Designblok will welcome Ron Arad, Winy Maas, Panter&Tourron and three dozen other international guests
17. 9. 2024
The 26th Designblok is coming up fast and this year it will again welcome international designers, curators, journalists, gallerists, creative directors and producers. Design legend Ron Arad will come to personally present his new work produced in collaboration with Moroso, but also to accept from festival director Jana Zielinski the Designblok Award for Outstanding Merit in Design. Winy Maas, the multi-talented Dutch designer and founder of the MVRDV studio will transport festival visitors to a world in which cities have been overgrown by foliage, and Vitra has invited the Panter&Tourron design studio who specialize in sustainable design. This year, the jury of the festival’s central competition – the Designblok Awards – will assemble under the directorship of jury president Benedict Hobson, co-CEO of the Dezeen platform, the most-read online journal focusing on design. The Diploma Selection jury will however also welcome new faces, as will the Art House exhibition focusing on collectible design. The 26th Designblok, the grandest design festival in central Europe, will also welcome Italian gallerist Rossana Orlandi and designer and entrepreneur Giulio Cappellini.
The main foreign guest of the 26th Designblok is British designer, architect and artist Ron Arad whose studio has collaborated with the world’s foremost brands like Moroso, Vitra, Kartell, Magis and Alessi. This legend of contemporary British design, an original postmodernist and professor emeritus at the Royal College of Art, is coming to Prague on the invitation of Designblok and the Konsepti company. Arad will take part in the festival’s grand opening on Tuesday, 1 October, where he will accept the Designblok Award for Outstanding Merit in Design and will also speak to the public as part of a discussion taking place at the Designblok Respekt Stage on Wednesday, 2 October from 13.30. He is also bringing to Prague his One Page armchair, made in collaboration with the Moroso brand, which he will present to the public as part of a special exhibition at the Konsepti showroom in Holešovice. The star designer will be accompanied by Patrizia Moroso, the creative director of the world-renowned furniture producer of the same name with whom Arad has been collaborating for over twenty-five years. “I was approached by Bořek Šípek many years ago, and I also know Prague for the house designed by Frank Gehry, as well as the revolution which impacted all of Europe. I also met Eva Jiřičná and Jan Kaplický in London. I could perhaps also think of some tennis players, but I unfortunately don’t have much experience of Czechia outside of that. I would like to see more of your country and I am looking forward to doing just that this Designblok. I can’t wait to see Prague, as I haven’t been travelling much recently and am looking forward to exploring something new,” says Ron Arad.
This year’s guest of honor is Dutch architect, landscape architect and urbanist Winy Maas, co-founder of the MVRDV studio, a global architectural studio awarded for their innovative and experimental approach, and The Why Factory, a think tank and research institute working under the auspices of Delft University of Technology. In his documentary called The Green Dip, he will show the visitors a perspective on future cities. The piece will be on display for the festival’s entire duration in the spaces of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. The Green Dip research project by The Why Factory presents a visual manifesto for the greening of cities, exploring an architectural approach which brings plants inside buildings. What if our cities were green with vegetation, transforming them into real forests bursting with flora? The streets of the world’s five metropolises will become transformed into green boulevards, and the visitors will also get a chance to see inside the green living and working interiors in these cities. Winy Maas will present the project personally in the Prague Castle Riding School as part of the festival’s exclusive preview on Monday, 30 September.
After the French journalist and critic Anne-France Berthelon (Designblok 2022) and the Dutch designer Ineke Hans (Designblok 2023), the position of president of the Designblok Awards international expert jury has been taken up by Benedict Hobson, co-CEO of the Dezeen online platform. The president is responsible for assembling the expert jury and overseeing the vote for the festival’s main award. The Dezeen online platform has over three million monthly readers, and for the past three years it has been the festival’s main media partner. The Designblok Awards jury will further include: designer Emma Marga Blanche of the Swedish Färg & Blanche design studio, Italian designer and creative director Luca Nichetto, director of Wallpaper* China magazine and founder of the Collective Contemporist creative agency Yoko Choy, as well as the British industrial designer Tej Chauhan. “I am always glad to see what the up-and-coming generation of young designers is working on, so I am most looking forward to seeing the works of students and fresh graduates. Last year, I was very taken by the work of a few young designers and I hope to view their pieces again this year to see just how they have developed,” says jury president Benedict Hobson.
Designblok will also present the progressive designer duo of Stefano Panterotto and Alexis Tourron of the Panter&Tourron studio, presented in collaboration with Vitra. They will present their newest work to the Czech public: the Anagram Sofa – a modular sofa which will be on view at the Museum of Prague. They will discuss its key aspects and share some of their creative design approaches during their lecture at the Designblok Respekt Stage which will take place on Wednesday, 2 October from 11.00.
The special Art House exhibition of collectible design will take place at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, curated by journalist and Elle Decoration Czech Republic director Eva Slunečková. Apart from Czech designers and artists, the exhibition will also feature Slovenian designer Lara Bohinc, French designer Audrey Large whose works combine digital and physical design, Ukrainian designer Masha Reva and Victoria Yakusha, or Polish artist and material experimenter Marcin Rusak.
The Designblok Diploma Selection talent competition, organized in collaboration with the EUNIC Cluster Czech Republic, aims to develop and support graduates of European universities. This year, it will welcome new jury members: the jury director in the category of Product Design is Tulga Beyerle, director of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, and she has invited Thomas Geisler, director of the Museum of Decorative Arts at the Dresden State Art Collections; Jan Boelen, curator and art director of LUMA studio; independent curator, filmmaker and professor at HEAD-Genève Alexandra Midal; and curator of the Gent Design Museum Evelien Bracke. Jan Králíček, journalist and creative director of the Dolce Vita magazine, will act as director of the Fashion Design category. He has invited to the jury Polish designer, creative director and consultant for Loewe, Hermès, Diesel, Lanvin and design director of Bottega Veneta Krzysztof J. Lukasik; Greek fashion critic and journalist Sotiris Kaberis; and consultant and former head of communications at Gucci Alexandre Malgouyres. The Designblok Diploma Selection expert jury will select the winners from over thirty final projects who will receive 4000 EUR, courtesy of festival partner Ploom, and the opportunity to exhibit at next year’s Designblok. Last year’s finalists Esmée Willemsen, Janek Beau, Julia Huhnholz and Friedrich Gerlach will present their projects at Bastion Florenc, as will fashion designer Maria Czarnecka during the fashion show at Lobkowicz Palace.
The “Designblok family” will also arrive for their traditional trip to Prague to see the grandest central European design event – every year, Designblok welcomes Italian curator Rossana Orlandi, Dutch designer Ineke Hans, Italian art director and entrepreneur Giulio Cappellini, curator, program head at the School of Form and dean of the SWPS University in Warsaw Agniezska Jacobson-Cielecka, Milanese consultant Stephan Hamel, Paris-based gallerist François Leblanc, strategist and tutor Anil Gezmen and others. The festival will also welcome representatives of leading world media, such as the Dutch FRAME magazine, the Polish DesignAlive server and Vogue Polska magazine, the German Wohndesign magazine and others.
The 26th Designblok will take place 2–6 October 2024 at Prague Castle, the Museum of Prague, Bastion Florenc, the Museum of Decorative Arts and other locations around Prague. The exhibition Bóda Horák: Biosphere will be open until 28 October 2024. The complete program and discount tickets can be found at the designblok.cz.
