Res Mobilis

Call for Papers Design as an Intellectual Project: Narratives, Texts, and Protagonists in the Genesis of a Discipline (1925-1975)

The field of design in general, and industrial design in particular, did not emerge as an independent discipline until nearly the final third of the 20th century. From the 1920s onwards, agents from various spheres intervened: from the creative to the industrial, including art and politics. In this context, the architect, alongside other professionals in the sector, played an essential role, carrying out a process of assimilation of the trends within their environment and the dissemination of new lines of work which, although unintended, proved crucial for the impetus and eventual constitution of design as a discipline.

Beyond the design of pieces—conceived for industrial production or as a detailed definition of the works they intended to furnish—it is worth highlighting their embryonic role in the ex novo development of a theoretical corpus on the design of objects and interiors, which could have served as a framework for the significant number of designs that followed. Reference is made here to the rich, choral legacy comprised of articles in specialized and non-specialized journals, books, exhibitions, conferences, associations, and a collection of activities and discourses of all kinds in various media. Taken together, it seems possible today to trace this effort—of a modern nature—carried out by architects with the involvement of historians, critics, patrons, artists, entrepreneurs, decorators, and engineers, extending through industry, politics, or different institutions.

If the role of the architect, decorator, or designer in this process has often gone unnoticed, this is markedly accentuated in what history has narrated and recorded regarding women. It seems necessary to rescue and highlight the work carried out by women architects, designers, and other professionals who, either in the shadow of men or as a viable professional outlet in an environment with little female sensitivity, contributed significantly to the development of design from an intellectual point of view through their words or outreach activities.