About ICDHS

Since 1999, when the Design & Art History Departments of the University of Barcelona organized the first edition of the ICDHS, a conference has – with one exception – been organized every two years, moving to new venues across the world with two distinct aims: firstly, to discover original research activities, achievements and agendas in the fields of Design History and Design Studies; and, secondly, to include contributions coming from non-hegemonic countries active in these fields, thereby offering a speaking platform to many scientific communities that could be already active or in the process of being formed and maturing. For that reason, the ICDHS conferences are structured combining many parallel strands, including the presentation of posters, and keynote speakers drawn from a range of relevant disciplines and related fields who will lecture in response to the Conference main theme.

From Barcelona, the biennial conference has travelled across Latin America (Havana, Guadalajara, São Paulo, Bogota), Asia (Osaka, Taipei) and Europe (Istanbul, Helsinki & Tallinn, Brussels, Aveiro, Barcelona again, Zagreb). More at <http://www.ub.edu/icdhs/>.

At every venue Conference themes are as varied as the proposed strands and are always seen as important for the furthering of the discipline globally, whilst simultaneously embracing the underlying and specific thematic outlook adopted by the ICDHS, the pluralism of history.

Adopted as the title for the Istanbul Conference of 2002, the slogan “Mind the Map!” clearly summarizes the ICDHS’s field of enquiry, to redraw and enlarge the world map of design history in appropriate ways that embrace current thinking. It also includes the various territories involved in the building up of a common and easy-to-share design culture. Furthermore, conferences have explored the relationship between the global and the local, between local histories, thus becoming a worldwide referent. Every conference chooses a theme that informs tracks and strands that organise the presentation of papers. It is chosen by the ICDHS board together with local organisers. These conferences have also served to discover the various scientific communities already active in the places where the conference is held and has given them an international projection. The event is an international one whose performing has been to further the globalisation of the discipline.