Holding Creativity Together: A Sociological Theory of the Design Professions

The literature on the design professions betrays a uniform assumption that a design profession, like any profession, must possess a distinct body of knowledge. Because of this default theoretical position, this literature expends much effort trying to define the putative contents of this distinct body of knowledge. But the results have been unclear, as we show below. Here we propose a different view of the ontology of a design profession: instead of an epistemological starting point, we propose a sociological distinc tiveness to the design professions which, we argue, is really their key distinguishing signature. The theoretical underpinnings of our argument derive from Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962),1 specifi cally, from the postscript he added to the 1969 edition of his book. In this postscript Kuhn first propounded the concept of the disciplin ary matrix,2 which is comprised of four components: (1) symbolic generalizations; (2) commitment to models; (3) values and ( 4) exemplars. It is this matrix that helps us map the sociological differ ences between non-design professions (medicine or accounting, for example) and design professions (architecture or industrial design, for instance). We will define "design profession" more precisely as we proceed. One might ask why look to Kuhn, since his theory deals with disciplines in the sciences and not in design? The answer is as follows. While Kuhn's 1962 theory indeed explains paradig matic shifts in scientific knowledge, the components of his 1969 matrix describe how scientific communities manage such knowl edge. In other words, the matrix made the implicit sociological elements embedded in Kuhn's original theory more explicit. Here we show that, while the components of the matrix in non-design disciplines manage domain-specific knowledge internal to a profes sion, in the design professions the same components of the matrix orient externally towards the larger culture, precisely because of the absence of explicit bodies of design knowledge. The result is that the components of the disciplinary matrix act as a kind of "sociological wrapping" around the design professions to, as it were, hold them together to achieve social identity and standing. That the extant literature on the design professions assumes domain-specific bodies of knowledge is probably due to the socio Footnotes for this article begin on page 19.