Making Room for Design History in Belgium

In Belgium industrial design officially gained recognition relatively late. The national government recognised the potential of the ‘new’ discipline around 1955. The first proper training in industrial design arrived in 1957 in Belgium with the Section d’esthétique industrielle at the La Cambre school and it took until 1964 until the Brussels Design Centre was established. In the meantime things have changed. In the context of the federalisation of the 1990s design became an item of regional economic politics, resulting in such institutions as Design Vlaanderen (Design Flanders). In the early 21st century the former Ghent Museum of Decorative Arts (founded in the early 20th century) changed its name in Design museum Ghent. While these and other developments demonstrate the official acceptance of design as a full-blown cultural discipline, the related discipline of design history is still ‘under construction’. This article makes a first tentative attempt at reflecting on the design history research in Belgian academia of the 21st century, on the role of transnational research communities in the emancipation of design history in Belgium and on the question where to go from here.