Design in a Global World

Interview with Professor Patrick Whitney

November 4, 2002
European Association for Architectural Education News Sheet 66

In the course of history design has evolved radically, always keeping pace with technology. Just as the design profession responded to the age of industrialization by training designers to create products and messages for mass production and national markets, today we are seeing a new paradigm shift, from mass production to flexible production, and from national markets to global ones. In an increasingly globalized world, the challenges of design to overcome cultural, social, and political barriers are immense. Similarly it is today an almost immense challenge for the design profession – but also for the design schools which educate the designers of the future – to keep up with the high speed of the technological development. The design concept itself, the design profession and the design educations are for that same reason right now in the process of a very decisive change and redefinition.

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