The event takes place every first Thursday of the month during the semester from September through December and from February through June and is open to PhD students at the Lucerne School of Design, Film and Art (HSLU), the National Institute of Design (NID), and other interested guests and PhD students from other universities.
Guy Julier – Design Culture after Solutionism
Thursday, 5th of June 2025
12:00 - 13:15 (CEST / Central Europe)
3:30 pm - 4:45 pm (IST / India)
Nearly all definitions of design frame it as a problem-solving activity, dedicated to the ‘improvement’ of conditions. But what if we abandoned solutionism and considered design merely as a way to understand the world better? What practices might this then open onto? This talk develops a critique of solutionism as a cultural and economic imperative in modernity, drawing attention to how it is driven by policymakers and how it so often contributes to global and local inequalities. It then, through a set of examples, explores how an alternative, critical practice in design culture might emerge. It concludes by discussing its potential as a professional activity as much as an academic aspiration.
Guy Julier works in the Department of Design at Aalto University in Finland. Much of his writing, research, teaching and practice in design has been motivated by a wish to strengthen its critical and contextual underpinnings. More recently, he has given up on this instrumentalising quest, though. His books include The Culture of Design, which is credited as having led to the academic specialism of Design Culture Studies, and Economies of Design, an enquiry into the many relationships between design and neoliberalism. More information on Guy Julier’s activities can be found at
www.designculture.info.
If you have any questions regarding the lecture series or the PhD programme please share them by mail to
esi@hslu.ch.
