Vienna Design Week: 10-day festival gains Vienna the centre stage of the European design scene

9 de Septiembre de 2010

More than 80 events at 4th edition of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, October 1-10, 2010

For the fourth time, the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK turns the city into a showroom and laboratory for all expressions of design, presenting more than eighty events – workshops, lectures, exhibitions, presentations, and installations – as well as design tours and educational programmes. Featuring names such as Konstantin Grcic (GER) or Stefan Sagmeister (US) along with some of the most challenging young designers from Austria and abroad, the festival sets out to think global, yet explicitly embraces the local scene and scenery. Experiencing design in a Vienna style way sets VIENNA DESIGN WEEK apart from the usual festival schemata: encountering simultaneously internationality and intimacy, joie de vivre and intellect, cutting edge and old traditions.

Grand Opening at Liechtenstein Museum

Kick-off for the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK is September 30, 2010, again in the classy Palais rooms of the Liechtenstein Museum. The opening rates as the annual reunion of Austria’s creative industries. For the first time, it will also host an exhibition, “Baroque Brilliance and Stainless Steel”: Three well-known international design teams, Studio Makkink & Bey (NL), Claesson Koivisto Rune (SE) and Olgoj Chorchoj (CZ) put table culture on show that combines history and future. Utensils for gusto and for banquets, and the social facets of eating are most diversely reinterpreted. Also on display at the opening night is “WIEN PRODUCTS Collection 2010”, other highlights include the ceremony of the RADO Young Design Prize - held in Austria for the first time – and the legendary design tombola.

Exploring design, experiencing Vienna

The festival invites international experts as well as an interested public to discover design as a basic culture factor. Therefore, the concept of the curators, Neigungsgruppe Design (Tulga Beyerle, Thomas Geisler and Lilli Hollein) is based on democratic and participatory principles. Recognisable is this, for instance, in the newly developed intermediation programme, which includes workshops held by the design°mobil group, as well as bus trips developed by new partner trafo.K. The trips offer adults and teenagers the opportunity to playfully explore and critically analyse design. Within the city itself the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK leaves lasting contemporary traces, thus conforming to the Vienna Tourist Board that again is Principal Partner of the festival. This year the Vienna city district of Hernals is at the centre of attention. Here, besides various other events, Milan-based group esterni invites the public to build “everybody’s bench”, a gigantic wood bench that is set up in creative interaction with the district's residents.

Grcic and Sagmeister: Star Designers give Talks

Invited by the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, and made possible by Principal Partner “departure”, four outstanding designers come to Vienna to discuss a point of principle: Why Design? “For me, design is a mind-set, a way of looking at something, of grasping something intuitionally”, answers Gijs Bakker, founder of Droog Design. Another guest is Austrian-born Stefan Sagmeister. Six-time nominee for the Grammy, his New York based design studio won him the prestigious award twice. Apart from Sagmeister, German product designer Konstantin Grcic was won as speaker, along with French designer Inga Sempé, laureate of the City of Paris Design Award.

Passionswege: A Piece of Design History

Within the project “Passionswege” – generously supported by Principal Partner Vienna Economic Chamber - the Neigungsgruppe Design initiated co-operations between international up-andcoming young designers and old-established Viennese companies. This concept might best illustrate the festival’s notion of design as process and history, and thus authors the most exciting stories itself. For instance the story of Czech designer Daniel Posta, whose project with steelware specialist Lorenzi led him to a remote Italian mountain village, or Julia Landsiedl (AT) exploring the fabulous world of Erwin Perzy's “Original Viennese Snowglobes”. Equally exciting are the works of Nicolas Le Moigne (CH), Jessica Hansson (SE) and Mark Braun (DE) or Austrian studios KIM+HEEP, White Elephant and Vandasye.

Laboratory and Competitions: Get into Action!

In the “VIENNA DESIGN WEEK Laboratory”, designing processes can again be followed live. True to this year’s motto “Papermania”, paper is both inspiration and material. The “Laboratory Talks”, starting daily at 5.30 p.m., are supposed to be professional visitors’ chance for theoretical discourse. An interactive public competition organised by IKEA, first-time partner of the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, offers the opportunity for on-site participation. The more inventive the assembly of the design team at IKEA’s “Democratic Designers”, the higher the odds of getting picked. The results of other design contests of the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK are displayed by new partners Rado and Nespresso: both present the winning projects on their shop premises.

New and soulful: VIENNA DESIGN WEEK Lounge

Powered by “Media on Air” Partner 98.3 Superfly, VIENNA DESIGN WEEK Lounge will welcome festival visitors at Café Drechsler, open daily from 7 to 10 pm. With a special daily DJ line-up, the lounge offers the perfect place to relax while listening to Soulful Music.

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