5
The Scandinavian Group and the Design in Ireland report Joanna Quinn
Left: Male and Female candleholders, cast iron, Oisín Kelly, Waterford Ironfounders, 1967.
In early February 1962 the Irish newspapers were full of indignant references to “invading... 1 2 Norsemen” and “Godless Scandinavians”. The furore had been caused by the publication of a report by a group of Scandinavian designers invited the previous year to conduct a survey of the state of design in Ireland by William H Walsh, general manager of Córas Tráchtála Teo (CTT/ The Irish Export Board). On the day the Design in Ireland report was published, 3 February, it was described as a “bombshell” by Senator E A McGuire, president of the Federated Union of Employers, in an interview with the Irish Press. The painter Sean Keating, a professor at the National College of Art, said in the same newspaper that it should not have been given to the press but seen only by those who requested it. Such responses were hardly surprising: the Scandinavian Group had been highly critical of design education in Ireland. The five Scandinavian designers who spent over two weeks in Ireland in April 1961 had impressive credentials. Kaj Franck was head
1 2
Irish Independent, February 15 1962, p 10.
of design at the Arabia ceramics factory in Finland and art director at the Finnish School of Industrial Arts. He was joined by Åke Huldt who had been involved with a 1956 Irish design exhibition and was director of the Swedish Design Centre, Svensk Form. Three colleagues from the Royal Academy in Copenhagen joined them: Erik Herløw, an architect and professor of industrial design; Gunnar Biilmann Petersen, professor of graphic design and typography; and Erik Christian Sørensen, professor of architecture. Paul Hogan of CTT’s Design Section arranged for them to visit the few studio potteries and ceramic factories that were in existence, textile, carpet and glass factories, small weaving and tweed producers and colleges of art, technology and architecture around the country. The subsequent report, Design in Ireland, or the Scandinavian Report as it was more generally known, was to cause controversy and debate regarding design education, reform and adaptation in Ireland for the next ten years.
Turpin, John (1986), ‘The Irish Design Reform Movement of the 1960s’, Design Issues, vol 3, part 1, p 12.