re right, there’s too many branches on this tree.
Now, a question for you. As far as i understand you live in Malta. How is there? I never been there and i don't have a picture in my mind.
Once, some friends who went there, told me that it looks like Naples with the local speaking English. Most likely it is a silly stereotype, still I found it quite fascinating (to imagine Naples with all the Neapolitans speaking English), and I've been always curious about it...
Your friends have a point about the Naples connection. Malta is a small European island speaking a semitic language - the only semitic language written in Roman script! Historically fought over for it's strategic location, it's been at times Ottoman, Italian, and English.
It must have been a very tough life…
The Arabs were here longest but the Northernstates did their best to erase that part of history, as is the conquerers prerogative. The U.K comes second in terms of longevity and were most recent hence the widespread use of English. The majority of people also speak Italian, and the islands division regarding football sees half supporting England and the others Italy which gives a clue to where people position themselves.
Well, imagine if you had a country were half of the people are for Brazil and the other half for Germany… That would be quite challenging.
A split between Italian and English football divide, seems very reasonable and manageable to me.
The Maltese are practical and fierce traders, I guess like the Napolitans. They are at once friendly and argumentative. I've recognised - as an English foreigner - that it's either a place where you instantly make a connection, or you don't.
It sounds like I would…. Looking forward to get there….
In an effort to apply the things we’re talking about to a local context, do you think an event of this kind needs a history of design and production to root itself in? Malta for instance has a history of crafts and manufacture, a lot of architects but a lack of design professionals, I’m trying to see what effect WDC or similar would have here?
It would be even better. Because you wouldn’t have heavy traditions to fight. In my understanding (experience), if there is no pre-set history is generally very good. Because you set the rules, you set the parameters.
You say that in Malta you don’t have design professionals.
That is great. Because the design of the future (already now), it is not about making lamps and funny chairs. It will be different. Design professionals will not be the one who will point us to new directions. The bulb lamp was invented by Edison, not by a company doing business with candles.
Compare the last ten years in Italy and Korea. In Italy we spent all the energy dreaming about the good old masters and what they would do now. In Korea, they were lucky enough not to have good old masters and they shaped a completely new universe. Samsung is the most obvious case, still, I am sure that the contemporary perception of Korea (and its design) is radically different than ten, twenty years ago.
This is a product of strategy. Samsung didn’t overcome Sony by chance. Is difficult to find materials about it, still it would be great to dig the whole story of IDEO reshaping Samsung from scratch (the Koreans are very nationalistic and don’t like to give credit to Americans…). This brings back to our start. Seoul will be next world design capital…
Anyway,back to your question, an event related to design in a place where design is not established, it sounds incredibly promising. Especially if you are not obsessed with the local identity and the latest trends in the field.
A couple of weeks ago, I was in a lost town in Sicily. Over there they made the fourth edition of a festival related to architeture and landscape (I went there because my students participated to the workshops).
The thing they did was so great, so odd, so different from what we are used to see. And this was possible not because they were trying hard to make “new” things. It was possible because they had freedom, different ingredients, no pre-set expectations.
I should put in contact you with them, you are almost neighbours… If you say: “Maltese design”, no person in the world is able to attach anything to it.
Culturally speaking this is heaven. Whatever you do, you are defining the identity of the island. At the opposite, if you do things in places where traditions are well-established, it takes you an awful amount of energy to change the direction, even in minimal terms.