Pioneers of Design Education
Author:
Petra Hölscher
min
Reading Time
About the project
Detailed research on the history of German Schools of Decorative Arts in the long 19th century is long overdue. Therefore, the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Museum of Decorative Arts of the Dresden State Art Collection) is initiating a nationally and internationally oriented network.
The project aims to examine both individual institutions and overarching aspects such as periods of development, reform efforts, networks, teaching methods and collection concepts. In addition to a longlasting scientific exchange, the intention is to provide an overview publication on the German Schools of Decorative Arts up to 1920.
In this compendium, their importance for the vocational training in art and craft will be for the first time comprehensively presented in the interdisciplinary field between art, economy and politics.
You can find out more about the project, its duration, results and objectives as well as the contact persons on the website of the Kunstgewerbemuseums Dresden:
May 21 2021
Digital Kick-Off event
Although being pioneers of modern design education, early Schools of Decorative Arts still lack basic art historical research, especially from their beginnings in the middle of the 19th century until World War I. From early on, the schools continuously reformed and refined their concepts. In doing so, they became an important field for experimentation that built the base for design education as we know it today. Schools of Decorative Arts – also referred to as “Schools of Applied Arts” or “Schools of Arts and Crafts” – were not only a European, but a worldwide phenomenon and each institution was connected to its particular economic, aesthetic and sometimes colonial matters.
May 19 – May 20 2022
Online conference
The 2022 conference of the research network „Pioneers of Design Education. New Perspectives on German Schools of Decorative Arts before the Bauhaus“ hosted by the Design Campus, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, in cooperation with the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, sheds light on the global history of design education, beginning with London and Vienna, extending the focus from wider Europe to Russia, India, China and the United States.
The history of the Schools of Decorative Arts is a history of connections, exchange and mobility of people and ideas that can still inspire us today.
