‘All about Words’ [on Design]: On Glossolalia Project

Abstract

The title I propose alludes to Joseph Mankiewicz’ movie, All about Eve (USA 1950), although the content has nothing to do with it, neither to its plot, except in the sense that nothing is what it seems to be. ‘All about words’ concerns the Glossolalia postdoctoral research now in progress at the Faculty of Architecture, Lisbon University, under the supervision of Dennis Doordan, Fernando Moreira da Silva and Luís Manuel A. V. Bernardo, supported by a fellowship by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT). The aim of this project is to clarify and discuss a list of words (or better yet, a list of key concepts) in its usual context(s), which are fundamental for a meaningful discourse that circulates in the field of Design. There are a number of design-related dictionaries available today. Without wishing to question their usefulness, they are far from reaching the level of certain dictionaries in other fields of knowledge, which they fail to match in terms of theoretical, critical and historical reach. The success of the Glossolalia project will require the prior identification of the terms, their genealogy and the contextualization of their use (historical, philosophical, critical, theoretical, social, cultural, political, ideological…), and a critical review of what is capable of producing meaning when applied to design. With this article I intend to stress the importance of words, since everything – Design included – is ‘all about words’.