DESIGN IN THE EXPANDED FIELD: RETHINKING CONTEMPORARY DESIGN

Abstract

The article explores the contemporary condition of design, proposing a parallel reading between a diagnosis of modernist sculpture of the 1960s by art historian Rosalind Krauss and the state of present-day design. Two competing notions of design will be presented and discussed; a broad notion represented by Herbert Simon and the expanded notion of design, and a guarded notion represented by Bruce Archer. Using a structuralist mapping of the field of design, the objective is to rethink contemporary design and dislocate our attention from what design is to how design works.