“A new profession in Israel - Product Design”

 The establishment initiations to promote the profession between 1956- 1975

 Thesis Submitted for the M.A. degree at Tel Aviv University By Hadas Kruk, June 2003

 Prepared under the instruction of Prof. Gideon Toury

“A new profession in Israel - Product Design”

 The establishment initiations to promote the profession between 1956- 1975

This work deals with one aspect of the development of the substance and esthetic culture in Israel, the aspect of the field of product design. Products have always been designed but the early stages of this field as a professional discipline in Israel were in the mid 50’s.

The manner of which this field was developed is a clear test case of the planning of the initiated culture, established in its base, deployed over two decades, from the mid 50s to the mid 70s. This profession did not develop naturally, as a response to the market’s needs, nor as a result of the industry’s needs and also not out of the tradition of artists and crafts people. This profession was imported from the American culture, Western Europe culture as a special American assistance program to promote this industry in Israel. Also by importing models and searching for ways to bring them to several kinds of audiences.

This work will present the initiations and the institutions that promoted design between the years 1955-1975, their affect and implications in the field of design, which is growing rapidly in Israel.

First I will review the early trials to establish this profession in Israel and the process of setting-up the first professional product design institutes. This process presents the interaction between agents of change from several cultures, cultures of “origin”, of the United States and of Western Europe and the “objective” Israeli audience. I will examine the strategy of the action measures that were taken, as well as the level of success of the actions.

The agents that came from abroad in order to pass on the repertoire of design had a limited amount of time of which to stay here. One of their goals was to get together a group of local agents that will continue their mission once they leave.

I will look into the period of time that a local community of designers came about; the profession of product design has already been inserted among people of the establishment, these people worked to bring it to the industry and to the consumers.

This work deals with the success and failure of planning the culture, it seems as if there is a case of planning a failed culture since the initiations failed one after another, the Institutions shut down, the activities stopped and new ones did not come about.

However, since the theoretical frame of this work is based on the cultural perception as a dynamic system that each action in it affects all the other systems, and also have interrelationship, I will look into the cultural planning in the larger frame of the relations and the effect on the different systems in the field of design.