Maritime Design. Past – Present – Future

05.05–31.05

Maritime Design. Past – Present – Future
Presented by Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk
Curator – dr. Pawel Gelesz

The exhibition is a retrospective showing wide range of students and diplomants activities in maritime design program at Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. The main goal is to show a continuity of naval didactic program during last 50 years.

The exhibition includes students projects – starting form vintage ones made in early 60-ies and ending with one of the latest (currently under development) Master’s Degree project. The purpose of this exhibition, in addition to the archival collection, is also education of present and future students. That is why it includes a number of examples of various forms of development and presentation of projects – from timeless hand made ship’s silhouette drawings, sketches, models – till already emerging in the digital era computer visualizations initially quite simple, but currently – rather realistic.

Contemporary discourse dealing with naval architecture is rare – probably because it remains elite, hermetic design discipline, moored away from main streamsof design. One of the main promoters of modern naval architecture, Peter Quartermaine, believes that “(…) ships are often seen as a mere pieces of floating technology, impressive in the way, but not worthy of the serious debate according to “real” architecture, despite their scale, function and attention to detail. That ships have not received due attention, and so have not accumulated a body of informed aesthetic appreciation outside specialist journals (themselves mostly concerned with technical and safety matters) perpetuates the neglect”*.

The exhibition is an attempt to fill at least some of these neglects and present uniqueness and significance of this design sphere.

Exhibition will be held until 31^st of May.

* P. Quartermaine, Building on the sea. Form and meaning in modern ship architecture, National Maritime Museum, 1996, p. 9