Anthony Dunne To Deliver the 2017 Knoll Lecture in Design at Cranbrook Academy of Art

Bloomfield Hills, Mich., January 18, 2017 – On January 26 at 6pm, Cranbrook Academy of Art will welcome critically acclaimed designer and educator Anthony Dunne for this year’s annual Knoll Lecture in Design. Dunne is currently a Professor of Design and Emerging Technology and a Fellow of the Graduate Institute for Design Ethnography and Social Thought at The New School in New York. Dunne also runs the studio Dunne and Raby with his long term partner and collaborator, Fiona Raby.

Dunne’s work with Raby uses design as a medium to stimulate discussion and debate amongst designers, industry and the public about the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing and emerging technologies. Dunne is the author of Hertzian Tales (1999, 2005) and co-author, with Raby, of Design Noir (2001) and Speculative Everything (2013). Significant projects include Technological Dream Series, No 1: Robots (2007), Designs For An Over Populated Planet: Foragers(2010), The United Micro Kingdoms (2013), and The School of Constructed Realities (2015).

Dunne will spend three days at Cranbrook during his visit, and our 3D Design department will host a special workshop with him in which our students will envision “speculative futures.” With Dunne’s guidance, students will then have a chance to directly translate theoretical ideas into working methods.

Dunne and Raby’s work has been exhibited at MoMA in New York, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and the Design Museum in London. Their work is in several permanent collections including MoMA, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts. Dunne was awarded the Sir Misha Black Award for Innovation in Design Education in 2009. In 2015, Dunne and Raby received the inaugural MIT Media Lab Award.

Prior to joining The New School, Dunne was Professor and Department Head at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London, where he set up and led the Design Interactions program. He holds a PhD in Computer Related Design from RCA.

Now in its thirteenth year, the Knoll Lecture in Design was established by Knoll, the residential furnishings company founded by Cranbrook Academy of Art student Florence Schust and her husband Hans Knoll. Each year, the endowed Knoll Lecture Fund brings to the Cranbrook campus the world’s most distinguished and innovative designers and thinkers to speak about their practice and to work with tomorrow’s design leaders studying at the Academy. Past speakers have included Martino Gamper, Bertjan Pot, Lindsey Adelman and Stefano Caggiano.

The lecture will be held in deSalle Auditorium at Cranbrook Art Museum. All lectures are included with regular Museum admission and free to ArtMembers and students with identification. Free parking is available at Cranbrook Art Museum. If the lot is full, ample free parking is available in the adjacent Institute of Science parking garage. View our complete lecture series on our website.