Archetypical. Sharing values through a design experience

Since the research “Sistema Design Italia” (1998-2000), the design activity of Politecnico di Milano has been exploring creative territorial systems identifying actors and codifying processes and tools, which are activated in original and peculiar innovation development activities. Starting from the mapping of the “Made in Italy” phenomenon as a reference, Politecnico di Milano has pursued an internationalization politics aimed to the creation of a collaborative network with culturally diverse contexts in order to experience methodologies and processes and create new interpretative tools and new meanings for the contexts of reference and the related productive systems. Among the various internationalization projects, Politecnico di Milano is currently collaborating with American University of Science and Technology - Beirut, Lebanon in the fashion field. In particular, the project refers to the Lebanese fashion industry, whose creativity is already established on an international level but whose designers are educated in foreign schools. Moreover, the Lebanese industrial system does not develop a product-system strategy, which indeed is strongly characteristic for the Italian fashion system. Looking at Fashion not only as an artistic expression of a subjective creativity, but as a design field with peculiar methodology, it is possible to analyzing and codify the Lebanese cultural contents without following the classical interpretative logics set by the Humanities but rather enabling specific critical filters. If the cultural and social heritage of a specific local context is an intangible wealth that characterizes a community and its individuals, creating a collective identity and imaginary and an historical continuity, it is also true that contemporary languages and tools allow to share knowledge and experiences, revitalizing the context of origin and allowing to reach wider communities of reference and consumption. For those reasons, the proposed approach looks for a knowledge sharing dimension and a crossfertilized interpretation and not only for the verification and approval of a model, in order to train a new generation of designers that can play a key role for the development of a Lebanese design culture and, eventually, its worldwide achievement. The paper will present the process and the results of the workshop “Archetypical”, as the first step of the collaboration between PoliMi and AUST. Based on the cultural dialogue between Milan and Beirut, the workshop has read and interpreted two different fashion tradition and design approach, working on the dress, as the formal archetype par excellence, in order to offer new meanings to the Lebanese inspirations. References Bertola, P.; Sangiorgi, D.; Simonelli, G. (ed. by), (2002). Milano distretto del design [Milan Design District] (In Italian). Milan: Il Sole 24 ore. Bertola, P., & Manzini, E., (2004). Design multiverso [Multiverse Design] (In Italian). Milan: Polidesign Editore. Bertola, P.; Colombi, C. (ed. by), (2010). MetaModa. Percorsi di ricerca per il design del prodotto moda [MetaFashion. Research paths for Fashion Design] (In Italian). Santarcangelo di Romagna (RN): Maggioli Editore. Cappetta, R., Perrone, V., & Ponti, A. (2003). “Competizione economica e competizione simbolica nel fashion system” [Economical competition and Symbolic Competition in the Fashion System] (In Italian), in Economia & Management, 2, pp.73-78. Milan: Etas. Caoci, A., & Lai, F., (2007). Gli oggetti culturali [Cultural Object] (In Italian). Milan: Franco Angeli. Celaschi, F., & Deserti, A., (2007). Design e innovazione [Design and Innovation] (In Italian). Rome: Editore Carocci. Celaschi, F., (2008). “Il design come mediatore tra saperi” [Design as mediator among knowledges] (In Italian)., in Germak C. (ed. by), Uomo al centro del progetto, pp. 40-52. Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C. Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H., (1997). The knowledge-creating company. Milan: Guerini e Associati. Norman, D., (2004). Emotional Design. Milan: Apogeo. Panghaal, J., (2008). “New artisanship for new communities. Frugal Design as the way of the artisan in the new world”. International Conference Proceedings Changing the Change, Torino 10 - 12 Luglio 2008. Turin: Umberto Allemandi & Co. Rullani, E., (2004). La fabbrica dell’immateriale [Immaterial economy] (In Italian). Rome: Carrocci Editore. Sennett, R., (2008). L’uomo artigiano. [The Craftman] (In Italian). Milan: Feltrinelli. Turkle, S., (2007). Evocative Objects: Things we think with. MIT Press.