The spotlight was pointed at this Dutch city again when from 23 to 31 October it played host to the country's most eagerly awaited design event, now in its ninth year. With a population of approximately 200,000 and an industrial past indissolubly bound to Philips, Eindhoven occupies a prominent position on the international design scene, mainly because it is the home of the Design Academy, a school that has trained a multitude of young talents over the last 20 years. Approximately 300 events scattered around 60 locations showcased the work of 1,500 designers, a remarkable quantity that – despite the number of enthusiastic people that participated in an atmosphere sometimes reminiscent of Milan's Fuori Salone at Zona Tortona and despite several exhibitions charging for admission – gelled around a dozen major top-quality events in the city centre and the former industrial zone known as the Strijp. These included institutional events such as a retrospective on the renowned Ittala designer Oiva Toikka and the Dutch Design Awards, fresh and alternative events centred on works by young people.

What was new in Eindhoven? Architecturally speaking and independent of Dutch Design Week, visitors could admire a retail building and indoor bicycle park designed by the architect Massimiliano Fuksas, set right in the heart of the old city centre, a few steps from Gio Ponti's de Bijenkorf department store and opposite the Witte Dame, or white lady, a former industrial building that, among other things, is home to the Philips design offices and the Academy. On the new spaces and interior-design front we saw the central Art Hotel, part of the Best Western Premier group, and Piet Hein Eek's new building. Two contrasting but related general trends emerged, perhaps in response to the recession: the design proposals centred on concrete and pragmatic solutions, on the one hand, and on philosophical and theoretical studies and research, on the other. This applies in particular to works by young graduates of the famous school but could also be seen in all the Dutch projects. The matrix of Dutch design remains a conceptual approach and the ability to sell not just products but also ideas and concepts, long a talent of the Dutch who have a free and unbridled creativity but are also clever and expert retailers.

Design Academy Graduation
The most eagerly awaited event of Dutch Design Week was, without doubt, the presentation of the end-of-course works. Here, school friends and the simply curious mingled with gallery owners and international design dealers searching for tomorrow's new talents, as required by the instant-fame approach. Split into two sections, the exhibition presents, in one part, the design theses of students who have completed the first four-year course (Bachelor) and, in the other, the final works after two post-graduate years (Master). Traditionally, there is a basic distinction between the approach and complexity of the works. Those of the basic course are simpler and more concrete; those of the Master course, which is open to students from other degree courses, are more structured and conceptual. This is the case of Maurizio Montalti, an Italian engineer, who has developed a keen interest in fungi and developed the Continuous Bodies project in the laboratory – a fungus that eats away at plastic and one that aids the decomposition process of the human body, but only if it is dead. Dirk van der Kooij, a student on the Bachelor course designed Endless, reutilising a disused machine to create plastic chairs without a mould but made out of an unbroken strand. These are just two of the many projects presented in the Witte Dame building.

Piet Hein Eek
The well-known Dutch designer's new premises were one of the main attractions of Design Week and will continue to stimulate reactions as they constitute a permanent showroom and not a temporary display. The designer-artisan who became known to the wider public by creating furniture out of recycled scrap wood, has opened this new space comprising thousands of square metres and spread over several floors in the former Philips ceramic factory, in the Strijp industrial zone, which is formed of numerous buildings interspersed with workers' housing. This change of scale is linked to the fact that Piet Hien Eek is not synonymous with design alone but also production and distribution. His new design factory contains a studio, production spaces, a showroom, a gallery and a shop. For the moment, it has an unfinished look, that of recently commenced renovation but perhaps therein lies its charm. On show – and on sale - as well as new Piet Hein Eek designs centred on furniture, objects and gadgets are Freitag bags and works and products by Studio Job, Tom Dixom and Floris Hovers.

Dutch Invertuals
This is an umbrella-name for a collective of young designers who graduated from the Design Academy a few years ago. Like Droog, it is not a fixed group but one in fluid movement and the designers change. Coordinated by the young Wendy Plomp, they already have exhibitions to their name. This time they tackled the subject of time, Matter of Time, and presented a number of objects-sculptures-products made out of 600-year-old oak. The inspiration and the material came from the discovery of old wood foundations in the area near the city gate, in the heart of Eindhoven's old city centre. The proposals include matches by Julien Carretero and relative time machines, which consider volume, weight and temperature, by Mieke Mejier. The interesting and unusual works, which reflect on the subject of time but also on the symbolic value of wood and its aesthetic, were delightfully exhibited in the EDHV design agency premises housed in a charming former warehouse beside the railway tracks.

Liberation of Light Designhuis
This exhibition on LEDs and OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes) is almost a spoken reflection on the potential and possibilities of this light source, which everyone believes will be what lights up our future. It adopts research projects, experimentation and installations, such as Daan Roosegaarde's poetic creations (see picture), as too industrial products already on the market to trace a map. Curated by the Yksi Design group the exhibition is set up in the Designhuis and remains open long after the end of Design Week, until 30 January 2011. It focuses on the technology of the LED concept but also on its more fascinating capacity for expression and emotional involvement, showing that the LED, wrongly considered a cold and lifeless light, is friendlier than we thought. Cecilia Fabiani