Table Of ContentThe Disobedience of Design
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Radical Thinkers in Design
Series Editors: Clive Dilnot and Eduardo Staszowski
Not the least of the sins of the obsession with the “research” in the
contemporary university is that it unreflectively privileges the appearance of
the new. Failing to see the extent to which its own thinking is thereby hobbled
and limited, understanding turns in even narrower circles of concern. Design
is not immune to this condition. Expansion in practice, and the global increase
in numbers of those with design education or who study design, has not
necessarily brought with it increased understanding. On the contrary, despite
real attempts to counter these impulses, reduced to the crudest understanding
of vocation, depth of thought disappears, crises remain untouched; genuinely
new practices and conceptions struggle to be comprehended in their full
meaning.
Radical Thinkers in Design, a moment of the larger project Designing
in Dark Times, seeks in a small way to try to address this situation. The
project is to bring back into circulation, as provocations and aids to thinking,
some key “lost” (out-of-print, untranslated, unjustifiably ignored) texts in
contemporary thinking on design(ing). Against the denial of critical thought,
these books offer counterviews. In what they open toward, what they explore
and present, above all in what they anticipate, they point to the concrete
possibilities, as well as to the necessity, of paradigm shifts in design thinking
and in our conceptions of what designing today can and should be. They offer
approaches, concepts, modes of thinking, and models of practice that can
help in thinking not only how design can be rethought and repositioned in its
internal momentum, but how it offers an integral mode and capacity of acting
in the world. By showing how, at base, designing contains irreplaceable critical
and affirmative moments; they point us toward ways of reversing some of the
negative and destructive tendencies threatening to engulf the world.
Titles in the series:
John Chris Jones, designing designing
Tony Fry, Defuturing
Judy Attfield, Wild Things
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Design Noir
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The Disobedience of Design
Gui Bonsiepe
Edited by Lara Penin
With contributions by
Zoy Anastassakis, Constantin Boym,
Frederico Duarte, Hugh Dubberly,
Ethel Leon, Marcos Martins, Eden Medina
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BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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First published in Great Britain 2022
Copyright © Gui Bonsiepe and Lara Penin, and Contributors 2022
Gui Bonsiepe and Lara Penin have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author and Editor of this work.
For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on pp. xviii–xxiv constitute an extension of this copyright page.
Cover design by Andrew LeClair and Chris Wu of Wkshps
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ISBN: HB: 978-1-350-1-6245-7
PB: 978-1-350-1-6244-0
ePDF: 978-1-350-1-6247-1
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Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Introduction by Lara Penin x
A Note on the Making of the Book xviii
Recognition and Acknowledgments by Gui Bonsiepe xx
Editorial Acknowledgments xxiii
Part One: Thinking Design
Introduction: Nostalgia Is Futile—Our Future Starts Now Frederico Duarte 3
Essays on HfG Ulm
1 The Cartography of Modernity 12
2 Science and Design 16
3 The Relevance of the Ulm School of Design Today 26
4 The Invisible Aspects of the HfG Ulm 34
Theory and Practice
5 The Discomfort of Design Theory 44
6 Arabesques of Rationality: Or the Splendor and Boredom of
Design Methodology 50
7 The Uneasy Relationship of Design and Design Research 64
Design, Politics, Ethics
8 Design, Nomadism, and Politics: Interview with Alejandro Lazo
Margain 80
9 Design and Democracy 86
10 Some Virtues of Design 96
vi Contents
Part Two: Design in the “Periphery”
Introduction: A Designer on the Periphery of Capitalism Ethel Leon 105
From Europe to South America
11 Peripheral Vision and Design Empowerment: Interview with
James Fathers 118
12 Industrial Design in Chile 1971–3: Interview with Hugo Palmarola 132
13 The Ulm Model in the Periphery 140
14 Industrialization without Design 144
Design in the “Periphery”
15 History of Design in Latin America 154
16 Aspects of Design in the Periphery 162
17 Between Favela Chic and Autonomy: Design in Latin America 168
The Question of Difference
18 Between Marasmus and Hope 180
19 The Environment in the North–South Conflict 186
20 Identity and Counter-Identity of Design 194
Part Three: Design, Visuality, Cognition
Introduction: Framing Design as Interface Hugh Dubberly 213
Design and Language
21 Through Language to Design 226
