and Western Switzerland are pleased to present a selection of emerging and established Swiss design studios as part of their SWISS CRAFTLAB exhibition. SWISS CRAFTLAB is a showcase of ancestral techniques and craftsmanship which are revisited with the purpose of creating a new contemporary aesthetic. Traditional materials take on new forms while age-old objects discover new uses. A CITY FULLER OF DESIGN - Augmented Reality App Game on! With program items taking place right across the city, every year the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK transforms Vienna into a City Full of Design: Previously ignored corners become showplaces for design, for critically yet nimbly addressing the dynamic (local) design sector. In short: a multifaceted design playground that can now also be explored with the help of a new augmented reality app for the duration of the festival, (25.9.–4.10.). In a similar way to “Pokémon GO”, users in the urban realm can search for hidden elements of the festival graphic design by Bueronardin as a way of navigating their way to the program items tucked away in every corner of the city (please note the opening times!) and receive additional information about the highly varied contents of the ten-day festival. Users can also collect rewards, share their visit to the festival with friends and take part in competitions.

PASSIONSWEGE - 15 YEARS

15 years of the Passionswege! The Passionswege have shaped the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK like no other festival format. As a pilot project and cornerstone they are even a year older than the festival itself. The focus of this curated format, which sees design as a unifying, creatively fertile element, is the cooperation – as equal partners - between designers and Vienna's craft-based businesses. An intense exchange of know-how provides the basis for an open, experimental process free from commercial pressure, with the aim of developing unexpected solutions, projects and products – or, simply, to ask the right questions. In more than 100 cooperative commissions stretching back over the past 15 years, a process combining a sensitive approach to given reality with visionary thinking has led to the creation of countless objects that have transformed the work of all those involved and transported the audience of the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK to the world of traditional artisanal production. To mark the anniversary of the Passionswege, the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK is expanding an exhibition conceived for Collectible, the Brussels design fair, into a retrospective that is completely devoted to the delights of the collectively created objects. In addition to this: the first 15 years of the format are represented by a glass/mirror cabinet from the Swiss artist Daniela Schönbächler and J. & L. Lobmeyr, the partner with whom the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK has most often cooperated in the context of the Passionswege.

PASSIONSWEGE - PRESENTATION

15 years ago, one year before the founding of the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, when we first realized our project of bringing together craft-based manufacturers with leading talents from the European design scene, some still looked at us with astonishment, wondering what design and craftspersonship could have in common. Yet this swiftly became one of the festival’s most popular and internationally respected formats. For us, the project continues to be a curated interaction between knowledge transfer, respectful exchange and the spirit of innovation. And, of course, the opportunity to visit workshops and the places in which such innovation takes place also has a special appeal for designers and the public alike. Over the years, a wide variety of projects has emerged: The results range from much-discussed objects, via successful products, to a facilitated handover between generations. We are showing a fraction of these cooperative works in this anniversary exhibition.”– Lilli Hollein

Pop-up Café Caffè vom See in the Festival Headquarters in the Amtshaus Theresienbadgasse

Café, Caffè, Coffee. However you twist and turn it, the pop-up café of the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK is presented this year as a unique blend, a Wiener Melange: The pop-up café – a cooperation between DESIGN EVERYDAY, Vöslauer and Caffè vom See – is equipped with products from practicing local designers, which can be tried out in the relaxed atmosphere of the café. Also on display are large-format prints by the photographer Peter Garmusch, which set the scene for product designs by Vöslauer and by the various designers. With products by Alexander Gufler, Klemens Schillinger, MARCH GUT, POLKA, Robert Rüf and Vandasye. Photographs by Peter Garmusch. Southern lifestyle, an eternal summer retreat. Ducks, swans and other waterfowl calmly making their rounds. All this is Millstatt am See in Meidling (seriously!). With the coffee that they originally produced for their own hotel (Villa Verdin), which combines the robust body of an Italian espresso with the refinement of an Austrian mokka and is produced from 100 % organically-grown Arabica beans, the brothers Michael and Thomas Helml are bringing Carinthian joie de vivre to Vienna's 12th District (and, more specifically, to the Festival Headquarters in the Amtshaus Theresienbadgasse). caffevomsee.at

CAMPAIGN “Digital is better.” (Tocotronic) This year’s graphic design for the festival by Bueronardin plays with forms, colors, and movement. The festival’s digital focus is reflected in moving strips, speech bubbles, messenger bubbles, pop-ups, and responsive movements. The forms represent the exhibits, interpret the design process, and interact with one another and with the public. This year, the “City Full of Design” glows in the colors light pink, ink blue, mars orange, and agate gray.

PROGRAM PARTNERS

Diversity is not only desirable, it’s the goal. The VIENNA DESIGN WEEK has always sought to be a powerful platform for designers, companies and educational and cultural institutions from Vienna, Austria and around the world. This idea has been central to the festival since it was founded and must remain so, especially in such challenging times (even if this has to be in a decidedly decentralized manner). From museums to tiny galleries, from startups to global players, from forgers of new ideas to dyed-in-the-wool Viennese producers and traders, the formats curated by the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK are complemented in an important way by the projects of our Program Partners who make a significant contribution to the festival’s diversity and quality. Firmly embedded in the closely-knit international festival network, these institutions, companies and offices from Austria and abroad will once again make use of the opportunity to present contributions that have been conceived and specially created for the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK and, as a result, jointly demonstrate the breadth of the creative and economic potential of design. The thematically varied program includes exhibitions, lectures and workshops, together with presentations, installations, experiments and more. Thanks to their presence at numerous locations across the city, the Program Partners make Vienna a City Full of Design every year.

STADTARBEIT

A crisis is a crisis is a crisis. As well as highlighting all that is, challenging times also highlight all that is not, all that is missing. Plugging these gaps, both social and physical, is one of the roles of design. Hence, in reacting to COVID-19 and all its long-term consequences, the design sector must demonstrate just how essential design can be as a seismograph and as a driver of and for a dynamic (urban) society. Social design, in particular, offers a range of analytical and activist-transformative methods that are as broad as they are effective in shedding light on and meeting specific needs – for example local solutions. Well before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK and Erste Bank, as part of their jointly organized Stadtarbeit format, had called for the submission of projects, ideas and concepts that address vacant and derelict sites and other gaps in the urban grain and develop new approaches to the idea of temporary use in the public realm. Even if we have taken some time to learn this lesson, it is now quite clear that patterns of use in urban space are not non-negotiable constants. The notion of the city is just as flexible and fluid as its reality – and recognizing this opens up great opportunities at a time when societies are being forced to reorganize and reorient themselves. This year, the Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Design Award will be awarded for the sixth time. The winning projects were announced during the press conference of the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2020. The prize entitles the winners to participate in and to realize their project during the festival. Both winning projects will receive an implementation budget.“The continued strong interest in the Urban Food & Design challenge is a clear indication of the great need for creative approaches to this topic in particular. The coronavirus crisis has led us to focus more than ever on the questions of how social interaction and togetherness can continue in spite of distancing, how everyone in the city can contribute, and what local production and distribution pathways can be established. With the Urban Food & Design challenge and the event of the same name, we are providing the impetus to explore how this might look in the city of tomorrow.” Elisabeth Noever-Ginthör, Vienna Business Agency.