Our current conception of design - deepoly linked as it is to consumption, style, fashion, cultural status, and capital generation and accumulation - is historically a relatively new phenomenon, arising with and developing alongside - indeed advancing -capitalism from the 14th Century onwards. The Critical Theory of Design outlined here is approached from a different number of standpoints. In the Category of Case Studies you will find critical historical analyses of the development of design as a separate social category alongside critical appraisals of contemporary architectural practice and theorising. Many of these are in downloadable PDF format and are freely available.

 

Critical Theories of design have taken on a more pointed significance in the last thirty years with the advent of Postmodern theorising. Architectural design theorists have, during this time, enthusiastically embraced the key issues of postmodernism - albeit in a reactionary and conservative way. They have also played a significant part in validating and legitimating postmodern theories such as Deconstruction and in reinternalising these theiories, turning them in the process into instruments of economic exploiitation, gentrification, urban displacement and cultural exclusion. Listed in this section are theoretical writings that contest the normative, "free market" ideologies of design that have come to prominence with the Reagan, Thatcher and Bush administrations. Under the categories Critical Education Practice you will find Case Studies of design projects that have attempted to implement the critical theories that are both articulated and implied here. They are made up mostly of projects carried out in the Community Design Studio at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, between 1982 and 2002.

 

The category Critical Design Practice contains examples from my own personal work - outside of my teaching responsibility.

 

 

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