01 April 2011
Official Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of KISD, Germany – May 19, 2011
The Köln International School of Design (KISD), a department of the Cologne University of Applied Sciences (CUAS), will celebrate its 20th anniversary on Thursday, May 19.
The event will start at 6 pm at KISD and look back on 20 years of successful design education. Speakers will include Prof. Dr. Joachim Metzner (President of CUAS), Anke Brunn (former NRW Minister of Science and Research), Tim Marshall (Provost, Parsons The New School for Design), the Founding Dean of the Kölner Modell, Prof. Dr. Michael Erlhoff (Professor of Design History and Research at KISD), Prof. Philipp Heidkamp (Dean of the CUAS Department of Cultural Studies and Professor of Interface Design at KISD), Prof. Jenz Großhans (Director of KISD and Professor of Design Concepts at KISD) and Prof. Wolfgang Laubersheimer (Professor of Production Technologies at KISD). The event will also include special contributions by KISD students and alumni. After the official event, all guests are invited to join the party and enjoy some Kölsch, wine, water and snacks.
To mark the 20th anniversary of KISD, the Köln International Summit on Design will take place on 20 and 21 May, starting at 10 am on May 20 under the banner of Design between Utopia and Dystopia. Expected are around 100 international guests from KISD's 20-year history. Lecturers, international design experts, students and alumni will meet on May 20 for in-depth discussions and debates in seven thematic workshops. On May 21, the workshop results will be presented and further discussed.
The design department at CUAS opened in October 1991 with its first 40 students. Since then, the Kölner Modell has been successfully established and further developed. The model programme has continually attracted a great deal of attention, not least due to its project-oriented approach, the abolition of traditional term structures and the rejection of specialism in design. Many aspects of this new approach are today part of other national and international curricula. Eleven years later, in 2002, the design department became the Köln International School of Design, today ranking among the most renowned design education institutions worldwide. This is also confirmed by BusinessWeek where KISD has been listed twice among the best international academic design institutions.
Over the years, student numbers have stabilised at around 70 newcomers each winter semester and an average of about 400 enrolled students per year. In the current academic year, a quarter of the student body are international students. The teaching staff includes 14 professors from 12 different academic fields, technical teachers as well as research assistants and technical support staff. Among the numerous guest lecturers have been many design authorities such as Tom Hardy, Jasper Morrison, David Small and Erik Spiekermann.
Based on student- and faculty-exchange programmes and joint projects, KISD cooperates with other academic institutions around the world and has been maintaining successful relationships with other renowned international institutions such as Parsons The New School for Design and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), USA, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), Musashino Art University (MAU) in Tokyo, Japan, Shih-Chien University (SCID) in Taipei, Taiwan,Glasgow School of Art (GSA) in Scotland, UK, Politecnico di Milano (Polimi) in Italy, Les Ateliers in Paris, France, and Konstfack in Stockholm, Sweden.
For 20 years, KISD has been carrying out successful cooperation projects with companies, institutions and associations. The comprehensive experience gained from these cooperations, and their successful outcomes, have served to support and secure expertise and skills and have contributed to the excellent standard of design education at KISD. Cooperating partners from recent years include: Volkswagen AG, Motorola Mobility Inc., Miele & Cie.KG, Ford-Werke GmbH, the Deutsche Telekom AG T-Labs, the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Ludwig Museum Cologne, the Koeln Messe GmbH, the Goethe Institute, the city of Leipzig, Super RTL and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
Public events, such as the KISD exhibition during the Lange Nacht der Koelner Museen that drew more than 1000 visitors, the well-received exhibition series as part of Koelner Passagen with guests from all over the world, other exhibitions, lectures and conferences at the KISD gallery space such as Designing Public and the BIRD conference as well as the obligatory Friday presentations during each term, position current KISD projects within a wider local, national and international context. At the end of each summer term, KISD presents the latest graduation projects at different venues in Cologne, such as the Cologne Museum of Applied Arts, the Spichernhoefe and at the school itself. Each October a group of KISD students organises the annual Koelner Design Preis award, sponsored by the Prof. Dr. Winkler Stiftung.
Additionally, many student projects have participated in other competitions. Awards received so far include: the GWA Junior gold award, the Koelner Design Preis, the People in Motion award sponsored by Bayer AG, the Lucky Strike Junior Designer Award, the Energie für Ideen national student competition by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and, recently, the Philips DirectLife, get fit your way service innovation award.
Dates and Venue:
Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of KISD on 19 May 2011, from 6 pm, Ubierring 40
Köln International Summit on Design on 20 and 21 May 2011, from 10.00 am, Ubierring 40
Please register now
Dipl. Des. Christina Moritz
Communication Center
Telefon +49 (0)221 8275 3606
Telefax +49 (0)221 31 88 22
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All media representatives are invited to attend.
Cologne University of Applied Sciences (CUAS) is Germany‘s biggest university of applied sciences, with around 16,600 students and 400 professors. Eleven faculties and the Institute for Tropical Technology offer some 70 courses of study in engineering and social sciences, as well as in the humanities, ranging from architecture, electrical and mechanical engineering, design, restoration and conservation, information science, languages and social work to business law and media informatics. The new Department for Applied Sciences was opened in the autumn of 2009. The university currently comprises three sites, two in Cologne and one in nearby Gummersbach. A fourth campus at Leverkusen is currently being established. CUAS is a member of the Association of European Institutions of Higher Education (EUA), of the Fachhochschulverbund UAS 7 and the NRW Innovation Alliance. The university is certified according to the EMAS Eco-Management and Audit Scheme and ISO 14001.
Köln International School of Design (KISD), a department of CUAS, ranks among the most renowned design education institutions in Europe. Since 1991, KISD has been offering a project-oriented, interdisciplinary course programme, in which design is understood as a process and where, based on a successful and established concept, new approaches are continuously being developed.