Designer, and Senior Research
University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne
BIOGRAPHY
David Bihanic is a Designer, an Associate Professor at the University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne (Permanent Researcher at ACTE Institute — EA 7539), and a Senior Research Fellow at “The École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs”. He published several books and book chapters, as well as numerous scientific articles relating to the contemporary stakes and challenges of Design. Several of them deals in particular with the interaction and cross-pollination between Urban Planning, Architecture and Design Sciences.
In his current research (bringing together practice and theory), he examines aesthetic, epistemological, and praxeological constraints as well as determinations of Design Practice in its collaboration/cooperation with Engineering Sciences, as well as in his relation to architecture. As a Data Design specialist, he examines the different paradigms of visualization and manipulation of large and complex datasets, and creates idiomatic visual formalisms offering greater ‘expressiveness’ of information.
His last books are Matrices cowritten with Matali Crasset (Presses du réel/Athom, 2023 — In French only) ; Marcel Lods. Éduquer à l’architecture moderne (Athom, 2022 — In French only) ; Empavillonner (Athom, 2021 — In French only) ; staatliche bauhaus cent pour cent 1919-2019 (T&P Publishing, 2019 — In French only) ; Design en regards (Art Book Magazine, EnsAD, La Cité du design, 2019 — In French only) ; Data Design. Les données comme matériau de création (Gallimard/Alternatives, 2018 — In French only) ; New Challenges for Data Design (Springer, 2015) ; Empowering Users through Design. Interdisciplinary Studies and Combined Approaches for Technological Products and Services (Springer, 2015).
New, New Bauhaus
What then of the positions, claims and aspirations relating to the “New European Bauhaus” project promoted by the President of the European Commission, the German Christian Democrat Ursula von der Leyen? Are they really in line with those set out by the pioneers, most notably the founder of the Weimar School, the architect Walter Gropius? In this talk, I’ll take a look back at the major texts of these early modernists (Gropius and others) and identify some of their key ideas and conceptions, which are still highly relevant and useful for (re)thinking the relationship between Creation and Society.