Import Export: How Global is Design?

A look at the relationship between design and globalisation.

In the 21st century, design appears to have become a truly global art form. This Critical Debate takes a closer look at design, the nature of globalisation and how the two spheres interrelate, and raises a number of pertinent questions. Is design contributing to the more positive effects of globalisation, or does the design industry simply chase commercial opportunities and devise better products to serve an international elite? What happens to local identity in global design culture? Have today’s global design hotspots migrated East to Bangalore and Shanghai or are London, Milan, Rotterdam and New York still home to the questions and the answers that push contemporary design forever onward? Such are the questions posed and explored in the 2005 Global Design Critical Debate.

Two keynote presentations will be followed by a panel discussion chaired by Joe Kerr, Head of the Department of Critical and Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art. The keynote speakers are Rem Koolhaas, Founder and Director, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, and John Thackara, Director, Doors of Perception. The panelists include the sociologist Professor Leslie Sklair, writer Sukhdev Sandhu and Dieneke Ferguson of Hidden Arts.

Rem Koolhas is Co-founder of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and a Professor of Harvard University. The recipient of a number of international awards such as the 2004 RIBA Gold Medal, Rem Koolhas’s work has been exhibited widely and is the subject of a number of publications, the most recent being Content (2004), published by Taschen Books. Recent research topics include the changing trends in global urban conditions and the role of consumption in consumer society.

John Thackara is the Director of Doors of Perception, a design futures network with offices in Amsterdam and Bangalore. His latest book, In the Bubble: Designing a Complex World, has just been published, and he is well known for his work on forward-thinking methods of design, sustainability and the future of the internet. www.thackara.com

This Critical Debate is organised jointly by the V&A the British Council.

Tickets
Full rate £18.50, senior citizens, Members and Patrons of the V&A, and RIBA Members £15.50, students and registered disabled £5.50. One carer accompanying a disabled person, or one teacher accompanying a group of ten or more students, will be admitted free of charge.

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