Utilitas, Venustas, Firmitas
Engineering Design Studio (A5, 015)
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Foreword
- Attendance list
- Field trip update
Case-Study Presentation
Otl Aicher, The World as Design
Otl Aicher's writings are explorations of the world, a substantive part of his work. In moving through the history of thought and design, building and construction, he assures us of the possibilities of arranging existence in a humane fashion. As ever he is concerned with the question of the conditions needed to produce a civilised culture. These conditions have to be fought for against apparent factual or material constraints and spiritual and intellectual substitutes on offer.
Otl Aicher likes a dispute. For this reason, the volume contains polemical statements on cultural and political subjects as well as practical reports and historical exposition. He fights with productive obstinacy, above all for the renewal of Modernism, which he claims has largely exhausted itself in aesthetic visions; he insists the ordinary working day is still more important than the “cultural Sunday”.
Wolfgang Jean Stock, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/9783433605851
What does Otl Aicher mean by saying that “…the best way of concealing power is still aesthetics”? (difficulties for architects and designers, p. 143 ff.)
Works of Tarek Atrissi
Lebanese-Dutch Tarek Atrissi is one of most recognized designers across the Arab world. He has gained an international reputation for his graphic work and has received prestigious awards and honors through his design career. He established in 2000 his Netherlands-based design studio, Tarek Atrissi Design (http://www.atrissi.com/about/). The studio’s typographic and cross cultural design approach produced projects that left a significant influence on the contemporary graphic design landscape in the Middle East.
Born in Beirut, Tarek Atrissi has worked, lived and studied in Lebanon, The Netherlands, Qatar, Dubai, Spain and the United States. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design with distinction from the American University of Beirut; a Masters of Arts in Interactive Multimedia from the Utrecht School of the Arts in Holland; and an MFA in Design entrepreneurship from the School of Visual Arts in New York. He holds as well a postgraduate degree in Typeface Design from the type@cooper program of the Cooper Union New York.
Links
- eL Seed “calligraffiti” artist blending the ancient art form of calligraphy with contemporary graffiti ⇒ http://elseed-art.com
- Calligrapher Mohammad Mandi ⇒ http://www.mandiarts.com
- Arabic graphic designer Wissam Shawkat⇒ http://www.wissamshawkat.com/#mg
- VCU's MFA program “Design” ⇒ http://www.qatar.vcu.edu/mfa