Between design and pedagogy: school furniture in Spain (1877-1936)

Abstract

In this paper, the following framework has been taken into consideration: (1) the institutional, manifested by the studies carried out by the Museo Pedagógico Nacional, where Pedro de Alcántara (1886) and Manuel Bartolomé Cossío (1913), as director, had a relevant role; (2) the pedagogical, with a first experience that begins with the Escuelas Modelo and concludes at this time with the Institutos Escuela, passing through the influence of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Cossío and Giner de los Ríos); (3) commercial ones, some distributing foreign models, but in many cases with clear Spanish exponents linked to teachers and pedagogues, mainly with the design of the Museo; and (4) furniture design itself, which contains dimensional, ergonomic and constructive criteria, both from foreign references and from our own models, observed in two generations of systems, attempting to provide a solution to the problem of the country's table-benches or desks.