Vienna Design Week 2020, festival campaign – Image by Bueronardin. All photos: © Kollektiv Fischka and Vienna Design Week.
Design – “Today, more than ever, design is in a position to demonstrate both the role that it can play in society as a discipline and the positive influence that it can exert through the development of the tools and processes that we will need in the future.” Says Lilli Hollein, director of Vienna Design Week. We rounded up some of the must-see exhibition on show.
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The venues
Vandasye, DESIGN EVERYDAY – © by Maria Noisternig.
Every year, Vienna Design Week explores takes over the city but also explore a particular neighborhood: this year the focus is on Meidling, a traditional working-class district located just southwest of the city centre. “With its mixture of traditional structures and dynamically developing neighborhoods, of residential, transport and industrial usage and densely and less-densely built areas, the district appears almost predestined to be a design laboratory.” Explain at Vienna Design Week.
SPIELWERK installation by TU Wien University – © Stefanie Freynschlag.
The Festival Headquarters [12, Theresienbadgasse 3 – 25.9–4.10, daily 11am–8pm] is located in the Amtshaus Theresienbadgasse in Miedling. For ten days, two stories of the former administrative building, are flooded with a selection of high-quality design projects. The DESIGN EVERYDAY exhibition and pop-up café brings together outstanding examples of contemporary Austrian product for daily use by EOOS, Inseq Design, Mischer‘traxler studio and more.
Works by students and graduates from Austrian, Swiss and Slovakian Universities are on show at Mielding, a former solarium on one of the main routes into the city. [12, Schönbrunner Straße 271, 25.9–4.10, daily 11am–8pm].
Passionwege
12, Theresienbadgasse 3 – 25.9–4.10, daily 11am–8pm.
© Kramar.
To mark its 15th anniversary, the Passionswege format which invites designers to ream up with Vienna’s craft-based businesses, presents at the Festival Headquarters a retrospective completely devoted to the delights of the collectively created objects. On show bespoke collaborations including Max Lamb with J. & L. Lobmeyr, Tomás Alonso with Wiener Silber Manufactur, Marco Dessí with Porzellanmanufaktur Augarten and Martino Gamper with J. & L. Lobmeyr.
Souvenir of Loneliness
12, Theresienbadgasse 3 – 25.9–4.10, daily 11am–8pm.
© Phillip Podesser.
Anna Zimmermann and Nadja Zerunian join forces to present nine objects, hand made from bronze, stone and glass, that embody the feeling of loneliness. The objects – so big (or small) that one can simply carry them away like souvenirs – act as mementoes of a feeling that is quickly forgotten as soon as one believes that one has overcome it. On show at the Festival Headquarters.
Naturphilia
12, Vivenotgasse 30/1/4 – 25–27.9+1–4.10, Thu–Sun., 11am–7pm.
© Phillip Podesser.
Gritty, wild stuff, is how Schloss Hollenegg for Design and mischer’traxler studio describe the tangible objects that their investigations of the role of design and its relationship with our natural environment have uncovered for the exhibition NATURPHILIA. All of the works on show strive to find a balance between the natural and the artificial, between the technological and the ecological.
Missing Link. A new type of furniture
“Die Zuckerbäckerin”, grätzlhotel 12, Rosaliagasse 3 – 25.9–4.102020, 12pm–8pm.
© Phillip Podesser.
“There is furniture for sitting on, there is furniture for lying on – but there is hardly any furniture for leaning on. This is astonishing. For who has never leant on a tree, a kitchen, or a wall?” Says Viennese designer Walter Grill who has been designing pieces of furniture for precisely this posture. Sure: One could simply build a sloping wall, but this wouldn’t necessarily be mobile.
Guest Country 2020: Switzerland.
12, Theresienbadgasse 3 – 25.9–4.10, daily 11am–8pm.
CASINO BERN TABLETOP BISTRO by crisp-id – © Phillip Podesser.
Switzerland is this year’s guest country. The DESIGN SWITZERLAND exhibition at the Festival Headquarters features 9 studios and startups sharing a common vision of impactful design, be it ecological, social, or cultural. Some example? The CASINO BERN TABLETOP BISTROBAR by studio crisp-id combines versatility and sophisticated materials with local and fair production while INT studio’s INTERACTIVE REPLICAS allows to interact with museum objects thanks to 3D printing and digital design.
NOV and OKRO Galleries, SWISS CRAFTLAB – © Kramar.
Also at the Festival Headquarters, the NOV and Okro galleries from Eastern and Western Switzerland present a selection of emerging and established Swiss design studios as part of their SWISS CRAFTLAB exhibition.
Urban Food & Design
12, Theresienbadgasse 3 – 25.9–4.10, daily 11am–8pm.
EMBODIED BACTERIA ENCOUNTERS by Anastasia Eggers + Philipp Kolmann, Performance – © Kramar.
How the production, distribution and consumption of food can also be organized to be brutally local in the period both during and after COVID-19? Five selected projects responding to a challenge launch by Vienna Design Week earlier this year are on show at the Festival Headquarters. From aquaponic kits to reimagining grardening as a sport and project are devoted to subjects such as the sharing economy, the circular economy and social participation.
Gender Sensitive
Festival Branch Solarium 12, Schönbrunner Straße 271 – 25.9–4.10, daily 11am–8pm.
Lisa Berger at GENDERSENSIBEL by New Design University St.Polten – © Nikolaus Korab.
What is the relationship between the designed environment and our understanding of gender roles? Which design strategies can lead to the development of diverse, gender-neutral and gender-specific products? From gentlemen’s engagement rings to reflecting objects that alter our sense of perception and ironic breaks with the “tradition” of the pin-up calendar. Projects by students of the New Design University St. Pölten trigger explore gender issues such as body image or unequal pay.
Studio of Experimental Design, Academy of Fine Arts and Design Bratislava – VISITORS – LOST IN THE DIGITAL ERA – © Stefanie Freynschlag, Kollektiv Fischka.
