Confluences of "Good Design" in Dissimilar Design Centers: A comparative analysis of the Korea KDPC and the Argentina CIDI

Abstract

This article presents an analytical comparison between the first two design centers in Latin America and Asia during the 1960s and 1970s: the Korea Design and Packaging Center (KDPC) (1970-1991), formerly the Hanguk Gongye Design Center (Craft and Design Center, 1966-1969), and the Industrial Design Research Center (CIDI) (1962-1988) in Argentina. The article aims to highlight the relationship between these specific local events within a dynamic global context where international powers were working to expand the universalization of the industrial design profession.

The article concludes that although the two institutions have been independent, in time and space, without exchanges or meetings coinciding in the global scenario, they have shared several significant similarities. First, both countries needed to create state-supported industrial design centers during the developmentalism period. Second, these centers were the first established in Asia and Latin America, respectively. Finally, they share a couple of characteristics in their orientation; on the one hand, they were externally guided by professionals associated with the International Council o f Societies of Industrial Design ( ICSID); on the other hand, internally, they were linked to the faculty committees of the two most important public universities in their countries: the Department of Applied Arts at Seoul National University (SNU), in the case of KDPC; and the Faculty of Architecture (FAU) at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), in the case of CIDI.