Stereotypes and Visual Emblems in Contemporary Cultural Systems between Simplification and Banalization

The idea for this book originated from the inter-doctoral course “The Legacy of Tomás Maldonado”, promoted by the Doctorate in Design and the School of Design of Politecnico di Milano, with the support of the Feltrinelli Foundation. The course, curated by Luca Guerrini and Raimonda Riccini, involved approximately 60 doctoral students and 11 doctoral programmes. From February to April 2021, through the reading of texts and meetings with experts, the doctoral students were confronted with the thought and work of Tomás Maldonado on six themes: the training of designers, the role that artistic practice has in the design process, the environmental issue, the attention to the body and to interaction, the relation between design and technology, the contribution that semiotics and the philosophy of language can make to design. Out of this comparison emerged the essays by the doctoral students that make up this volume. Before these, the essays by Paola Bertola, Luca Guerrini, and Raimonda Riccini reflect respectively on the perspectives of research in design, the doctoral learning experience gained in this seminar, and the influence that – directly and indirectly – Maldonado has had on the history of teaching design in Italy. The section of doctoral students’ essays opens with an essay by Pierfrancesco Califano that reconstructs how the six themes discussed in the seminar developed in Tomás Maldonado’s thought and activity.