He holds a MA-degree in Industrial Design from the Universidad Cardenal Herrera, Valencia (Spain) and an MA-degree on Art History from the Universidad de Valencia. He got his PhD in 2006 from the KULeuven with the dissertation “The Role of the Creative Industries in the Construction of Regional European Identities (1975-2002): Design and Fashion in Belgium and Spain.”
He was a visiting scholar in the department of Design History at the Royal College of Art (London, UK) for the year 2009-2010.His research interests encompass design and fashion as related with consumption, gender and national identity. (more)
Dr Grace
Lees-Maffei is Visiting Professor of Design History and Theory at Design Cultures (VU), reader in Design History at the University of
Hertfordshire, coordinator of the TVAD Research Group in its work on
relationships between text, narrative and image and Managing Editor of
the Journal of Design History.
Lees-Maffei’s research interests centre upon the mediation of design, through channels including domestic advice literature, corporate literature, advertising and magazines. She holds a Royal College of Art MA in Design History and a BA Hons in English Literature.
She is author of the books
Iconic Designs: 50 Stories about 50 Things, sole-edited (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, August 2014), Design at Home: Domestic Advice Books in Britain and the USA since 1945, sole authored (Routledge, Series: Directions in Cultural History, December 2013), Made in Italy: Rethinking a Century of Design, co-edited with Kjetil Fallan, (Bloomsbury Academic, November 2013), Writing Design: Words and Objects (Berg, 2011), The Design History Reader co-edited with Rebecca Houze (Berg, 2010), Designing Worlds: National Design Histories in an Age of Globalization (Berghahn, expected 2015) and Reading Graphic Design in Cultural Context: An Introduction (Bloomsbury, expected 2015).
Grace Lees-Maffei is an active member of the international design history community and has been teaching in higher education since 1995. In March 2012, Grace was appointed to the Peer Review College of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She is an Advisory Board member for The Poster (Intellect). Grace was elected Treasurer of the Design History Society from 1998-2002.
Lees-Maffei’s research interests centre upon the mediation of design, through channels including domestic advice literature, corporate literature, advertising and magazines. She holds a Royal College of Art MA in Design History and a BA Hons in English Literature.
She is author of the books
Iconic Designs: 50 Stories about 50 Things, sole-edited (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, August 2014), Design at Home: Domestic Advice Books in Britain and the USA since 1945, sole authored (Routledge, Series: Directions in Cultural History, December 2013), Made in Italy: Rethinking a Century of Design, co-edited with Kjetil Fallan, (Bloomsbury Academic, November 2013), Writing Design: Words and Objects (Berg, 2011), The Design History Reader co-edited with Rebecca Houze (Berg, 2010), Designing Worlds: National Design Histories in an Age of Globalization (Berghahn, expected 2015) and Reading Graphic Design in Cultural Context: An Introduction (Bloomsbury, expected 2015).
Grace Lees-Maffei is an active member of the international design history community and has been teaching in higher education since 1995. In March 2012, Grace was appointed to the Peer Review College of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She is an Advisory Board member for The Poster (Intellect). Grace was elected Treasurer of the Design History Society from 1998-2002.
Prof. Dr. Ginette Verstraete
is the initiator of the MA in Design Cultures. She is Professor of
Comparative Arts and Media Studies and Chair of the Department.
Verstraete’s research can be situated in the areas of cultural theory,
cultural analysis, and comparative arts and media studies, with a
thematic focus on mobility, globalization, and on intermediality. (more)
Former staff members:
He teached ‘Architecture of the Renaissance and the Baroque’, ‘Academic Skills: Written Presentation & Oral Presentation’, and supervised theses of the Design Cultures pre-master students. Van Beek also teaches at the department of History of Architecture at the University of Amsterdam. He contributes to the courses 'Building techniques and visual analysis', 'Research Skills' and 'Appropriation in Art and Architecture'. Van Beek’s research is focused on representations of architecture in the pre-modern period and general conceptualizations of space. He has been a visiting student at the Dutch University Institutes in Florence and Rome. As of July 1st, 2011, he is secretary of the Dutch postgraduate School for Art History. (more)
Irene Maldini, MA worked as teaching assistant of Design Cultures and researcher within the programme ‘Embedded Researchers in the Creative Industry’ at Waag Society. She holds a degree and post-degree in Industrial Design and has been a design practitioner and lecturer in Uruguay (EUCD/Farq/UdelaR) and Brazil (UNERJ, SC). Her current research topic involves open design and digital fabrication. (more)
Premsela, Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion, and the Faculty of Arts were supporting this chair with the aim to stimulate scientific research on the position of design in society. His specialization is Design History with a focus on the design history of The Netherlands, the innovation of interior design, the concept of evolution and commercial design. (more)
Yara Cavalcanti Araujo worked as internship and thesis supervisor, and with establishing new programmes in cooperation with other institutions in the field. Besides that she was responsible for the visual identity and communication of Design Cultures. Next to Design Cultures Cavalcanti Araujo works as an independent consultant in cultural entrepreneurship. She brings her vast experience and contacts with design, cultural, art, government and educational institutions both in the Netherlands and abroad. Until 2012 she was head of the programme Visual Art & Design Management at the Art and Economics Faculty of the Utrecht School of the Arts (Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht), where she is now lecturing visual art and design management research, positioning strategy and project management. Cavalcanti is board member of the Amsterdam Arts Council and chair of the committee Film and Dance.
Dr. Fredie Floré is lecturer on History of Architecture and specializes in the history of and discourse on issues of ‘home’, housing, interior and design in the 20th century. Floré gave lectures for the course ‘Design in Words: Criticism, Writing and Theory’. (more)
