In the second year of the project, the focus was on the work and ideas of Swiss design pioneer Willy Guhl, who also designed iconic seating. Under the label "GuhlSchool", various design and cultural techniques were used to explore the designer's core themes.

On a weekend in September, the museum went into the neighborhood. At several pop-up stations on the Josefwiese in Kreis 5, people of all ages philosophized about the act of sitting, the chair as an object and its significance in everyday life. They designed seating visions in miniature, built 1:1 stools and collaboratively formed a large seating surface in a ton of clay using their whole bodies. Playful, thoughtful or hands-on: everyone was allowed to take part in Josef sitzt, with around 900 people taking part.

The neighborhood went to the museum: the seats built as part of the Josef sitzt campaign were part of the exhibitions Willy Guhl - Thinking with Your Hands and the Swiss Design Lounge for two weeks under the title Josef sitzt im Museum - Interventionen. All young and old designers were personally invited to the museum for a day of action to celebrate the interventions and to talk to each other and the museum team.

The activities of the "GuhlSchool" were the laboratory for the development of the interactive station "Thinking" in the exhibition Willy Guhl - Thinking with Your Hands (9 December 2022 - 26 March 2023) as well as for the conception of the educational program. By engaging with Willy Guhl's teaching, the museum sharpened its own profile in terms of design education. Guhl had a special design approach: he communicated his design philosophy with the help of everyday activities such as baking cakes, sowing radishes or chopping wood. According to Renate Menzi, curator of the museum's design collection and the Guhl exhibition, 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 design education.

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.