Symposium of the German Society for Design History
Design is all around us – it shapes our everyday lives and influences what we perceive, how we interact with one another and how we shape culture. It communicates values, inspires new ideas and shapes our visions of the future. The process of creating a design can reveal just as much about the values and intentions behind an analogue or digital product as the finished result. Under the conference title “What Kind of World Did/Do We Want? On the Value of Preserving Design Knowledge”, 19 researchers and archive experts from eight countries will come together in Kronberg im Taunus on 16 and 17 October 2026 to explore how design knowledge can be preserved.
Through talks, panel discussions and guided exhibition tours, the conference will explore how the processes behind design can be documented and preserved for the future. The focus is on the values, decisions and intentions behind a design. Unlike in many other areas of culture, there is currently no established practice for systematically documenting and preserving these processes. The conference therefore examines what is worthy of being archived and how design knowledge can be preserved in the long term.
The international conference will take place at the Braun Collection as part of World Design Capital Frankfurt RheinMain 2026.
Two Days, Eight International Perspectives
The first day of the conference focuses on contributions from the German-speaking region. Topics include design theory perspectives, the challenges of digital design practice, and experiences from design, academic, cultural and business archives. At 13:20, Helge Aszmoneit, Head of the Design Library at the German Design Council, and Julia Kostial, Managing Director of the Deutsches Design Museum Foundation, will give insights into their work in their presentation “The German Design Council Archive: Preservation, Digitisation and Perspectives”. This will be followed by a Q&A and discussion.
The second day of the conference turns its attention to international design archives and archival cultures. Contributions will come from, among others, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Slovenia, Italy, Japan and Egypt. The conference languages are German and English.
The international conference is organised by the Gesellschaft für Designgeschichte e.V. in cooperation with the Dieter and Ingeborg Rams Foundation, the German Design Council, the Deutsches Design Museum Foundation, the Association of German Industrial Designers (VDID), the Braun Design Studio, the Förderkreis BraunSammlung e.V. and the Association of Business Archivists (VdW).
