Social Design: A better world is possible

"We have to stop wrapping up the world with ill-designed objects," writes Viktor Papanek. "Design must be revolutionary and radical in order to be environmentally and socially responsible." Design: highly political tool. As if it was not otherwise conceivable. The amazing thing is that the text is almost 50 years old. Heading of Papanek's approach: "Design for the Real World".

The fact that the Vitra Design Museum is currently showing a major exhibition on design activist Viktor Papanek is just one symptom of many that something is spinning. And to make design, art and architecture more political, to conceive of itself as "social design": "It's the antithesis to an unleashed consumer society that continues to propagate growth, even though it's clear that resources are not enough if we continue like this" says Angeli Sachs, who curated the current exhibition on "Social Design" for the Zurich Museum of Design and compiled all the examples in a book: ecologically, socially responsible, looking for solutions together with people, instead of finished objects, final urban planning to throw on them from space.

As with the solar lamp "Little Sun" by artist Olafur Eliasson, which allows people in areas without electricity to have enough free light to work, to learn, to be with friends, in short: to live. Or the "Flying8" -witch, which was invented by the Hamburg weaver Andreas Möller together with the GIZ, and which can be built from a few pieces of wood, cardboard, adhesive tape and strings in a few simple steps. And also in the housing project of a group in Liverpool, which saved together as a trust collective collectively empty houses in four streets from ruin and renovated - for affordable housing.

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"Designers are getting into a new role," says Angeli Sachs. The political and social upheaval reaches deep into the design and architecture industry, she observes. To this end, the strategy is spreading, with the proceeds of well-endowed projects financing projects in Social Design. "But this is not an invention of the present," says Sachs. "Whenever the world is in crisis, there are counter-movements: for industrialization, after the First World War or in the sixties and seventies, design with social relevance, design for society emerged . " Above all, it is important that the economic approach is correct: "If it does not work economically, it is only goodwill."

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Angeli Sachs, Museum of Design Zurich (ed.):
Social Design - Participation and Empowerment

Lars Müller Publishers; 192 pages; 25 euros

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Design with an impact on buyers and the environment: two of them who deliver exactly that are Marjan van Aubel and Corinna Sy. The Dutchwoman van Aubel describes herself as a "solar designer". Recently created and already priced: "Power Plant", an indoor farm that grows vegetables, lettuce, herbs vertically - but unlike other comparable ideas with solar energy. Their "Current Table" - a table made of solar cells, with which you can recharge battery-powered devices - will soon go into mass production. She wants to design for the crowd, not luxury items. "Eco is more important than ego," says van Aubel.

Corinna Sy co-founded the Berlin design collective "Cucula" in 2014. The core: a chair, designed by the Italian Enzo Mari in 1975, now reconstructed by refugees from recycled wood. They were trained, got work and work, made a product that others could buy. An offer for self-empowerment. The designers became an NGO. The chairs are all sold out, including the tables, benches, shelves, which were created.

Sy and her team are currently working on the next project. If all goes well and the support stands, it starts in the coming year. "My vision as a designer has changed a lot, thanks to Cucula," says Sy. "We put ourselves down and formulated a counter-proposal - to show how we want to change structures." "Sketching Utopia", they called it. Design must deal more with politics, take responsibility: "We can use design to influence consumption and attitude," says Sy.

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Christoph Rodatz and Pierre Smolarski (ed.):
What is Public Interest Design? - Contributions to the shaping of public interests

transcript publisher; 412 pages; 34.99 euros

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It's not just Van Aubel and Cucula, not just the Papanek and Social Design exhibitions, that are showing signs of growing numbers, not just all the impressive objects that come together on the "What Design Can Do" platform alone and that regularly draw new contests , For example, there are the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus Manifesto, which was a plea for classless design with "the people". Also included is the current, ecological consciousness-sensitizing show in the Berlin Museum for Contemporary Art and the exhibition on "Beauty and Terror of the Petroleum Age", which starts in September at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg.

An impressive anthology on "Public Interest Design" was just published. (The book is available here as a free PDF.) And as early as 2017 - when various designs were presented in the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt, the refugees could best be a new home - explained director Peter Cachola Schmal, not only architects would have to be more political: " Everyone should ask themselves what they can contribute, and the time to deal with luxury issues is over. "

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How thoroughly the role of designers will change is also shown by the new approaches at the universities. After all, there has been a corresponding master's program in Wuppertal for two years, in Bolzano for three years, in Vienna for six years. It teaches to work out designs with those who will use or inhabit the object. Not only designers will give up their artistic sovereignty. Moreover, things will come into being that will work. Things that help improve the environment, open new perspectives for people.

"Survival through design", Viktor Papanek called it. What sounded like distant utopia in 1971 is today a five to twelve reality.

exhibitions

"Social Design", Museum of Design, Zurich; until 3 February 2019. From 29 March to 27 October at the Hamburg Museum of Arts and Crafts

"Viktor Papanek: The Politics of Design", Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein; until 10th March 2019

"How to talk to birds, trees, fish, shells, snakes, bulls and lions", Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; until 12th May 2019

"Oil, Beauty and Terror of the Petroleum Age", Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; September 29, 2019 to February 16, 2020