German Werkkunstschules and the Establishment of Industrial Design Education in Turkey
Introduction Istanbul has been the pioneering city for product design instruction since the inception of this academic field in Turkey. The current umbrella organization, under which industrial design instruction is governed, is the State Academy of Fine Arts. In 1972, a separate division at the Academy (the “Interior Architecture and Industrial Design” division) was formed to specifically address instruction in industrial design at higher schools and universities nationwide. The precursor and inspiration for this division was the State School of Applied Fine Arts, an industrial product design school which opened in 1957. Originally a three-year school, in 1962, the State School of Applied Fine Arts became a four-year institution and its name was changed to the Istanbul State School of Applied Fine Arts. Following the example of the State School of Applied Fine Arts, a private school for the applied arts which opened in 1968, but was taken over by the State Academy shortly thereafter (during the period in which private universities were banned in Turkey). This second applied arts school was renamed the School of Applied Industrial Arts, and included a department of industrial design until the 1980s. While the establishment of the State School of Applied Fine Arts, which forms the core of this article,1 was still in progress, the rapid developments seen in the State Academy of Fine Arts were realized thanks to the personal efforts of Önder Küçükerman, who, at the time, was head of the Interior Architecture Department. At the same time, researchers in the field considered the State School of Applied Fine Arts to be the pioneering school for industrial design training in Turkey. H. Alpay Er has observed: It can be claimed that training for industrial product design in Turkey stemmed from two main roots. One of them is the two important art schools in Istanbul: the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts and the State School of Applied Fine Arts. Although not much was written about the latter school, relatively more resources are available to study the foundation of instruction at the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts. The Istanbul root that developed from the 1 The subject of this article first was presented as “An Overview of the State Academy of Applied Arts and the Influence of German Werkkunstschules during the Establishment and Development Period of Industrial Product Design in Turkey” at “Mind the Map, Third International Conference on Design History & Design Studies” (Istanbul, July 2002, organized by the Istanbul Technical University in cooperation with the Kent Institute of Art and Design).