Abstract:

Our long collaboration with Attilio Marcolli has made us carry out an in-depth analysis of a number of themes associated with the teaching of design. Among the many problems related to an introductory design course, one particular theme has been central, namely, the “vision workshop”, on which we have conducted continuous research, experiments, reflections and analyses. The “vision workshop” of the Seventies opened fundamental innovative vistas for the Art Institute, in particular at the Art Institute of Monza, a type of school which must be recognized the great merit of entirely basing its didactic structure on the workshops. Another school, the Scuola Politecnica di Design, organized in six disciplinary areas, focuses on the scientific nature of the configurative process underlying the creation of an artifice which must, by nature, find an interface with Man, while the visual aspect comes to play a central role. Rather than sensible knowledge, the science of form calls for rational, scientific knowledge, codified processes, regulations and signs that are perceptively and psychologically pertaining to the structures of human perception. The gestalt approach of the school determines a prioritizing of simple, ‘pregnant’ figures and analogously simple, mathematic-geometric structuring processes. The five disciplines which Nino Di Salvatore includes in the area of “science of the form” are: experimentation, science of vision, colour, forms in science, theory of the field. The activities associated with these five disciplines are based on an analysis and experimentation of communicative, visible, legible structures. In particular, Theory of the Field taught by Attilio Marcolli provides a structured introduction to design, i.e. Basic Design. In 1975 Attilio Marcolli wrote the first article presented in the new column on “Basic Design” created in the Ottagono magazine. Describing his “course of visual education” which was being created in those years, he defines it a course in Basic design or in other words an introductory course in design. The vision workshop created by Marcolli is a place where the visual models capable of turning conceptual thought into visual thought are elaborated; this educational process would be accomplished through the choice of materials, colours and techniques of implementation, but above all through a conscious interdisciplinary approach to humanistic and scientific study matters. Many “contradictions” between sensorial registers and cognitive aspects are still unsolved, in spite of the fact that scientific and technological progress and research in the field have evolved from the birth of Gestalt psychology until today; rather, the research continues to provide much inspiration for study and in-depth analysis, in a fundamental itinerary of visual and perceptive configuration for a design whose origins may be retraced to it. Following the line of thought of Zeki, we choose to define perception, especially visual, as an active process in which the brain, in its search for knowledge... makes a choice from all the available data and, comparing the information selected with the memories that are stored, generates the visual image... Thus, if perception is an interpretative process, constantly aimed at a pursuit of the essential, this characteristic has to contribute to the choice and final definition of the design project, in order that it may, itself, become a comprehensible synthesis.

Keywords:

basic design, education, teaching.