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Abstract
This article explores the brief but ardent history of the Scandinavian Design Students’ Organization (SDO) in the late 1960s. Dissatisfied with contemporary design practice and education, a group of students aimed to reposition design, both in its methods and purpose, bringing it more in line with what they perceived to be the urgent challenges of society. The article focuses on the three summer seminars organized by the SDO as well as the two published issues of the members’ magazine &, and places them in a broader history of social design, co-design, and participatory design. The study also reveals the mutual influence between Nordic design students and Victor J. Papanek, and places this co-operation in a broader geographic context.
Notes
1. Fuad-Luke borrows the term “Design for Need” from the 1976 exhibition and symposium organized by the Royal College of Art in London, where Papanek was one of the keynote speakers.
2. On the use of oral history in design history, see, for example, Journal of Design History’s special issue on oral history (Sandino and Partington Citation2006), Sandino and Partington (Citation2013), and Hazell and Fallan (Citation2015).
3. Scandinavian Design Students’ Organization (SDO) was formed as a co-operative without a name, but in 1967 it formally took the name Nordiske Brukskunststuderendes Samarbeidsorganisasjon (Co-operative Organization of Nordic Students of Applied Arts). In 1968 the organization was renamed Skandinaviske designstuderendes organisasjon (SDO) (Scandinavian Design Students’ Organization) as this was more easily translated to English. (“NBS – Nordiske Brukskunststuderendes Samarbeidsorganisasjon” [Co-operative Organization of Nordic Students of Applied Arts]. Unsigned and undated note, part of source material lent from Terje Roalkvam, October 2013).
4. From the SDO’s statutes, passed at the organization’s first congress in Helsinki, July 16, 1967. (“SDO, Skandinaviska Designstuderandes Organisation Stadgar” [SDO, Scandinavian Design Students’ Organization’s Statutes]. Unsigned note on the SDO’s organization dated late autumn 1967.)
5. “Ut av isolasjonen, inn i SDO” [Out of the isolation into the SDO]. Unsigned article in pamphlet distributed by the SHKS student council in the autumn of 1968. Part of source material lent from Terje Roalkvam, October 2013.
6. The significance of the seminar is underlined in the following quote from Yrjö Sotamaa (Citation2012): “Suomenlinna Seminar can be seen today as a pilot project for the present Aalto University. The challenges Aalto wants to answer, relate to the key themes of Suomenlinna to ‘building a better and more responsible future, interdisciplinary approach combining design, technology and business in education and research and enhancement of the innovativeness of Finland’.”
7. In the delegation to the Suomenlinna seminar were Kenneth Agnew, Gillian Patterson, Alan Bronsdon, Douglas Tomkin, and Michel LaRue (Sotamaa Citation2012).
8. In their lecture the DRU members referred to the First and Second Phase of the Unit’s development. While the First Phase had been marked by Bruce Archer’s work to develop a systematic tool, a “check list” to use throughout the design process, in the Second Phase co-operation with other actors became more important (Lundahl Citation1968b, 444). Nigan Bayazit also points to this subdivision, labeling it First- and Second-Generation Design Methods. According to Bayazit (Citation2004, 21–22) user involvement in design decisions was one of the main characteristics of the second generation.
9. Uddén’s persistent effort resulted in public funding of technical aids in Sweden, and in that respect he was an important figure in generally improving the quality of life of physically disabled people. Today the company established by Uddén in 1963 is a world-leading company specializing in electrical wheelchairs, producing 16,000 wheelchairs a year. The name Permobil is even represented in the Swedish dictionary, where it is explained as an “electric driven wheel chair” (Carlsson Citation2013).
10. Worth noting, however, is Vihma’s (Citation2005, 73) observation that the influences in Finland of HfG Ulm and the Royal College of Art in London “seem to have merged, because Ulm insights were connected with the methodological tools of, for example, L. Bruce Archer and John Cristopher Jones.”
11. Gulbrandsen in conversation with the author, October 2013.
12. Høyland in conversation with the author, February 2013.
13. An extensive report on Papanek and the design education at Purdue University had been printed in Form prior to the seminar (Hausen Citation1968, 92–94).
14. According to Guffey, the many local variations that had begun to appear throughout the 1960s had made RI see the need for a common international symbol of access. Without Koefoed’s consent the symbol designed at the SDO seminar was submitted to the International Commission for Technical Aids (ICTA) that was asked by RI to find an appropriate alternative. In competition with five other contributions, an adapted version of Koefoed’s wheelchair was elected as the winner by RI’s international jury in 1969 (Guffey Citation2015).
15. Roalkvam in conversation with the author, October 2013.
16. As Clarke has pointed out, in 1969 Papanek was recruited by the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) Design School by the founding Dean, Richard Farson. In 1971, Farson was granted the position of program chairman of the Aspen Design Conference, which gave CalArts a pronounced presence and led Papanek to contribute to the conference (Clarke Citation2013a, 164–165).
17. See note 4 above.
18. Kvernaas in conversation with the author, September, 2013.
19. Email message to author, November 1, 2014.
20. Sotamaa also reported that Papanek received a grant so that he could write the book (email message to author, November 1, 2014). Further information on who provided the grant, however, is not available.
21. The Danish furniture presented consisted of a folding chair by Mogens Koch; Ole Gjerløv-Knudsen’s Saw chair made of wood and canvas; a stool by Axel Thygesen; bookshelves in hemp canvas by Jørgen Højs; and a coffee table by Ingelise Bratvold and Georg Gjedde-Simonsen. The Swedish examples were a folding chair made of chrome steel tubing and canvas by Lindau og Lindenkrantz; a chair made of corrugated cardboard by Janne Ahlin, Jan Dranger, Martin Eiserman, and Johan Huldt; and a folding, hanging cradle and a swing made by Ann and Göran Wärff. The Siesta chair by the Norwegian Ingmar Relling was presented as an alternative to the readers who were nomadic, “but have both money and taste for simple elegance” (Hennessey and Papanek Citation1973, 36).
22. This interview was recounted in Arkitekten (S Citation1973, 359–360).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Ida Kamilla Lie
Ida Kamilla Lie is a PhD candidate in design history at the University of Oslo, on the project “Back to the Sustainable Future: Visions of Sustainability in the History of Design”. Lie holds a Master of Arts degree in art history from the University of Oslo.