Delft University of Technology Faculty of Industrial Design

Delft University of Technology (since 1986), Faculty of Industrial Design. The Commissie van advies inzake het Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs, set up by the Dutch government in 1946, raised the question whether Delft should give courses on industrial design. They only wanted to give several lectures on the topic, but in 1953 the engineering department set up a Commission of Industrial Design, which led to a teaching task fulfilled by R.W.J. Veersema in 1957. He was succeeded two years later by G.J. van der Grinten, who became the first extraordinary professor of industrial design. The first students first arrived in 1964, taught by Emile Truijen. The first professor was Bernd Schierbeek in 1967, and two years later the independent industrial design department emerged, which was called Tussenafdeling Industriële Vormgeving and Tussenafdeling Industrieel Ontwerpen until 1986; that year it became a fully-fledged department.
The department trained engineers and offered courses on construction, ergonomics and business economics, in which the technical, methodical and theoretical aspects of design were emphasised. In discussions this education was therefore often contrasted with that of the academies, where the artistic aspects were emphasised instead. Other teachers included Wim Crouwel, Hans Dirken and Paul Mijksenaar.


The Dutch version of this biography is taken from the book Visies op vormgeving, het Nederlandse ontwerpen in teksten deel 2: 1940-2000 (2008) by Frederike Huygen. The following sources have been used for this biography:
– cat. i.o. ‘ten toon’, Delft (Afdeling Industrieel Ontwerpen TH) 1986.
– Truijen, E. ‘Brieven van een designer. Een autobiografie’, Delft 1990.