Bernese Design Foundation
Contact: info@bernerdesignstiftung.ch
Website: https://www.bernerdesignstiftung.ch/
The Bernese Design Foundation promotes, communicates and collects. With its wide range of activities and offers in the field of design, the foundation is a unique institution in Switzerland. Twice a year, it awards grants to professional designers from the Canton of Bern and showcases their projects in its annual BESTFORM exhibition. Through this exhibition, studio visits and other events, as well. It also maintains and expands the cantonal collection of applied art, which dates back over 150 years.
Field of activity, interests: Design, design promotion, collecting, design dissemination
Jonas Berthod
Contact: hello@jonasberthod.ch
Website: https://jonasberthod.ch
Dr Jonas Berthod is a researcher, lecturer and deputy to the Research and Development sector at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne (HES-SO), where he has been teaching since 2013. Based in London, he also serves as a lecturer at Kingston School of Art and co-organizes the yearly exhibition Behind the Books. He previously worked as a graphic designer in London and Switzerland.
Field of activity, interests: graphic design history
Sébastien El Idrissi
Contact: mail@seis.studio
Website: https://seis.studio
Sébastien El Idrissi (*1989) is a Swiss industrial designer based in Zurich. With a profound fascination for the subtle quality of certain objects, El Idrissi engages in projects involving furniture, appliances and exhibitions. Being convinced that design can be a tool for positive change in any industry, he works for a versatile group of local and international clients.
El Idrissi graduated from ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne and holds an MAS in history of design from ETH Zürich. Since founding his own practice in 2019, his work has been exhibited and recognized internationally, most notably as part of Milan Design Week, London Design Festival or 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen. In 2024 El Idrissi’s work entered the permanent collection at the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich and received a Good Design Award in Chicago.
Fiel of activity, interests: Industrial Design, Furniture Design, History of Design
Meret Ernst
Contact: me@mereternst.ch
As a curator at the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Dr Meret Ernst combines academic work with critical practice. From 2016 to 2024, she lectured on design history and theory at the HGK FHNW Basel. In 2016, she initiated the exchange of all circles interested in design-historiographical issues in Switzerland and was co-founder of the NDG in 2019. From 2011 to 2024, she was Vice President of the Swiss Design Association. From 2003 to 2020, she was head of the culture and design editorial team at Hochparterre. She is Co-President NDG with Mònica Gaspar.
Field of activity, interests: Design history of Switzerland; history of industrial design, visual communication, scenography; film studies; curatorial practice; design criticism; creative economies; Swiss professional and educational policy
Mònica Gaspar Mallol
Contact: mgaspar@bluewin.ch
Website: https://hslu.academia.edu/MònicaGaspar
Mònica Gaspar is a curator, author and lecturer. She researches craft and design as critical practices. Her work focuses on redefining the ‘applied’ as a speculative and socially relevant field of action. She gave the 25th Peter Dormer Lecture (RCA, London) entitled ‘Like Oil and Water: Experiments with Craft and Theory’. She has positioned herself internationally through curated exhibitions, publications, contributions to panel discussions and the organisation of academic conferences. She is a lecturer in Design Theory and Craft Studies at the HSLU (Design Film Art) in Lucerne. Co-President NDG with Meret Ernst.
Field of activity, interests: Design histories, craft theories, curatorial and exhibition studies, feminist and decolonial perspectives in design and craft, jewellery as politics (body, object, identity)
Cyril Kennel
Contact: hello@cyrilkennel.com
Website: https://www.cyrilkennel.com, https://postmoderne.ch
Cyril Kennel is a design and architecture historian. After his first degree at the Zurich University of the Arts, he completed a Master of Research on the Arts at the Faculty of Philosophy and History at the University of Bern with a thesis on postmodern design and architecture criticism.
He teaches cultural history seminars with a focus on design and architecture at the Zurich University of the Arts and design history and theory at various higher technical colleges.
Since 2021, he has been researching postmodern everyday architecture in German-speaking Switzerland.
Field of activity, interests: design history, architecture history, everyday architecture, history of the design education, kitsch, postmodernism.
