Disueño. Cuando el arte y el diseño jugaron a ser lo mismo. 1977-1979

Disueño. Cuando el arte y el diseño jugaron a ser lo mismo (1977-1979)

At the end of the 1970s, at a time when the principles of functionalism started to enter into crisis, the Disueño exhibition opened up a space of freedom and provided a showcase for a type of new product that was difficult to define, somewhere between art and industrial design, between traditional craftsmanship and postmodern irony, and between the criticism of production systems and utopic proposals for furniture for a new society.

The three editions of Disueño (between 1977 and 1979) played an important role in transforming the notion of the profession of designer and opened the way for new trends that trod a path between the anti-consumerism of the 1960s radical design and the postmodernity of the 1980s.

The book Disueño. Cuando el arte y el diseño jugaron a ser lo mismo (1977-1979) , second volume of Imprescindibles Collection, is a compendium of the wide range of documents that enabled the author to carry out this research. These documents come from different archive fonds, including those of ADI-FAD, Santiago Roqueta, Juma, Ramon Bigas and Vinçon, which are currently in the custody of the Museu del Disseny’s Document Centre.

The book also includes the testimonies of some of the architects of the idea for Disueño, at that time members of the Governing Board of ADI-FAD (Decorative Arts Promotion’s Industrial Design Group) such as Santiago Roqueta, Beth Galí, Carmen Sánchez-Diezma, Lluís Pau, Carles Riart, and Josep Lluscà, with contributions from Juma, Fernando Amat (owner of Vinçon), and artists and designers such as Ramon Bigas, Silvia Gubern and Santi Giró.

A brief epilogue observes the present in the search for for traces of Disueño, detecting how the attitude of those who took part – an attitude somewhere between committed, subversive and irreverent – still survives in Barcelona design and can be found on the current scene in works such as those by Sara de Ubieta, Cristian Herrera, Guillermo Santomà and Takk, among others.

The book Disueño. Cuando el arte y el diseño jugaron a ser lo mismo (1977-1979) is without doubt a monograph that is essential reading to understand one of the most interesting moments in the history of design in Barcelona.

Imprescindibles Collection: 

Volume 1: Josep Pla-Narbona. Crits a la paret i poemes visuals. Author: Anna Calvera