HKDI Master Lecture Series Autumn 2022

As part of our international knowledge exchange endeavour, Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) has invited a number of design experts to shed light on the current and future approaches of Swiss design across architecture, graphic, industrial, fashion and textile design as well as art and technology from their practice, teaching or research. Themed “Swiss inspiration: Swiss design today-tomorrow”, this autumn Master Lecture Series offers a deeper insight into the sometimes difficult-to-explain fascination of such a small and diverse nation that has produced so many design icons and innovations in the last century.

Key topics covered:

– Swiss Style Design

– Immersion

– Made in Switzerland

– Swiss Architecture

– Brand Design from Switzerland

– Swiss Typographic Style

– Swiss Fashion Design

– Innovative Textiles

Under each topic, there will be a 30-minute lecture (except Stunning Swiss Style Design which will also consist of a 30-minute opening ceremony), followed by a 30-minute panel discussion and Q&A session. Please scroll down for details of our amazing speaker line-up.

Enrolment is free and open to all. Free access to webinar and participation in live Q&A. All sessions will be live streamed and hosted on ZOOM. You do not need to have a ZOOM account to view the sessions, however, simply make sure you select ‘watch on the web instead’.

Once you have registered for the event, you will receive email confirmation from Eventbrite. HKDI will then send an email link for you to access the live sessions, 2 days prior to the event. Please check your spam folder as your confirmation email may be hiding.

DAY 1 | 31 October 2022, Monday | Stunning Swiss Style Design

Opening Ceremony

Opening Remarks by the Guest of Honour

Mr. Rolf Frei

Consul-General, Consulate General of Switzerland in Hong Kong

15:30 HKT (UTC/GMT+8)

Master Lecture

Prof. Michael Krohn

Professor of Design, Head of Center for Sustainability, Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland

16:00 HKT (UTC/GMT+8)

Switzerland, as a small country in the heart of Europe, cleverly used industrialization in the 19th and 20th centuries to set new standards in design and innovation. The resulting “Swiss Style” speaks of the love of detail, the intelligent integration of function and utility, and the will to transcend aesthetic boundaries and preconceptions. Over time, “Swiss Style” has become a unique synonym for a certain attitude in design that appeals to a broad audience. Today, the results are often part of collections and exhibitions as well as popular culture. This lecture seeks to provide a better understanding and insight into how this “stunning Swiss style” comes about, what the foundations are and how we intend to deal with future challenges in education, production and the market.

DAY 2 | 1 November 2022, Tuesday | Immersion in the Age of Anxiety

Prof. Dr. Chris Salter

Professor for Immersive Arts and Director of the Immersive Arts Space, Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland

16:30 HKT (UTC/GMT+8)

In the post-pandemic period of isolation and anxiety, immersive experiences seem to be demanded more than ever. But if the history and practices of “immersion” in the arts/design have long focused on the senses being transformed through melding them with technologies embedded into the actual physical world, the next wave of immersion seeks the opposite: to capture the senses in order to render a synthetic world that is “realer” than the physical one. This lecture will discuss the role of immersive technologies within the research context of the Swiss and international art and design landscape.

DAY 3 | 2 November 2022, Wednesday | Made in Switzerland

Prof. Michael Krohn

Professor of Design, Head of Center for Sustainability, Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland

16:30 HKT (UTC/GMT+8)

This lecture will provide a deeper insight into current design culture and production in Switzerland. It sheds light on people, products, institutions, companies, projects, but also on how designers currently interpret the word “made”. In a global market, “made” has more meaning than just “produced”. “Made” means a creative and innovative understanding that goes hand in hand with a certain aesthetic, or rather a “design” attitude. Production is therefore not limited to a tangible result or product.

DAY 4 | 3 November 2022, Thursday | Contemporary Swiss Architecture, Condensed Programmes and Functions in Change

Anne Uhlmann

Co-Owner of Birchmeier Uhlmann Architekten, Switzerland

16:30 HKT (UTC/GMT+8)

The densification of cities and their social changes require constant reinterpretations of function and programme. Monofunctional residential buildings are evolving into hybrid programmes and diverse living spaces, schools into learning workshops and meeting places and hermetic museum buildings into open cultural spaces. Using some current examples we show how buildings and programmes in Switzerland are evolving sustainably and responding to social changes as well as enriching architectural discourse and reviving architectural utopias.

DAY 5 | 4 November 2022, Friday | Brand Design from Switzerland – a Brand Story

Peter Vetter

Emeritus Senior Lecturer and Researcher, Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland

16:30 HKT (UTC/GMT+8)

The relationship between innovation and design, but also the longevity of brands is an interesting question that is still of great relevance today. The famous Swiss graphics, or “Swiss Style” as it was later called, on the one hand was made possible by the successful industry but on the other hand is also to be understood as an important part of the market success. This interrelationship will be examined in the present study and explained by means of contemporary as well as historical examples.

DAY 6 | 7 November 2022, Monday | Swiss Typographic Style

Sandra Bischler

Research Associate, Academy of Art and Design Basel, Switzerland

16:30 HKT (UTC/GMT+8)

This lecture will show how “Swiss Style” – attributed as neutral, precise, and functional – emerged and how it found its way into design history surveys. The speaker will shed light on famous Swiss designers such as Emil Ruder and Max Bill, look at groundbreaking posters, magazines, and type designs and examine the underlying theories of this approach. She will also touch upon lesser-known oeuvres and the numerous blank spaces of the “Swiss Typography” narrative which have just recently become the focus of scholarly discussion.

DAY 7 | 8 November 2022, Tuesday | Sustainable Swiss Fashion Design

Isabela Gygax

Artistic-scientific Associate, Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland

16:30 HKT (UTC/GMT+8)

A crucial element of garment production is the use of resources. Current conventional sourcing methods too often involve various catastrophic exploitation. The speaker will introduce viable solutions from three Swiss fashion brands: fin-project, QWSTION and Rafael Kouto. These three brands operate within different style and price sectors and have come up with inspiring ways to produce products that embrace sustainable values without greenwashing.

DAY 8 | 9 November 2022, Wednesday | Innovative Textiles in the New Era

Dr. Verena Ziegler

Research Associate, Interaction Design Department, Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland

16:30 HKT (UTC/GMT+8)

The speaker will introduce her research on blended performative processes and practices (resonance, affect and matter) with feminist queer and postcolonial theories that propose a new ontological queer-paradigm: the post-digitalturn – Crafting 4.0. This paradigm comprises the physical dimensions of spatio-temporal engagement. It reconceptualizes digital technology through experiences of the human body and its senses, and thus emphasizes generative design as a form-giving process, engagement and practice rather than as symbolic, disembodied rationality.