Congratulations for the board and all members of AIPi with the 40th anniversary.
The importance of a European organisation for the position of Interior architects / designers is distinguished by the Italian colleagues from the beginning. They took part in the field of educational standards.
The Bologna Declaration introduced a Europe-wide harmonization of educational systems, including readable and comparable degrees and adopted the Bachelor / Master system. One of the aims of ECIA is to inform and promote these systems for the education of Interior architects / designers in Europe.
In 2007 ECIA published the European Charter of Interior Architecture Training as a step in this process. A follow up will be given by the education working group in constructing a system for the recognition of schools.
For young professionals it is interesting to study and work in different countries but for the recognition of the profession it is an absolute necessity that what you can expect from an interior architect / designer is more or less the same all over Europe.
 
Most of the designs of the members from the beginning of AIPi is unknown by younger generations for the life of an interior is short. Knowing the history of a profession is important for the consciousness of the new professionals. For that reason the ECIA  started the  project  “ Oral History” where students are invited to do interviews with elder colleagues about their work and the way they worked and started their practice. This project is going on and I hope that we will get an interesting response from the Italians.

I wish AIPi a future with active members, making wonderful interiors all over Europe!

Joke van Hengstum
President ECIA