Agnès Laube
Contact: info@agneslaube.ch
Website: www.agneslaube.ch
*1964 in Lengnau (AG); commercial apprenticeship; Graphics class at the Zurich School of Design (now ZHdK); own studio in Zurich since 1991 (various print and web projects); specializing in signage/archigraphy (lettering on buildings) since 1998. Head of MA Communication Design from 2011-2015 at Bern University of the Arts; 2015/16 further training in journalism; lecturer in graphic design and illustration history at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences since 2004. various Exhibitions; various specialist articles for Hochparterre, Buch&Maus and other media. Self-employed again since 2016: communication projects (publications/web), primarily in the building cooperative sector.
Field of activity, interests: Communication projects (publications, websites); texts/editing; signage/archigraphy; teaching (graphic design and illustration history); journalism. Consultancy and jury work.
Francis Müller
Contact: francis.mueller@zhdk.ch
Website: https://trendsandidentity.zhdk.ch/
personen/team/dr-phil-francis-mueller/
Francis Müller is a theory expert and lecturer in Trends & Identity, where he specializes in design ethnography. He is the author of several publications, including “Design Ethnography: Epistemology and Methodology”, published by SpringerBriefs in Anthropology (2021). Müller holds teaching positions at the University of St. Gallen (HSG), at universities in Mexico City and Barcelona as well as a visiting professorship at the Universidad Católica in Santiago de Chile. His research interests include disability in Angola, mental health and digitality, and dying and death.
Field of activity, interests: Design ethnography, design theory, symbolic interactionism, things, religion, consumption, identity, demographic change, old age, dying and death.
Contact: franziska.nyffenegger@zhdk.ch
Website: www.franziska-nyffenegger.ch
Studied ethnology, Spanish literature, and journalism at the University of Zurich (lic.phil.I); doctorate in cultural anthropology at the University of Basel. Many years of professional experience as a PR manager in book publishing houses, freelance interpreter, translator, and editor. Since 2008 lecturer in design theory and design history at the Zurich University of the Arts; 2008-2014 lecturer and research project manager at the Lucerne School of Art and Design.
Field of activity, interests: designethnography, material culture, writing in and across design
Ariana Pradal
Contact: ariana@pradal.ch
Website: www.pradal.ch
Ariana Pradal studied industrial design at the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK. After gaining experience in various design offices, she worked as an editor at Hochparterre, Werk Bauen und Wohnen and Sonntag. Today she works as a journalist, curator and lecturer in the fields of building culture, design and related fields. She teaches at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, is a member of the board of trustees of the Ikea Foundation Switzerland and is a co-founder of the Network for Design History (NDG) and the Swiss Interior Design Archive (ai-s). To expand her knowledge, she is currently completing the MAS in History and Theory of Architecture at ETH Zurich.
Field of activity, interests: Building culture, design and related fields from antiquity to the present day.
Heike Schmitz-Esser
Contact: heike@schmitz-esser.ch
Website: https://enthusiastic-approval.com
Economist as well as founder and managing director of the design gallery ENTHUSIASTIC APPROVAL, Zurich. After graduating from the University of Fribourg (CH) in 1996 with a degree in economics and working for many years as a financial analyst in international risk management at Swiss Re, Heike Schmitz-Esser decided to give more space to her enthusiasm for design, architecture and art. She completed trainings at SIK-ISEA / ZHdK in Zurich, HKB in Bern and Christie’s (London). In 2017, she founded the gallery ENTHUSIASTIC APPROVAL and has since been active in the trade of 20th century design objects, as well as research and education.
Johannes Stieger
Contakt: stieger@studio-das.ch
Website, links: www.studio-das.ch
Johannes Stieger studied industrial design in Zurich and runs an office for scenography and design in St.Gallen. He likes to work collaboratively and with a keen eye for social and ecological contexts on behalf of mainly non-commercial institutions. Johannes was co-editor of the “Ostschweizer Kulturmagazin Saiten”, is a member of the board and program group of the concert venue Palace and was involved in the development of the Industrial Design HF course at the St.Gallen School of Design, where he taught conception, design and drawing and juried diploma theses.
