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Vienna Design Week 2011

A selection of the most interesting events and projects from the Austrian design marathon, which focuses on experimentation and debate with local tradition.

The 5th edition of Vienna Design Week opened on September 29. The eleven-day marathon explores the latest trends in industrial design with a special focus on Austrian tradition thanks to close collaborations with some of the nation's most prestigious companies like J. & L. Lobmeyr, Wiener Silbermanufaktur and Mühlbauer—who support the Passionswege project—and Viennese institutions including MAC Museum, the University of Applied Arts, the Liechtenstein Museum and the Vienna Museum of Technology among others.

A capital of renowned architectural beauty and undisputed leadership in all the arts, from classical music to theater and dance, Vienna now counts the largest number of annual cultural events in Europe. Five years ago, the idea driving the festival's founders—curator Tulga Beyerle, designer and researcher at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, now curator at MAK, Thomas Geisler and journalist Lilli Hollein (today the team is completely female)— was to create an opportunity for the experimentation and exploration of contemporary design that could highlight the creative process rather than market dynamics per se, suggesting that research is more valuable than the finished product.

Even if in the past, Austria had not generated significant mass-market production, over the last ten years there has been a marked acceleration in this direction enabling Vienna to open up to the international scene. A key motor for the city is the Vienna Design Festival. "Design is much more than a series of objects on display," says Bayerle. "We focus on process and experimentation through discussion and debate with local tradition and with our history."
Top image: Balloons & Balloons by Hermann Trebsche.<br /> Above: <i>Reflections</i> by Oskar Zieta. Photos © Fischka Kollektiv.
Top image: Balloons & Balloons by Hermann Trebsche.
Above: Reflections by Oskar Zieta. Photos © Fischka Kollektiv.
The festival continues to grow every year and now takes over the entire city and not just the old town. This year, the Leopoldstadt neighborhood, the second district, with Jean Nouvel's imposing Stilwerk, is the nerve center of the Talks and Laboratory project. "In this edition we will also focus on the local scene through various workshops and lectures that will be held in neighborhoods that are less familiar with design," Tulga Beyerle commented. Even Balloons & Balloons, a colorful balloon and gift shop for parties and celebrations becomes a set for an experiment with ice, air and water trapped inside Hermann Trebsche's balloons. DesignSafari—a special press tour for those who are not afraid to walk—helps visitors discover places where, says Beyerle, the Viennese rarely go or have never been. It starts at Stilwerk where the young designer Konstantin Schmölzer, in collaboration with Nora Stalzer from Verdarium, builds a Hochstand, a traditional raised tracking station for observing nature, placing it in a narrow and claustrophobic corner of the glass building adjacent to Patrick Blanc's vertical garden. At the top of a castle of steps over 4 meters in height made from rough pieces of wood, Schmölzer, with the help of an army of carpenters, builds a comfortable seat (comfortable when you reach it) that can be used to observe the horizon and study a new perspective on contemporary architecture.
Festival Talk with Jerszy Seymour. Photo © Fischka Kollektiv.
Festival Talk with Jerszy Seymour. Photo © Fischka Kollektiv.
"The elevated position allows the analytical perception of things around us, a metaphor for the Austrian approach to their pragmatism and respect for the real values of tradition with an eye for nature," he says; and this is why it is positioned near the Frenchman's green wall. It's a way to bring nature into the city, to discover an obligatory scenario, to sit up there alone for a while; it is the young designer's interpretation of the theory of the vertical city already explored by such architects as Rem Koolhaas and Yona Friedman.

