Problems or Opportunities?: Overcoming the Mental Barrier for Socially Responsible Design in Turkey

Abstract

ABSTRACTAlthough industrial designers located in newly industrialized countries share similar, if not heavier, social, economic and environmental problems with their counterparts in advanced countries, not all of them have been forthcoming with original ideas or solutions to deal with them. This has been the case in Turkey, and this article seeks to reveal possible reasons for the shortage. The article argues that the process of late-comer industrialization, and the particular nature of design education as part of the modernization of the country, created a mental barrier for the Turkish design community which prevented it from developing genuine concepts and approaches in dealing with the most prominent problems. However, due to changing internal and external dynamics – such as the opening up of Turkish industry and society to global influences, and the level of technological development achieved by Turkish industry, there are signs that the Turkish design community has started to overcome this mental ba...