Field of work, interests: Exhibitions, furniture, public space, niches, drawing, product language, design criticism, anonymous design
Guido Tenti
Contact: urologie.bethanien@hin.ch
Website: https://www.urologiebethanien.ch
Married since 1992, proud father of two grown-up daughters, one of whom is on the board of the “Design History Network”
Doctor since 1994, operative urologist since 2004 (mainly oncosurgery)
Field of activity, interests: Classical modernism
Sabina Tenti
Contact: sabite@bluewin.ch
Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabina-tenti-39a289225/?originalSubdomain=ch
Sabina Tenti is a young art historian with a special interest in the history of design and architecture. During and after her bachelor’s degree in art history and German Literature, she gained initial practical experience at the Landesmuseum Zurich, ZAZ Zentrum Architektur Zurich, gta Archive ETH Zurich and Museum für Gestaltung Zürich. As part of her master’s thesis in Art History, she engaged with the estate of interior designer Martha Huber-Villiger at the gta Archive. Currently, she is employed as a registrar in the collections of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, conducting tours of the exhibition or Schaudepot, and is involved in the board of the NDG.
Field of activity, interests: History of art, design and architecture, museum institutions, museum collections, archive work, text production, exhibition curation, art education
Katharina Tietze
Contact: katharina.tietze@zhdk.ch
Katharina Tietze has been a professor at the Zurich University of the Arts since 2006, where she heads the Trends & Identity program. She grew up in East Berlin, studied fashion design at the Berlin University of the Arts and then worked as a costume designer. In addition to teaching, she conducts research on the history of fashion in the context of everyday culture and identity.
Field of activity, interests: Fashion history and theory, design history, everyday culture, style and identity
Trends & Identity, Department Design, Zurich University of the Arts
Contact: info.trendsandidentity@zhdk.ch
Website: https://trendsandidentity.zhdk.ch
Trends & Identity analyzes trends, surveys identities and reflects on lifestyles as well as digital and material cultures. The department trains designers who critically and passionately shape social change. The theoretical examination of design history and cultural studies and sociological theories is just as much a part of the course of studies as the application of ethnographic methods.
Field of activity, interests: Design, Trend Research, Ethnography
Darja Unold
Contact: darja.unold@me.com
Website: www.darjaunold.net
Born in 1986, grew up in Landquart. Lives and works in Zurich.
2002 – Year abroad: attended art school in Liepaja, Latvia
2004 – Vorkurs, F+F Schule für Kunst und Design, Zurich 2007 – Diplom Kunst HGK, FHNW, Basel 2015 – CAS Brand Design, HSLU, Lucerne
Field of activity: Fine arts
Interests: Social design, design history: archives, collections, production processes
Peter Vetter
Contact: p.vetter@coande.com
Website: www.coande.com
Peter Vetter is a designer and partner of Coande, Communication and Design, and specializes in strategic consulting as well as brand and identity development for companies and institutions. He has gained his extensive experience in Italy, Germany, USA, Japan, and China and has worked for companies such as BMW, ABB, Clifford Chance, IBM and in the public sector for the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Zentrum Paul Klee, and the City of Rapperswil Jona. His teaching activities include the management of Visual Communication at the Zurich University of the Arts (BA, MA) as well as international engagements in Europe, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Mozambique, and China.
Field of activity, interests: Visual communication, graphic design, visual design, communication, economics, innovation, design methods, history, and culture of design
David Walsh
Contact: info@davidwalsh.ch
Website: www.davidwalsh.ch, @daviddanielwalsh
David Walsh (*1996) grew up in Marbach SG and is a Swiss industrial designer who collaborates closely with a diverse group of national and international clients across all levels of industrial production. After completing his apprenticeship in graphic design in Chur, he went on to study industrial design at the Zurich University of the Arts. Before opening his own studio in Zurich in 2022, he worked at renowned design offices in New York and Copenhagen. His focus is on fostering a sustainable relationship between objects, people, and the environment within the design context.
Field of activity, interests: Furniture design, object design, exhibition design, design history
Robert Wettstein
Contact: robert.wettstein@gmx.ch
Website: www.wettstein.ws
Robert Wettstein is a designer based in Zurich. He is active in the fields of product, lighting, and furniture design. Robert is involved in the design community and is a member of the board of the Design Biennale, and of the Design History Network in Zurich.
Robert runs a small monothematic museum on the Landistuhl by Hans Coray, which can be visited on request.
Field of activity, interests: Design and production of furniture. Lecturer ZHdK, Landistuhl Museum,
Interests in: History and culture of design, art history, craftsmanship.
Sara Zeller
Contact: sara.zeller@gmx.net
Curator at the Museum für Gestaltung (Museum of Design), Zurich
Field of activity, interests: History of art and design