The Next Promise of Design
Sylvain Willenz
Clemens Weisshaar
The Rotterdam Design Prize showcases current Dutch work and promotes discussion of the status of contemporary design. Prior to the prize-giving, the Rotterdam Design Prize Foundation in association with Premsela – Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion staged the lecture ‘The Next Promise of Design’ and a discussion on the current state of affairs in design. Alice Rawsthorn, a journalist with the International Herald Tribune and a member of this year’s panel of international judges of the Rotterdam Design Prize, reflected on what is happening in contemporary design. In conversation with the international designers Sylvain Willenz (2009 Belgian Designer of the Year) and the German designer Clemens Weisshaar (founder of the Swedish/German studio Kram/Weisshaar) she explored where the new opportunities for the world of design lie.
Designers are born innovators, revealing the outlines of a different reality in their ideas and their work. The current political and economic climate is undoubtedly leading people in the design business to raise serious questions about the role and meaning of design. What responsibility do designers want to take now and in the future? And how should they approach the major issues in 21st-century society?
The following discussion, moderated by design critic Gert Staal, covered the specific qualities of current Dutch design. How progressive and innovative is Dutch design culture? How are we doing compared with the rest of the design world? Has Jan Romein’s law of the handicap of a head start taken effect? And, in particular, where does the new promise that might no longer rely on national rhetoric lie? These questions, among others, were being discussed. A video report of this afternoon at the museum is available on this website.
'The Next Promise of Design' is a joint production by Stichting Designprijs Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and Premsela - Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion.
Designers are born innovators, revealing the outlines of a different reality in their ideas and their work. The current political and economic climate is undoubtedly leading people in the design business to raise serious questions about the role and meaning of design. What responsibility do designers want to take now and in the future? And how should they approach the major issues in 21st-century society?
The following discussion, moderated by design critic Gert Staal, covered the specific qualities of current Dutch design. How progressive and innovative is Dutch design culture? How are we doing compared with the rest of the design world? Has Jan Romein’s law of the handicap of a head start taken effect? And, in particular, where does the new promise that might no longer rely on national rhetoric lie? These questions, among others, were being discussed. A video report of this afternoon at the museum is available on this website.
'The Next Promise of Design' is a joint production by Stichting Designprijs Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and Premsela - Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion.