Public Lecture
Design Revolution
Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
22 November 2018, 18:30
This open lecture, by Alison J. Clarke, co-curator of the exhibition Victor Papanek: The Politics of Design, explores the design revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970s when Papanek’s book Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change emerged as a manifesto for the politics of design and sustainability. Looking beyond the clichéd images of student activism and hippiedom, the lecture frames Papanek’s design, networks and interventions in the context of the late Cold War geo-political historical context; arguing that design’s newly honed political imperative was borne of the U.S. military-industrial complex, as much of idealistic counter cultures.
Interview: ‘Design Is Never Neutral’