Symposium The Design of History and the History of Design


London College of Communication
15 September, 2025



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SpeakerS and Abstracts:

Huda Almazroua
Alberto Atalla Filho
Russ Bestley
Kevin Biderman
Silvia Bombardini
David Cross
Dora Souza Dias
Sam Gathercole
Ian Horton and Ian Hague
Jennifer Hankin
Zarna Hart
John-Patrick Hartnett
Fenella Hitchcock
Abbie Vickress and Sakis Kyratzis
Christopher Lacy
Timothy Miller
Danah Nassief
Jesse O’Neill
Nina O’Reilly
Patrick O’Shea
David Preston
Cheryl Roberts
Rebecca Ross
Antoin Sharkey
Andrew Slatter
Kate Trant
Vanessa Vanden Berghe
Judy Willcocks
Christin Yu



A symposium for UAL’s Design History research community


The Design of History and the History of Design is a one-day symposium that maps research into, through or at the boundaries of design history at UAL. While design history may underpin our teaching across different disciplines, research in design history across UAL is somewhat hidden. This symposium aims to share and make visible the work of researchers (staff and students) at all career stages across all UAL colleges.

Exploring the intersections of historical narrative and design practice, it examines how history is constructed, represented, and mediated through design, and how the discipline of design itself is shaped by its evolving historiography.

The symposium will serve as the starting point for a Design History Network at UAL, bringing together researchers from across the university. It also lays the foundation for a welcoming research community in design history, with potential for ongoing events, collaboration, publications, and curriculum development.

If you have any questions or would like to be involved in future activities, please get in touch with the convenors:

Rujana Rebernjak
r.rebernjak@lcc.arts.ac.ukTai Cossich
t.cossich@lcc.arts.ac.uk
Please also sign up for the UAL Design Histories Newsletter




    Vanessa Vanden Berghe
    Looking-beyond-Seeing: assessing the interwar interior as Mediated


    In his article for the magazine Country Life on the houses of the designer Oliver Hill (1887-1968) the architectural historian John Cornforth suggested that it was only through the experience of Hill’s domestic settings that it would be possible to get an understanding of his approach to interior design. Cornforth continued that ‘Photography, can never convey its strong imaginative quality, the combination of stylishness and spirituality, or the eccentricity and wit’.  Although the primacy of the immediate experience cannot be ignored it should not be seen as the only truthful way to gain a valid understanding of the experience of the interior, as this paper will show.

    Taking the Interwar interior as mediated through photography, this presentation seeks to move beyond the image of the interior that is understood as a two-dimensional representation and move towards the doubled interior, which Charles Rice defined as ‘an interior that is consciously understood as both an image and a spatial condition’ . Exploring images of interiors (such as those by Hill), as presented through the interwar press, this talk seeks to approach the photograph as both performative and representational, allowing the image to be treated as a valve between the interior and the exterior and facilitating an active engagement with the depicted interiors. 

    Indeed, through the paradigm of Looking-beyond-Seeing, as will be argued, we can get a closer understanding of designers’ multi-sensory design approach when the embodied presence of a user is no longer possible. Through Looking-beyond-Seeing this presentation further proposes to foreground the experience of the researcher when encountering the photographed interior as a valid supplement to the reading and study of the modern interior.



    — Vanessa Vanden Berghe


    Vanessa Vanden Berghe is a senior lecturer in Architectural and Interior Design History and Theory and is currently history and theory coordinator on the BA Interior Design at Chelsea College of Art (UAL). She studied History of Art at the University of Ghent, Belgium and received a master’s degree from the University of East London. She obtained her PhD from the Modern Interior Research Centre, Kingston University, London where she undertook a critical analysis of the interiors of the architect Oliver Hill in relation to material and immaterial design strategies.