In honor of the EU presidency beginning in July of this year, the Guest Country for 2011 is Poland, a nation that has recently become very committed to the international design scene thanks to enlightened government policies that have funded the opening of several schools (among which the school in Poznan designed by the charismatic Li Edelkoort) and facilitated young companies in the sector. In recent years, these actions have cultivated an increasing number of talents. Curator Agnieska Jacobson-Cielecka presents a show entitled Just a Thing, outlining the trends in the work of these young Polish talents. Poland's presence is completed by Oskar Zieta's solo show at Sotheby's prestigious historic Wilczek palace where he presents Reflections, an installation composed of five magical boxes that enclose inflated objects (made with the well-known FIDH technology) on psychedelic patterns. Zieta plays with curious optical effects to affirm that design can also be a way of interpreting reality and become a deliberate and playful illusion.
Design is much more than a series of objects on display. We focus on process and experimentation through discussion and debate with local tradition and with our history.
Passionswege 2011: Balloons & Balloons by Hermann Trebsche. Photo © Kollektiv Fischka.
Passionswege 2011: Balloons & Balloons by Hermann Trebsche. Photo © Kollektiv Fischka.
For the Passionswege project, in which the two festival curators pair designers with specific companies, the Polish-born Austrian, Patrycia Domanska, works with the traditional female dirndl costume in close collaboration with the historic company, Trachten Tostmann. Domanska has hand-crafted a device in the shape of the traditional sewing machine that works with rather small ink stamps, a new way of combining tradition and innovation: visitors are invited to create their own designs with Domanska's machine and the three patterns bearing women's names—Margarete, Rosemarie and Yasmina.
Guided Tours: Design Museal, Design Funktional, Design Überall. Photo © Kollektiv Fischka.
Guided Tours: Design Museal, Design Funktional, Design Überall. Photo © Kollektiv Fischka.
Social Design also plays a very important role in this year's festival with the Carte Blanche program. Designer Michael Fetz, in collaboration with sociologist and photographer Florian Rainer, explores the world of the homeless in the city; Greta Hauer and Delphine Rumo work on the relationship between humans and animals while Rosinke, Balazs Fenyes and Maciej Chmara pose questions about green consciousness. Vera Wiedermann takes over a bakery to investigate an unusual approach to its primary product by transforming bread into the synonym of the consumer culture of waste with a triumph of flour enveloping the small shop, while British team Postler Ferguson creates a not-to-be-missed pop-up shop at Café Sonya. Atelier Diana und Philippe Telliez, a gold mine for those looking for the most rare and sophisticated upholstery from the 1950s on, hosts Beza Projekt who, after having explored the archive of materials, add sculptural leather to swings with a large quilted cushion invading the shop and transforming the swings into refined and precious pieces for interiors rather than for gardens. "The swing has a touch of romance. The seat has a traditional and refined style due to the use of iridescent fabrics and leather for the back but the mere fact that it can swing gives it something modern," the two Polish designers point out.

A competition and a prize, the first sponsored by Nespresso and the second, the Young Design Prize, sponsored by Swiss watchmaker Rado, could not be absent from the agenda. And again, Kikkoman, the traditional Japanese soy sauce producer, revives its traditional bottle with multicolored concentric strips; the limited editions will sell like hotcakes during the festival.
Exterior: Volkertplatz Is A Great Place To Be.
Exterior: Volkertplatz Is A Great Place To Be.
The work by designer Christian Haas, who reinterprets traditional Viennese glass in a contemporary vein, is delightful. But Canadian Philippe Malouin—who lived in Eindhoven and is now based in London and for years worked with Tom Dixon—takes on the task of transfiguring crystalware. Invited to work with historic glassware company, Lobmeyr, his project, entitled Elapsed Time, seeks to express the value of time providing us with an interpretation of the slowness and fragility that is characteristic of the company's products through the use of sand, the raw material in crystal production and used for centuries to mark time. Three different sized hourglasses, having the shape of the large void of an upside-down glass, mirror and register the seconds that pass, indicated by imperceptible concentric lines, each representing one minute of work, subtly and artfully inlaid. The three hourglasses are also accompanied by a brass device over two meters tall which, with its balance arms and spiral rotations, drops sand on the floor creating a drawing of time. "The inspiration for this complicated device comes from the fantastic chandeliers with their painstaking workmanship produced by Lobmeyr, along with the company's renowned glasswork," says Malouin.
Passionswege 2011: Tapessier Telliez & Beza Projekt. Photo © Kollektiv Fischka.
Passionswege 2011: Tapessier Telliez & Beza Projekt. Photo © Kollektiv Fischka.
More than eleven days are needed to see all the events without being distracted by the city's beauty and its cultural attractions—not least of which is gastronomic. The Festival organizers did a great job in inviting the many pilgrims to participate in the marathon and discover new itineraries. "The number of visitors has reached 26,000 this year and attendance is not only Viennese; we have many international guests," said Lilli Hollein. "Thanks to the Festival, the perception of design in the city has increased considerably; as far as we are concerned, the relationships established between international designers and Austrian companies is the symbol of the project's success." Keep going in this direction!
Maria Cristina Didero
Philippe Malouin da Lobmeyr. Photo © Kollektiv Fischka.
Philippe Malouin da Lobmeyr. Photo © Kollektiv Fischka.
Just A Thing by Heiligenkreuzerhof. Photo © Kollektiv Fischka.
Just A Thing by Heiligenkreuzerhof. Photo © Kollektiv Fischka.

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