Educational Practice in China Originated from German Bauhaus

----Exploration on German Model of Industrial Design Program

Xun Xu

School of Art?Design Zhejiang University of Science and Technology Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province 310000, China xuxun516@163.com

Abstract

German Bauhaus had a significant influence on the modern design education, meanwhile, it established the foundation of the leading position in the world for German industrial design. Through analyzing on current industrial design conditions from different countries, art design is considered as the main part of industrial design. This paper reviewed the last 10 years’ development of industrial design program in Zhejiang University of Science and Technology. The industrial design program have taken considerable achievements in many fields, such as the practice of Germany model, disciplines construction, teaching reform, manufactures & college cooperation, project teaching and design competitions.

Keywords: Bauhaus, industrial design, project teaching, practice

1. German Bauhaus and industrial design

In 1919, the Bauhaus school had been built in Weimar, Germany. This have been called the “cradle of world industrial design”, the milestone in the art design history. Bauhaus believed that the foremost thing is letting the students explore their own design ways, rather than just teaching them the teachers’ ways; developing students’ independent and critical thinking ability rather than imposing certain design styles on them. Compared with other design schools that had similar education philosophies, Bauhaus had distinctive education philosophy. It took thorough reform on the traditional art design education system and established art design as a new professional discipline. Meanwhile, Walter Gropius, the founder of Bauhaus made “Unity of art and technology” as the dominant design education philosophy.

One of Bauhaus initiative works is purifying the forms of general industrial products. Bauhaus stressed that the product forms should be designed based on basic geometric patterns such as cubes, squares and circles. The product forms and outlines should be simple and varied in different ways and follow abstract form principles and aesthetics. Because Bauhaus’s brave and aggressive exploring and reform, it

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took significant key influence on the forming of Modernism Art Style and made the Bauhaus design a world-wide reputation. Therefore Bauhaus became the milestone of modern art design history.

American artist Joseph Sinel first mentioned the term of Industrial design in 1919. However in China, until 1983, the Ministry of Education had conformed industrial design discipline as the sample major of general colleges. The original name of the major is “Product Forming” for art students. In 1998 the national major category had been adjusted to be integrated into the international conventions. The “Product forming” major had removed the focus from the product forms to the area of researching the human-product-environment relationships. The name had been replaced by “Industrial design” and the major had been set for both engineering and art education schools.

1. The development and current situation of Chinese and International industrial design education
2. Most of industrial design program has been set for design schools

Bauhaus had many top European artists at that time, such as Itten, Kandinsky, and Klee etc. They are famous abstract painters. Their teaching cultivated the Bauhaus students and contributed to the 20’s century art design. Most of famous industrial designers such as Philippe Starck, Marc Newson and yves béhar are graduated from the art design schools. Their success proved that the art design education is effective for industrial design education. The product form design is still an important aspect in undergraduate industrial design studies and the industrial design is an important component of current famous art design schools.

Eupoe: Royal College of Art?Norwegian Institute of Art and Design?University of Duisburg-Essen, Politecnico di Milano, Fachhochschule Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts (FH Hannover), their industrial design departments are belong to art and design schools.

America: According to a survey of IDSA (The Industrial Designers Society of America) in 1998, there are 49 institutes that have industrial design undergraduate or graduate programs registered in IDSA list. Typical industrial design majors usually are set in art schools, which can grant



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bachelor degree in fine arts or science. Most of them got the certification of NASAD (National Association of Schools of Art and Design). Only 15 in the 49 schools did not get the certification. IDSA declared that 5 years later, only the certified the industrial design majors can get be recognized. There are 37 industrial design majors in universities, 6 in design colleges, 4 in art schools. This situation did not vary in current years.

Asia: In Japan, industrial design majors also set in art schools or independent industrial design faculties, such as Tokyo Zokei University, Musashino Art University, Tama Art University, and University of Tsukuba etc. In Hongkong, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University has famous industrial design programs. In Taiwan, Shih Chien University, National Cheng Kung University, National Yunlin University of Science & Technology have famous industrial design programs. In mainland of China, Jiangnan University, Tsinghua University, Hunan University, Tongji University and the Guangzhou academic of fine arts all have their industrial design departments in the art design schools or departments.

2.2 The application and practice of German Model

Zhejiang University of Science and Technology has its industrial design major (for art students) in 2000. It was combined with the industrial design department of Mechanical School in 2005. The mechanic industrial design major was integrated into the art school. The industrial design major can enroll engineer students and art students independently. In 2007, the major had been approved as the key major in Zhejiang University of Science and Technology.

The major is learning the German model and facing the manufacture industry. It set the education goal of to cultivate advanced designers with international viewpoints and gained rich achievements in the last 10 years.

Since 2003, the major has investigated and applied German FH design education model and adjusted our own education plan. We focused on cultivating advanced applicable designers. We gradually introduced the German model into our teaching processes and always invited German experts to visit our school and had short-term teaching. In 2007 the major had been set as the key major in our school. The “product design” course and “special topic design – the Chinese practice and research of German industrial design project teaching” project had been confirmed as the key teaching reform project in our school. It combined German FH education model and our school’s education philosophy and resources, and gradually made the special education features of “Project leads the teaching and interaction promotes innovation”. This has gained rich achievements.

We have a young teacher team. They need to keep hard working in teaching and research fields. However, this team is progressive and good at learning and practicing. They studied German model in industrial design education, and adjusted their teaching plan. They applied it in the teaching reform projects and the results are very good. Most of young teacher had been studying in German FH Hannover. They took part in German design firm’s practice and they cooperated with German professors in China-German media design center. The development of last 10 years is the application process of German FH design model in the industrial design major of Zhejiang University of Science and Technology.

