About the Centre for Design and Production History
The conditions for the production of design and fashion in Denmark have changed dramatically over the twentieth century, and these developments have greatly shaped the design culture, including both design practices and institutions.
The strong reputation of Danish Design has often drawn on ideas of a particular foundation in craftsmanship, materials, and artistic, even though export successes were secured through industrial production. Overarching processes such as industrialization, outsourcing, automation, globalization, and digitalization have seemed irreversible, but design has often been characterized by more complex production and corporate cultures, where manual labor and machines, analog and digital processes, craftsmanship training, and artistic training have interacted.
There have been significant differences both between the conditions of different industries and between individual companies’ abilities to maintain Danish production, training, and artistic departments.
But history has also presented shared challenges, such as increased international competition following the entry into the European Common Market in 1973, rising demands for working conditions and wages, and the growing digitalization of both design processes and marketing. The developments in branding culture since the 1990s, driven by both print and digital media, have created new opportunities and major changes for the Danish design tradition.
The roles of design competencies have shifted significantly towards the purely visual and meaning-making aspects, storytelling, and brand identity, even though Danish Design still builds on its reputation for practical details and physical quality. The content and development of design education are therefore also a relevant perspective.
The Centre’s participants will establish ongoing collaboration and exchange of knowledge about sources and theories, and through seminars, create awareness and insight among companies, students, and the wider public. This collaboration will form the basis for project ideas and applications for research funding based on multiple partners and disciplines, including PhD and postdoc projects.
We focus on different material types and from the outset focus on ceramics, glass, textiles and fashion, electronics, silver and metal products, but it will be obvious to expand to, for example, plastics and furniture production.
Through open seminars, we hope to expand the circle of collaboration. The museums have close contact with several of the leading art industry companies, such as Royal Copenhagen, B&O, Holmegaard, and Kähler, which can be involved. In terms of dissemination, the museums' direct contact with the wider public through exhibitions, lectures, and school teaching can also be used to make the centre's research accessible to a wider circle outside the academic world.