Gert Selle, Designkritiker und Kunstpädagoge

Symposium Design Neu Denken

Symposium and publication on the design theorist, art educator and researcher of domestic culture Gert Selle

Gert Selle was one of the defining figures of German design theory and art education. He cultivated a way of thinking in which intellectual reflection, aesthetic experience and social development are inseparably linked. He therefore never regarded everyday objects in isolation, but always in relation to the people who design and use them.

During his time at the Werkkunstschule Darmstadt, he recognised how much German design lacked a theoretical grounding. He responded to this deficit with seminars and publications that placed thinking about design on a solid foundation. In doing so, he firmly opposed any ideological inflation of design. At the same time, he played a major part in establishing the field as a discipline in its own right.

Selle's legacy is proving remarkably relevant today. In a world increasingly shaped by algorithmic processes, the great importance he attached to subjective human experience is a reminder of where the essential qualities of designed objects lie: in what people perceive, feel and experience in their encounter with things.

This relevance, and the connections between his positions and the present, are the focus of the symposium. It will also see the presentation of the 400-page publication Design Denken, Reflexionen über die Dingwelt, Aufsätze und Vorträge 1969–2019, which brings together texts from five decades.

Speakers: Volker Albus, Petra Eisele, Felix Kosok, Renate Luckner-Bien and Florian Walzel

Institute for Design Research, with the kind support of Hessen Design, as well as Gert Selle’s son and a long-standing friend and former student of Gert Selle, Gerd Ohlhauser.