Tomas Maldonado

Maldonado, Tomás 

Born May 25, 1922, in Buenos Aires. Argentine designer.

Maldonado, who was concerned primarily with the sociological and philosophical aspects of design, began working in Europe in 1954. He was a professor at a higher school of artistic design in Ulm (Federal Republic of Germany, 1954-67; rector, 1964-66) and at the Princeton School of Architecture (USA, 1968-70). In 1971 he became a professor in the faculty of letters and philosophy at the University of Bologna (Italy). From 1967 to 1969, Maldonado was the president of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID).

Maldonado was one of the principal creators of the Ulm concept, a theory of anticommercial design that, under bourgeois conditions, is somewhat Utopian. This concept advocates that, despite a number of internal contradictions, artistic design must be directed exclusively toward the use of scientific methods and must be imbued with humanistic principles.

WORKS

“Aktual’nye problemy dizaina.” Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, 1964, no. 7.
La scuola di Ulm. Milan, 1955.
Ulm: Una filosofia della progettazione. Milan, 1962.
Arte et industria. Milan, 1962.
La speranza progettuale. Turin, 1970.

REFERENCES

Kantor, K. “Vozrozhdennyi Baukhauz.” Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, 1964, no. 7.
Zhadova, L. “Vstrechi s ital’ianskirni dizainerami.” Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, 1972, no. 9.