My friend and colleague Harold Nelson pointed me towards a wonderful book "The Creative Architect -- inside the great midcentury personality study" by Pierluigi Serraino.This book presents in a beautiful way the enormous volume of research done at IPAR (Institutes of Personality Assessment, today IPSR at Berkeley) during the 1950's and 60's led by Dr. Don MacKinnon. The purpose of the research was to create a deeper understanding of creativity.
In this new book, Serraino presents the background to the studies, how they were conducted, who was involved, and the final outcomes. The core subjects of the studies were some of the most famous and influential architects in the world at the time.
It is fascinating to read about the work that MacKinnon and his large team performed and the incredibly ambitious research approach they used. They performed studies that were heavily data-oriented, quantitative and analytical, based on highly detailed and personal reporting and observations of the subjects.
The chapter of the book called "Creativity unveiled" is absolutely amazing in its profound understanding of creativity. I could not stop underlining paragraph after paragraph of insights that the research had led to. Insights that in almost every detail resonate with my own understanding of creativity and design. Everybody interested in design and creativity should read this chapter!
This book does not only present a wonderful understanding of creativity (and design), but it also shows how fast knowledge is forgotten. There are no studies of this magnitude today. The size of the study, the ambitious methods, the detailed analysis is impressive and inspiring. Unfortunately, most of these results are not used today or even referenced even though they fit extraordinary well with what a lot of research today about creativity and design.
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