22 Design: From Material to Digital and Back 230
23 Design as Tool for Cognitive Metabolism: From Knowledge
Production to Knowledge Presentation 240
Design/Visuality/Theory
24 Visual/Verbal Rhetoric 254
25 The Interface Design of Computer Programs 266
26 Designing Information 272
27 Visuality | Discursivity: Design, The Blind Spot of Theory;
Theory, The Blind Spot of Design 278
Design and Crisis
28 Design and Crisis 290
29 Convergences/Divergences: Hannes Meyer and the HfG Ulm 296
30 The Disobedience of Design 306
Part Four: Design and Development/Projects
Introduction: The Possibilities of Designing Constantin Boym 317
Design Policy/Design and Development
31 Development through Design 324
32 Design and Development: The Debate with Victor Papanek 336
Contents vii
a Gui Bonsiepe: Review of Design for the Real World by Victor
Papanek 336
b Victor Papanek: Reply to Bonsiepe’s Review 343
33 Design and Development Forty Years Later: Interview with
Gabriel Patrocínio and José Mauro Nunes 348
Selected Projects in Latin America
34 Inexpensive Record Player, Chile, 1972 360
35 Nutrition Project: Spoon for Milk Powder, Chile, 1973 362
36 Agriculture Project: Chopper, Chile, 1973 364
37 Consumer Product: Air-Conditioning, Argentina, 1980 366
38 Two Projects for Local Industry, Brazil, 1984, 1986 368
39 Health Care Project: Needle for Blood Sampling, Brazil, 1986 373
Case Study of Project Cybersyn, Chile 1973
40 a Opsroom: Interface of a Cybernetic Management Room 380
b Socialism by Design Eden Medina 401
Afterword: Parachuting into the Future Marcos Martins and
Zoy Anastassakis 415
Appendices: Three Notes on the Closure of HfG Ulm (1968) 425
1. The Situation of the HfG Ulm 425
2. Communication and Power: A Marginal Note 430
3. Resolution of the Hochschule für Gestaltung, Ulm 432
Gui Bonsiepe: A Brief Biography 434
Notes on Contributors 435
Index 439
Illustrations
FIGURes
1 Bonsiepe’s “ontological diagram of design” and its applications for
software and interface 222
2 Ontological diagram of design 232
3 Ontological diagram of design in relation to software and
information 275
4 Inexpensive record player designed for local manufacture 360
5 Record player case 360
6 Drawings for the measuring spoon for milk powder distributed
as part of a government-funded nutrition program for children 362
7 Agricultural chopper during field test 364
8 Front view of the model with the basic concept of the sphere-like
openings for controlling the angle of the airflow. Subdivision
of the front panel in a set of modules 366
9 Corner detail of the design of the compressor 370
10 Piping machine, Brazil, 1986. Redesign of the machine 372
11 Needle for blood sampling. Top view with the push button to
shoot the needle under pressure against the patient’s skin 373
12 Cybersyn Opsroom: View of the room showing chairs and
displays for presenting economic data and simulations 376
13 Opsroom: Information graphics. Panel of the Future.
Metal panel with magnetic components and polarized light to
simulate the future behavior of economic entities and the
consequences of decisions 378
14 Opsroom: Diagrams of Input/Output relations between industrial
branches in the private sector (APP) and social property sector
(ASP) and in particular industries 379
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IllUstRatIons ix
15 Basic concept of the preliminary project. Armchairs distributed
in a circle without preferential position. Central control panel to
load the slides that will be projected on the displays on the walls 392
16 Outline of the concept of the central control panel and walls for
projecting information 393
17 Ergonomic design sketch of the two positions for viewing data
in the operations room 394
18 Sketch of the polygonal floor plan with projectors installed
outside the room itself 394
19 Floor plan for the final version of the Cybersyn Opsroom 395
20 Opsroom: Close-up of chairs and datafeed screens 396
21 The algedonic screens from the Cybersyn operations room 397
22 Datafeed for the presentation of economic data 397
23 A design sketch for the armrest of the operations room chair
showing the geometric “big hand” buttons 398
24 Opsroom: Swivel armchair with punch controls built into
the armrest 399
25 Detail of the armrest of the operations room chair 399
26 Graphic design students who worked on the opsroom project
(left to right): Pepa Foncea, Luc a Wormald, Eddy Carmona,
and Jessie Cintolesi. Personal archive of Pepa Foncea.
Image used with permission from Pepa Foncea 406
27 The State Technology Institute (INTEC) Industrial Design Group.
Front row (seated, from left): Rodrigo Walker, Gustavo Cintolesi,
and Fernando Shultz Morales. Second row: Alfonso Gómez.
Back row (seated, from left): Gui Bonsiepe, Pedro Domancic,
Werner Zemp, and Guillermo Capdevila. Not pictured:
Michael Weiss 406
28 “Exodus” poster, ulm Hfg/Hochschule für Gestaltung, April 1968 431
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