Vienna Design Week 2017, Austria’s largest design festival, kicks off today! With an impressive 190 events in the fields of architecture, graphics, and design, the festival calendar is full of interesting and eye-opening happenings you simply do not want to miss. For the next 10 days, the city becomes a platform and showcase for Austrian design. This years focus district is the robust, up-and-coming Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus in the west of the city, which also serves as the location for the festival’s two headquarters – as well as the home for numerous VDW exhibition, presentations, tours, pop-ups, and talks. You can find all the events in the VDW online calendar, including an interactive map of all the venues, but I put together a list of five must-sees – just that you won’t miss out on those hidden gems!
STUDIO ILLUSTRATION – Ten Days Ten Designers Ten Posters
Fri 29.9. – Sun 8.10.2017
Festivalzentrale Nord (‘Blauen Haus’ next to Westbahnhof)
The experiment kicks off on the evening of the opening. All visitors are given tags at the entrance, which are then pinned on ten empty posters. On each of the following festival days, designers from Austria, the Guest Country Romania, and Germany create an illustration based on these tags. Their inspiration: the three most unusual tags under their name. Their workplace: the freely accessible studio in the Festival Headquarters North. For ten days, visitors can peep over the shoulders of the working artists and follow the creative process. At the same time, more and more finished posters adorn the walls. A growing gallery! facebook event
ON THE TOP LEFT – mischer’traxler studio visit
Fr 29.09.–Sa 7.10.2017
mischer’traxler studio, Sechshauser Straße 28/1, 1150 Wien
Discover the workspace of mischer’traxler studio. From the cellar to the ceiling, prototypes, tests, and development of new projects are exhibited next to material storage, workshop area, archived objects, and the daily routines of the studio. An exhibition tour that invites the visitors to seek and discover the projects in their place of origin and get an insight into the chaos and order of the office.
DRAWING PUBLIC SPACE
Fr 29.09.–Su 8.10.2017
Schwendermarkt, Mariahilfer Straße 196, 1150 Wien
The Schwendermarkt is taking shape. That is, geometric shapes, which are affixed as part of the DRAWING PUBLIC SPACE project, or, more precisely: Using colored tapes, a large-scale pattern of graphic symbols is being created in the center of the Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus district. Lines, tiles, and paths are designed to motivate people to roam through the public space and to join in spontaneous interaction in the district. After the kick-off presentation at Improper Walls, the architecture and research platform ECÒL extends an invitation to take part in various workshops at the neighboring Schwendermarkt. Local residents, passers-by, visitors, and students from Vienna and Italy explore the area together and dream up designs, drawings, and concepts. The objective is to bring the local neighborhood a little closer together by changing the cityscape. The project ends with a block party on the newly remodeled square and a subsequent collective dismantling performance. facebook event
IS MA WUARSCHT: THE VIENNESE WÜRSTELSTAND, RELOADED
Fr 29.09.–Su 8.10.2017
Heimat Wien – Agentur für Veränderung, Zirkusgasse 13/3, 1020 Wien
They are an integral part of Vienna’s culinary landscape and despite their anonymous architecture, they characterize the cityscape. They set the stage within the ubiquitous transit spaces as topographical oddities that seem completely resistant to the course of time. Heimat Wien invited artists to rethink sausage stands, taking into account the architectural, cultural, and social developments of recent years. A jury has selected the resulting works, now to be seen in the exhibition IS MA WUARSCHT. facebook event
CAROLINE HEIDER: WIENER WERKSTÄTTE
Fr 29.09.–Sa 7.10.2017
Bildraum 01, Strauchgasse 2, 1010 Wien
SaloneSatellite, pop-up café, hotel room, outdoor dinner, 100% Design, fashion shop – the options and projects for which the Salzburg design studio and partner develops its own products are myriad and versatile. Mostly created in collaboration with other creative people and for unusual settings, nevertheless, nearly all products remain one-offs or small series that linger for the rest of their existence within an intimate context. As part of the VDW, these favorite pieces are brought out into the fresh air again – together with impressions of the original projects and culinary support. And perhaps one of the prototypes will find its way into serial production after all?