Development, Part 3c
Design
is Politics
Glen Mills’ excellent, short, 2006 Business Day article “Thinking out of
the matchbox” (attached, and linked below) briefly summarised the general situation
in South African housing at that time.
There is still no public discussion of design, except at the “Top Billing”
level of snobbery and eclecticism, or otherwise at the level of the most banal
and hopeless utilitarianism.
Mills’ article brings out this vital question of design. His argument is
true, and tragic.
Design is the politics and the propaganda of the eye, and the enabler of
freedom. It is the politics that is lived in, as opposed to being merely read
or spoken.
Design is terribly impoverished in South Africa. This part of our politics
has been neglected.
On 30 January 2012, Glen Mills published another article in Business Day,
under the headline “Informal settlements could be our cities of the future”. It
has been added to our discussion document.
In the next part, we look at the rural side of things.
Image: “Plug-In City”
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: Thinking out of
the matchbox, Glen Mills, Business Day.
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