The VIENNA DESIGN WEEK is an annual public design festival taking place in various locations of the Austrian capital. It is the brainchild of Vienna-based “Neigungsgruppe Design” (Lilli Hollein, Thomas Geisler, Tulga Beyerle), who are also responsible for the curatorial concept. Revealing creative processes and exploring the interaction of people and objects are core elements of the festival concept.
During the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, the city becomes a platform and showcase of design. In cooperation with designers from all over the world, Viennese museums and companies, the festival offers a variety of venues and approaches specific to Vienna. The festival sets out to be “international but local,” with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe. The invitation of designers from the region fosters the long overdue networking process in the field of design.
Discussing and Celebrating Design
Neigungsgruppe Design doesn’t limit the notion of design to the aspect of just “shaping” individual objects: Design has always been and still is an important field in the production of culture. The festival shows that design shapes our material culture, our every-day life and our consumer world. At the same time, it influences our lifestyles and fashions and most fundamentally our aesthetic sense and judgements. Therefore, VIENNA DESIGN WEEK has based its mission on both the celebration of design and on its critical examination.
Time for Experiments
The festival aims to reveal creative and production processes and encourages experimental work on the spot. It also presents and promotes design that in the first instance withdraws from the scheme of utility value in order to create awareness and pose questions — or simply just to have fun. The exploration of materials, mood values and the interaction between people and objects is at the centre of design and has its assured place at the festival.
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Neigungsgruppe Design | Initiators and Curators of the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK
Neigungsgruppe Design was founded as a non-profit association in 2006 by Tulga Beyerle, Thomas Geisler and Lilli Hollein with the aim of making design in Austria visible, stimulating debate about design on a wide basis and showcase Austrian design internationally.
PASSIONSWEGE, a curated design course through Vienna, was the starting initiative for a series of "Neigungsgruppe" events such as design conferences (DESIGN 06, DESIGN 07) commissioned by the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK. As a pool of three experts Neigungsgruppe Design brings together knowledge related to specific fields in design research, consultancy, journalism and curating. As design mediators Beyerle, Geisler and Hollein attach special value to presenting design in a reflective but at the same time exciting way, on a high level but open to a broad public. www.neigungunggruppe-design.org
Tulga Beyerle | design consultant, curator, author (managing director VDW)
(*1964) studied industrial design in vienna. From 1993-2000 she was teaching assistant in theory and history of design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Since 2001 she is working as a freelance consultant, curator (most recently Pace of Design, Experimentadesign, Lissabon 2009, Elke Krystufek, Liquid Logic, MAK, Vienna 2006; Peter Eisenman, Barefoot on White-Hot Walls, MAK, Vienna 2004) and author (among others, Design Cities, eight moments that changed the world, London 2008; with Karin Hirschberger, editor of A Century of Austrian Design 1900-2005, Basel 2006; On the Re-edition of Frederick Kiesler. Nucleus of Forces in Friedrich Kiesler, Designer, Ostfildern 2005).
Thomas Geisler | designer, design researcher, curator (co-director VDW)
(*1971), studied product design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and at Danmarks Designskole, Copenhagen. He has a MAS in Exhibition and Cultural Communication Management (ECM). Working as a designer with focus in scenography and communication design he has been partner of the design collective maupi since 2001. He has been a lecturer and senior scientist in the Department of Design History and Theory at the University of Applied Arts Vienna since 2005. His research and publications include among others (co-editor) Karriereleiter – (K)eine Anleitung zur Designarbeit!, Vienna 2007; (co-author) Critical Design and Design Criticism in the Writings of Victor Papanek, Journal of Design History Oxford 2010. He is contributing to DAMn magazine and stylepark.
Lilli Hollein | journalist and curator (co-director VDW)
(*1972) studied industrial design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and has worked since 1996 as a free-lance curator and journalist in architecture and design (among others, Der Standard, Domus, blueprint, Frame, MARK, H.O.M.E.). She was the curator of the Austrian contribution for the São Paulo Architecture Biennial 2007. Among others she curated the exhibitions AustriArchitecture – seven debuts from Austria in Berlin (2005) and Vienna (2006), Memphis – Kunst/Kitsch/Kult in Vienna in 2002, and Memphis – 21 Years after the Design Revolution at Kunsthalle Krems in the same year.
The VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, now in its forth year, is Austria’s most important international design festival. From October 1-10, 2010, it will bring some of the best designers of our time to the Austrian capital, among them Stefan Sagmeister and Konstantin Grcic, while simultaneously fostering the talents of tomorrow. The festival is diversified in content – comprising positions of product design, industrial design, and furniture design – with an abiding interest to cooperate with the flourishing design scenes of Central and Eastern Europe, and certainly beyond.
Among the international participants of this year’s festival are formafantasta from Eindhoven, Rikkert Paauw and Jet van Zwieten from Utrecht, Studio Makkink & Bey from Rotterdam, Claesson Koivisto Rune from Stockholm, Mark Braun from Berlin, esterni from Milan and many others. With exhibitions, venue-specific installations, theme specials, talks, and, of course, plenty of opportunities to party and network, VIENNA DESIGN WEEK is not only an attraction for the international design scene. It most explicitly aims to appeal to a wide public audience in Vienna, including international guests: In cooperation with many partners – museums, galleries, and companies – the whole city becomes a platform and a showcase of design. VIENNA DESIGN WEEK doesn't have the character of a trade fair but instead offers a variety of venues and approaches specific to Vienna.
VIENNA DESIGN WEEK “Passionswege”
The PASSIONSWEGE are a design trail through Vienna and an important programme point of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK. Designers or design teams, both from Austria and abroad, are invited to create objects and site-specific installations on the premises of old-established Viennese businesses. Together, they experiment on the spot, make use of workshops and intervene on the premises. The “Passionswege” also lead to parts of the city not especially known for their design affinity.
Guests in 2010 are: Mark Braun (GER), White Elephant (A), formafantasma (I), Jessica Hansson (S), Annette Hinterwirth (A), kim+heep (A) Julia Landsiedel (A), Nicolas Le Moigne (CH), Daniel Posta (CZ) and vandasye (A).
VIENNA DESIGN WEEK Talks
invite some of the most challenging designers of our time to give lectures on their specific approach and personal experiences. Stefan Sagmeister will talk about “things he has learned in his life so far”, followed by Konstantin Grcic und two not less interesting international speakers (tbc).
VIENNA DESIGN WEEK Debut
presents young Austrian designers in an exhibition in collaboration with James Dyson Award and James Dyson Foundation.
VIENNA DESIGN WEEK Laboratory
invites emerging graphic and product designers to develop and present a project on-site at the festival’s headquarter at KUNSTHALLE wien. Like last year, it is curated in collaboration with Austrian graphic designer Erwin K. Bauer. In addition, talks and panels will address a professional audience.
Guests in 2010 are: Tomás Alonso (UK), Cornelia Hess (CH), Sarah Kueng & Lovis Caputo (CH), Adrian Merz (CH) and Pixelgarten (GER).
VIENNA DESIGN WEEK Carte Blanche
acknowledges ambitious projects which show the vigour of design apart from its commercial purposes. This year, projects include, amongst others: a temporary wine tavern (“Heuriger”) by young architects bindermayer (Corina Binder and Suse Mayer) and an intervention by Rikkert Paauw and Jet van Zwieten from Holland, supported by Viennese design collective breadedEscalope. They will implement their project “FOUNDation” in open space that actively involves the inhabitants of Vienna’s 17th city district – an area very much in need of ideas to improve quality of life.