Since 2008, our art school and Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts had drawn a conclusion in our cooperation that we should cooperate and build a new major “Interactive design” based on the major of industrial design. We had studied on this proposal and we found the significant difference between the two majors is the materials that people deal with. If the spaces and the subjects that we design are substantial rather than virtual, the traditional industrial design is the right choice. Like traditional industrial design, interactive design is the combination of engineering, aesthetics and marketing factors. It provides solutions to users’ problems.

3. The practice of project teaching

Project teaching is a practical teaching designed based on real project course design. Project teaching is a special part of German industrial design education model. In this model, a project design is considered as a core to explore the teaching practice. The teacher guide students to explore and solve the real problems in practice and then students can apply their design knowledge and skills in the design processes. From 1998, the art school has cooperated with Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts on the DAAD project. The school has gained experience from the German partner. This project teaching had been carried out and had been put in the undergraduate cultivation plan.

The topic of project teaching usually comes from outside-companies. We had close connection with many companies and firms. We set the project teaching according to companies’ task orders and specifications. Under teachers’ guide, students independently complete the whole design process from market research, design trend analysis, design, prototyping and exhibition. Students also need to write papers based on the design samples and express their design thinking, concepts and design theory. Upon on the completion of the project, students report the project and their work to teachers and their work are reviewed and evaluated by teachers and engineers from the companies. This education model combines academic theory and practical training and make a closer connections between research, study and industries. It can promote students’ applying cross-discipline knowledge and can greatly improve students’ practical capacity. The industrial design department studied German FH design education model. It gradually shaped our unique education feature of “Project leads the teaching and interaction promotes innovation”.

The industrial design project teaching includes:

In May 2006, industrial design expert, professor Hohn (Vice president of FH Hannover) took charge the “Bosch” Electronic drill design project. Chinese students, teachers and German teacher had taken part in this project teaching and the project had gained effective teaching results and social effect. From June to July 2006, Professor Beck lead 6



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students visited our school from FH Hannover. He guided the international project team that comprised 6 foreign students and 10 Chinese students to design a logo for the international forum of China-German. We had cooperation on project teachings. Only in 2007-2008 academic year we had project teachings on 7 design projects such as “Supor” electric water heater design, “Supor” electric pressure cooker design, “Huayu” water dispenser design, “Xiaokang” blood sugar meter design, and “Lihong” motor bike design. Students are trained through these projects. They learned knowledge about marketing, cost control, and manufacture technique in the design process.

The theory and practice are combined in our teaching; the teaching is connected with outside-companies; the real projects make students use academic knowledge in real practices, therefore the students can have advantages in the process of job hunting.

School of Art and Design had built a “China-German media design center” which is a joint project with Fachhochschule Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts (FH Hannover). This center is used as the base of practice of German education model and provides space and resource for project teaching and research-study-production cooperation.

4. Presentation of teaching achievements

Early in 2004, the first industrial design graduate project exhibition was very successful and gained reputation among society and industrial design fields. A professor from Zhejiang University said that this was the best industrial design graduate project exhibition he ever attended in the last 10 years. In recent years, the industrial design program had been referred as “the new rising star” by Medias and other colleague experts for many times. In past 10 years, our program also won many prizes in industrial design competitions of many different levels.

Every year there are many industrial design competitions held by government, academic societies, organizations and companies. The design competition focus more on the creative thoughts and concept designs compared with practical design projects. This can create a complementary relationship with practical design projects. Therefore we choose proper design competitions and put them into our course project teaching. In 2007 and 2008, our students won 38 prizes in national and provincial level competitions. 4 graduate projects were picked in national industrial design graduate project competition and won prizes in both 2007 and 2008. In 2007, industrial design students applied and registered 64 national patents, 34 for patent of utility models and 30 for patent of design. In 2008 industrial design students applied and registered 243 national patents, 41 for patent of utility models and 202 for patent of design.

In 2007 undergraduate program evaluation, experts gave high remark on the Key Major Teaching Achievements Collection of Industrial Design. The students cultivated by our program have been recognized in society. Many graduates had prominent success on their careers: many created their own business and had design companies; many became design manager in design companies. The teaching practice in the past 10 years indicated that our education is very effective and gained rich achievements.

5. Conclusions

Industrial design is one of German premier majors. The Bauhaus philosophy from Germany has influenced the world. Zhejiang University of Science and Technology learned German model, took part in practice and gained rich achievements in the 10 years’ teaching processes. In 2009, “the Design Oscar Award”, Germany IF concept design award has been just announced in 4th., March, Hannover Germany. There are 1850 participants and 39 countries joined in this competition. In the final 100 “Best 100%”, Ms. Chen’s proposal “Wind Circle” from Zhejiang University of Science and Technology has won this exclusive prize.

References

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[2] D.S. Yang. “A Discussion of The Differences in Industrial Design Education between China and Germany from the Workshop Project Practice”, Journal of Hefei University (Natural Sciences), 2006:21-22

[3] Rosson M.B, J.M.Carroll. “Usability Engineering: Scenario-Based Development of Human-Computer Interaction”, San Francisco:Morgan Kaufmann, 2002

[4] Kevin N. Otto, Kristin L Wood. “Product Design: Techniques in Reverse Engineering and New Product Development”, Tsinghua University Press, Beijing, 2003