The Origins of Design Education in Latin America: From the hfg in Ulm to Globalization

Abstract

During the 1960s and ‘70s, the economies of Latin American countries, whether socialist, liberal, or conservative, generally reoriented themselves towards a policy of import substitution and industrial development. Design was placed within this overall industrial policy. The creation of the first institutions for design education proliferated. This reform was never completed, however. From the 1980s on, Latin America was dragged into globalization and a policy of foreign debts that generated a new form of dependence. The current deep economic crisis in Latin America opens a space for critical reflection including, by extension, the role of design. The Hochschule fur Gestaltung (hfg) ulm is a starting point because it had a great influence on the propagation of design education and design discourse in Latin America. What were the contextual conditions that made this influence possible? 1. The emphasis on industrialization was imposed by a change in foreign trade conditions. (Argentina, for example, was the victim of a trade blockade imposed by the European Community.)2 2. Governments, as a response to the dilemma of underdevelopment, formulated policies of national industrial upgrading, with management policies and the utilization of human resources, which included design as a profession. 3. The local artistic avant-garde already had begun, in the early 1950s, to withdraw from traditional art, and extended their activities to the new field design. 4. Latin American students and visitors to ulm returned to their own countries with new information.3 5. Faculty members of the hfg established contacts, traveled, and participated in programs assisting Latin American countries in their development of the design profession.