The second year of the project ran in the run-up to an exhibition on the Swiss design pioneer Willy Guhl under the label "GuhlSchool": What can we learn from Guhl's specific design practice and his method of passing on design knowledge?

As part of the "GuhlSchool", the methodological potential of design communication was explored with the pupils. Willy Guhl communicated his design philosophy using everyday activities such as baking cakes, sowing radishes or chopping wood. According to Renate Menzi, he analyzed human behavior and interactions based on non-verbal knowledge of the body and experience. As a designer, he relied on sensory perception, craftsmanship and the physical presence of objects - aspects that are also central to the museum's education.

In Design Kids Club #6: Hands on!, children experimented with numerous materials, practiced their dexterity and tested their suitability for the concept of an interactive area in the exhibition Willy Guhl - Thinking with Your Hands. The Design Kids chose to work with strings and ropes. For the museum week Willy Guhl: young and today, a test setting was set up in which all kindergarten and primary school pupils could record short videos of their hands knotting, weaving or knotting.

The ideas and findings resulting from this prototype were directly implemented in the "Thinking" station in the Guhl exhibition. The audience was invited to observe their own hands, to act in a way that was not controlled by their heads and to become aware of their own "thinking with their hands" by grasping ropes and cords.

Photos: Flurin Bertschinger

Im Rahmen des dreijährigen Outreachprojekts (April 2021 bis März 2024) öffnete sich das Museum für Gestaltung Zürich jugendgemässen Fragestellungen und Perspektiven. Im Fokus standen dabei das in der Sammlung bewahrte Kulturerbe, das Ausloten der spezifischen Potenziale von Designvermittlung sowie museologische und strategische Fragestellungen.