über die Chicago School in den USA, dem russischen Konstruktivismus, den Werkbund und das Bauhaus in Deutschland, de Stijl in den Niederlanden, bis hin zu Alvar Aalto in Skandinavien und dem postmodernen Design im Italien der 1970er Jahre. Der erste Band Figur und Grund ist bereits erschienen. Heinz Hirdina (1942-2013) - Designexperte, Chefredakteur der Zeitschrift form+zweck, Hochschullehrer an der Berliner Kunsthochschule Weißensee - steht für eine transdisziplinäre Perspektive auf die Designgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts. Heinz Hirdina is considered one of the foremost design theorists of the GDR. Together with the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, Spector Books is publishing a three-volume set of the lectures on the Theory and History of Design that Heinz Hirdina held between 1988 and 2004 when he was professor at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin. In volume 2, Hirdina examines the fundamental relationship between design and art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and ties this in with ecological design. The book juxtaposes two poles in late-twentieth century design, mapping developments in Italy and Japan. The lectures in volume 3 focus in a chronological sequence on the movements in international design since the nineteenth century: from Michael Thonet, the Chicago School in the USA, Russian constructivism, the Werkbund and Bauhaus in Germany, and de Stijl in the Netherlands all the way to Alvar Aalto in Scandinavia and postmodern design in Italy in the 1970s. The first volume Figur und Grund is already in print. Heinz Hirdina (1942-2013)-design expert, editor-in-chief of the magazine form+zweck, and professor at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin-was a key proponent of a transdisciplinary perspective on the design history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.