Proceedings of the 8th International Academic Conference on Research in Social Sciences
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Bauhaus’s Walter Gropius vs. D.School’s David Kelley – A Comparative Analysis of Design Education Pioneers
Prof. Dr. Nikki Arnell
ABSTRACT:
The Bauhaus was a school of art and craft in Germany during the Weimar Republic, founded by Walter Gropius in 1919. The Hassner Planner Institute of Design, commonly called the d.school, is a Design Thinking™ institute begun at Stanford University in the U.S. under the leadership of IDEO co-founder David Kelley in 2004. Gropius, an architect, and Kelley, a mechanical engineer, both aspired – and succeeded – to shift the paradigm of design education to include such radical problem-solving methods as bold experimentation of form that solves a problem according to its use and user, absent of tradition. The lineage from Bauhaus’s progressive curricular revisions to today’s prioritization of human-centered design is direct. Multiple studies exist about each of these schools and the correlation between the two per curriculum, historical context, and dissemination and application of knowledge. Therefore, the absence of a comparative study between the two men, Gropius and Kelley, is surprising. I will present findings from a comparative analysis between the two men during a set timeline to convey findings. With my years of intense study on the Bauhaus and its enduring effect on art education and graphic design, coupled with inescapable awareness of the influence of Design Thinking today, the similarities between Gropius and Kelley are too numerous to be ignored.
keywords: Bauhaus, Design, Education, Human-Centered, Paradigm