Abstract:

In the second part of the last century a majority of the programs in design schools was grounded on the principles of the introductory course at the Bauhaus. Role and content of the visual arts in design schools has changed considerably over the last decades. In some programs the visual arts have disappeared completely, others have moved to photography, video and media arts. At the National School of Landscape architecture in Versailles the core of the program has remained the same; learning how to think visually. Media and teaching methods have evolved over time but the teaching goals and principles have remained the same.
In the first part we will research some of these developments more closely by analysing programs in different design schools in France. At the same time we will give a short overview of the evolution of visual arts in the design curriculum of the National School of Landscape Architecture in Versailles.
The second part will be focussing on the different types of contents of teaching and research in the visual arts. We will describe, analyse and comment on different models of visual arts teaching in design curricula in general and compare it to the approach that is followed in Versailles.
One of the conclusions of the paper is that the core of teaching and research in the visual arts in a design curriculum demands for a focus on learning to see, learning to imagine and to conceptualise. In this focus both teaching and research play an important role; on the one hand teaching students how to think in a different way from the rational approach that is common in general education but at the same time develop research into materials, concepts that adds to the body of design knowledge.