Vienna Design Week Set for October

This year's festival is once again organized by Tulga Beyerle, Thomas Geisler and Lilli Hollein of Neigungsgruppe Design.

by Nicholas Tamarin -- Interior Design, 6/30/2008

If your autumn travels include Vienna, skip the opera and the chocolate tortes and attend the Austrian capital’s annual Vienna Design Week, running October 2-12.

New to the festival, organized once again by Tulga Beyerle, Thomas Geisler, and Lilli Hollein of Neigungsgruppe Design, is a series of special events. Design Open Air kicks off the event with an installation by Kran/Weisshaar, who recently claimed the Designers of the Future Award at this year's Design Miami/Basel, in the front courtyard of the Liechtenstein Museum. The pair will collaborate on the large-scale project with Reide Smart Elements, the Austrian manufacturer of lightweight concrete discs. After the festival, the installation will be divided into segments and displayed throughout Vienna.

The Design Safari tour series will allow visitors to travel to nearby Bratislava, Slovakia and the Designblok Festival in Prague, Czech Republic to network and explore other Central European design hot spots.

As in previous festivals, this year’s event features a country-specific exhibition. Dutch design is the focus of "Tangible Traces," an exhibit presented by the Nederlands Architectur Instituut at the Austrian Museum of Ethnology.

Neigungsgruppe Design has also selected 10 designers and teams, including Austrian design stars EOOS and Gregor Eichinger, to create site-specific installations in Viennese shops. Visitors can then take part in "One Night Stand," a Q & A session with designers at the Levante Parliament hotel.