Vienna Design Week Celebrates 10 Visionary Years

Renowned for its impressive imperial majesty, Vienna is, more accurately, an amalgam of contemporary design and cultural heritage. During the past decade, Vienna has been consistently voted the world’s most livable city, an honor that has coincided with the Austrian capital’s broad embrace of design and this year’s 10^th anniversary of Vienna Design Week.

From its inception in 2007, Vienna Design Week’s modus operandi has been “A City Full of Design,” a slogan that manifests the festival’s desire to view design as a means of activating the urban environment.

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In honor of Vienna Design Week’s first decade, the Austrian Cultural Forum New York is presenting a ten-year retrospective of Austria’s most influential design festival. Accompanied by a 400-page publication, the exhibition at ACFNY showcases the work of Austria’s contemporary designers, often working in tandem with celebrated Viennese manufacturers such as J. & L. Lobmeyr, Wiener Silber Manufactur, and A.E. Köchert Juweliere.

Vienna Design Week director Lilli Holbein at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York ©MRNY

Curated by Vienna Design Week director Lilli Hollein, the retrospective is titled Stadtarbeit (or CityWork) as a testament to the bond between the city and design. The ten-year overview celebrates some of the festival’s best projects and initiatives such as Passionswege (or Paths of Passion) whereby international and Austrian designers collaborate with traditional Viennese firms. The resultant products are actual representations of the concept of tradition conjoining with the future—or, in the words of Vienna Tourist Board: Imperial + Contemporary.

Wiener Silber Manufaktur at Vienna Design Week retrospective ©MRNY

Equally important, Vienna Design Week advocates positive change through action, specifically with social design projects that address urban issues. Far more than a design caravansary of luxury goods, the festival promotes repurposed spaces in Vienna’s outer districts while challenging educational institutions and design firms to see design in service to society.

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As Parisian designer Robert Stadler states, “Many interesting figures from the world of design…get to know Austrian culture thanks to Vienna Design Week. And what’s nice is that, despite its increasingly international flavor, [the festival has] retained something very Central European and characteristic of Vienna’s specific history and geographic position.”

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Apart from the annual ten-day festival, Vienna Design Week maintains a gallery in its Vienna offices that is devoted to local Viennese designers, while also participating in international design exhibitions and festivals.

While Vienna is indeed a wondrous maze of imperial palaces ringing with the sounds of Mozart, Mahler, Haydn, and Strauss, amidst more than 450 annual Viennese balls, Vienna Design Week is a reminder that the city is also a nexus for innovative and visionary design.