Exhibition

In the year marking the ninetieth anniversary of by far the most influential model of twentieth-century design education – the Bauhaus – Utrecht Manifest explores Dutch design education in terms of its principles, social ambitions and results. In interviews Louise Schouwenberg and Gert Staal found out how key figures in Dutch design education held up specific agendas to their students, under which influences those agendas evolved over time, and what results they have led to. The exhibition presents the texts of the interviews and shows examples of student projects which the tutors and heads of design departments consider to be typical of their vision of the discipline.

Urgent Methods does not offer a full portrait of design education in the Netherlands, but presents several clearly distinctive visions of the discipline by six key figures. Three courses, six tutors: Design Academy Eindhoven: Gijs Bakker (head of the IM master course) and Lidewij Edelkoort (former artistic director); TU Delft: Bruno Ninaber van Eyben and Matthijs van Dijk (both Professors of Industrial Design); HKU: Henk Slager (research fellow and head of the master courses) and Jeroen van Mastrigt (research fellow in Art & Technology and initiator of the first full-time game course in Europe: Game Design & Development). Eighteen students: a.o. Sonja Bäumel, Joris Laarman, Richard Hutten, Jelte van Abbema, Maarten Baas, Lonny van Rijswijck c.s., Gerwin Hoogendoorn, Doeke de Walle, Femke de Boer, Richard Boeser, Marc Andrews, Josine Vermeij, Ignacio Carmona, Fabian Akker c.s., Douwe-Sjoerd Boschman c.s., Yishay Cohen c.s., Roger Ball, Durandus Vonck.
Exhibition design: Studio Makkink & Bey