Page 36 - Studio International - September 1966

Interview with Misha Black

'Ideally one should have . . schools of human ecology in which different departments, all concerned
with some aspect of human environment, will have parallel and equal authority within their own
discipline.'

Victor Willing It is widely suggested that education for schools of architecture are moving now from the art
industrial design should be separated from craft design schools to the universities, where they properly should be,
and fine art. Do you agree with the separation? and I think this will be a tendency in the schools of
Misha Black The fact is that in Britain all the design design; but there is no sign of it yet. Ideally one should
schools—and throughout the world with few excep- have what Maldonado has been championing for a long
tions — are part of art-craft-design polytechnics; in many time : schools of human ecology in which different depart-
cases this works quite well. It depends on the degree of ments, all concerned with some aspect of human en-
autonomy the departments of the school have. But the vironment, will have parallel and equal authority within
trend is towards a separation of the industrial design their own discipline. One could visualize a school in
schools from the arts and craft schools. It will inevitably which there were architecture, landscape architecture,
happen eventually, because the natural alliances are industrial design, and town planning, say, as natural
much closer between industrial design and architecture bedfellows.
than between industrial design and painting. V. W. Such an establishment might be able to accumulate
V. W. The painful separation at the moment is of archi- data on new techniques and materials and do research.
tecture from industrial design. Schools have not at present the capacity to do this, have
M.B. That also is in many instances a recent condition. they ?
There have been and still are many British schools of M.B. The Bartlett School of Architecture as part of
architecture which are part of art schools. Certainly the London University is accumulating data and doing
research on educational method. Certainly very little is
being done in this field by schools of industrial design.
Note on Professor Misha Black A senior partner in Design V. W. In your Cantor lecture to the Royal Society of
Research Unit. Professor of Industrial Design (Engineering) at Arts last year you quoted an ICSID/UNESCO report
the Royal College of Art; Chairman of the ICSID/UNESCO Seminar confirming 'the need to bring the cultivation of intelli-
on Industrial Design Education; Chairman ICSID Education
gence back into the curriculum of the first-year course'.
Commission; Chairman SIA Board of Design Education.
`The primary year' it says, 'should be as logical and con-
In the Cantor lectures at the R.S.A. he supported the view that
the existing diploma in Art and Design should be 'granted in two trolled as the remainder of the course'. Richard Hamilton
separate categories; a diploma in art, and a diploma in design. says the first-year course at Newcastle is meant to train
... the value of schools of art and design being integrated into people to think. So this stricture does not apply there.
single establishments might now be questioned—it certainly is
M.B. I don't know the details of his course but obviously
by some students who find the relation between the painters,
he has moved a long way from the previous assumptions
sculptors, and designers an uneasy one which creates tensions
which are sometimes more harmful than helpful. The designers about foundation courses which have, until recently,
believe that the students of fine arts departments have jettisoned tended in Britain to be that they should be a grooming
the humanities, which in other periods were their essential of one's aesthetic muscles, concentrating on the free-
counter-balance to the scientific content of design, and, in so
expression aspect of the Bauhaus methods.
doing, have forfeited their title to leadership.'
V. W. Hamilton is very much against that.
M.B. Yes, the fact that he and I are in agreement is the
sign of a new attitude developing. But I don't think that
the problem is the same in the basic year if you are
aiming to produce industrial design as it is if one is con-
cerned with 'fine artists'. It is essential for young people
who are already determined to be designers to have a
corrective applied against their present inclination to-
wards an almost exclusively logical and analytical ap-
proach to their work.
V.W. It has been suggested that some industrial design
schools like to retain the fine art connexion because they
feel that the fine art principle has a vital civilizing role.
M.B. I don't think that the fine arts are now automati-
cally a civilizing influence. The fine arts have moved
too far from their academic position to justify this assump-
tion. All students, whether they are studying industrial
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