Tomas Maldonado, is a painter, industrial designer, teacher and design theoritician who has been highly influential on design thinking and practice since the 1960’s.
Maldonado advocated a systematic and scientific approach towards the design process. He is best remembered as one of the radical educators at the hochschule für gestaltung in Ulm, Germany, who shifted the focus away from its Bauhaus-based beginnings towards an approach that was felt to be appropriate to deal with the complexities of post-Second World War living.
Maldonado’s ideas on design were expressed in the 1970 book ‘la speranza progettuale’,the english translation of which is entitled ‘design, nature and revolution: towards a critical ecology’.
The text focussed on the human environment, which he characterized as “one of the many subsystems that compose the vast ecological system of nature.”
Following a systems theory model, he claimed that among subsystems, “only ours possesses today the virtual and real capacity of provoking substantial – that is irreversible
-disturbances in the equilibrium of other subsystems.”
Maldonado’s own practice has included the design of medical apparatus, office equipment, precision instruments as well as aspects of the urban environment.
