Better by Design: Students learn to form the future

[MosJan]

Better by Design: Students learn to form the future

 

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By Ashot Gareginian

ArmeniaWeek reporter

Six students at Yerevan's Engineering University will launch a new discipline in Armenia when they graduate next summer.

 

They will be the first to qualify with a degree in industrial design, making available to local businesses skills and ideas that are regarded as essential for success in a modern market economy.

 

Gevorg Poghosian, Dean of the Department of Industrial Design, says: "We prepare specialists who can make connections between industry and their customers in the market.

 

"Many people here believe that Armenia does not need this speciality at present. But we insisted on having it and I know that we are right."

 

Liana Gevorkian, one of the final year students, is busy constructing a model of a personal computer as part of her design course.

 

"I heard about this new department from acquaintances and I don't regret at all that I enrolled here," she says.

 

Her classmate Tatevik Khachikian is also enthusiastic about being a pioneer of a new discipline, describing her course as "technical creation".

 

Neither student knows yet where they will be working once they graduate. But they hope to secure employment with local Armenian enterprises.

 

In a world where goods can be produced easily and cheaply, design can be the deciding factor in whether one product is more successful with consumers than rivals in the marketplace.

 

It can be especially important for countries such as Armenia, which have few sources of raw materials and must rely on manufacturing for economic success.

 

The students consider they are being well prepared by the department's staff. In particular, the course gives them an opportunity to study AutoCad, a modern engineering-design program.

 

The industrial design department opened in 1998. There are a total of 50 students at present, enrolled on a four-year course for which tuition costs $250 annually.

 

Administrators are seeking placement opportunities for their students to gain work experience during their studies. They received a list of potential partners after talks with officials at the Ministry of Industry and Trade last week.

 

"It would be useful for businessmen themselves, because it is impossible to develop an economy without industrial design," says Poghosian.

 

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"People here generally associate design only with theatrical staging. But industrial design is no less important in other aspects of life.

 

"In my opinion, it can help to avoid political shocks that spring up as a result of controversies between labour and capital."

 

Many of the ideas of modern industrial design trace their roots to Germany in the early 20th Century through the theories of the "Werbund" and "Bauhaus".

 

An exhibition of American design held in Moscow in 1962 provided a major impetus for the development of similar studies in the Soviet Union, then in its "thaw" years under Nikita Kruschev following the Stalinist tyranny.

 

"I visited this exhibition," says Professor Robert Sahakian, one of the lecturers at the industrial design department, "and I remember what a shock we felt.

 

"It turned out that cars could be painted in various colours, and that kitchen furniture could be organized in ways that allowed women to move around as comfortably as possible."

 

Designer Kenjo Ekuan, President of the Japanese Designers Union, is an influence on the Armenian school. His portrait hangs in the department's main lecture hall.

 

Ekuan once wrote: "The connection between human beings and things is inconceivable without the intermediate link - design, just as a connection between man and woman without love is precarious."

 

With their work, designers produce not simply things but ways of living that didn't exist before. Hence their importance to the modern market economy.

 

A new organization established by Poghosian, ArmConceptDesign, hopes to do more to educate the public about the importance of good industrial design in Armenia.

Photos by Karen Minassian

 

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