Cultural heritage as matter for design

Patrimonio culturale e design italiano 

13.02.2025

Per gli studenti del Postgraduate Design presso Università di Hertfordshire insieme alla Prof.ssa Giuseppina Giuffrida, program leader e senior lecturer del dipartimento di design.

Una sintesi dell’intervento.

1_ Design is a cultural fact means that design is not merely a technical or aesthetic activity, but it is deeply rooted in the cultural, political, antropological, economic, sociologic, religious, artistic context in which it develops. Design does not exist in a vacuum; it is intrinsically connected to the people, stories, and places that create and use it.

2_ The influence of cultural heritage on Italian design is profound and pervasive and inspire Italian designers to create something new and relevant.

3_ In Italy, we have thousands of cultural assets, both tangible and intangible. Many of them are invisible because they are inaccessible or not useful to the community. This exposes them to the risk of being lost. Losing cultural heritage means losing identity and opportunities for knowledge.

4_ What can design do? Of course, it can intervene with its specific skills and using new technologies. However, we are now interested in its capacity for systemic vision, its ability to think strategically through aggregated skills (Seassaro, 2006; F. Celaschi, 2004). This means designing and activating processes that connect the interests of the cultural asset or system of assets, the community and the context/territory. In this way, design assumes the role of mediator. So, we can talk about a shift from a skills-based perspective to a process-based perspective (E. Lupo).

5_We can agree that a cultural asset does not exist until its value is recognized as such. That is socialized and utilized by a community.In this way it becomes a résource, that is, PROJECT MATERIAL. An “open repertoire” that can be used as a resource for the production of new forms and cultural content, new values of meaning and utility for communities/territories, and in relation to the contemporary needings or problems. In other words: an open-ended knowledge system (E. Lupo).

6_How? With a design strategy that includes processes of activation, fruition, recontextualization and reuse.

7_ How can you design?

Resources:

• Design,
beni
culturali
immateriali
e
“attivazione
dell’autentico”:
progettare
il
valore
delle
eredità
culturali
come
“open‐ended
knowledge
system”

  di
Eleonora
Lupo.