Design Engaging the City
MAK, Vienna 12. 12. 2012 – 17. 03. 2013

© Studio Makkink & Bey

In 2006, inspired by their city’s rich heritage of local manufacturers and craftspeople, Tulga Beyerle, Thomas Geisler, and Lilli Hollein, founders of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, began a special project, called Passionswege, which matched young designers with traditional workshops, manufacturers, and retailers in Vienna. By focusing on the transfer of knowledge and skills between the invited partners and carefully guiding the process—yet leaving the potential for results quite open—they generated a series of encounters that worked quite differently from usual design collaborations.

Here it is not the product that is at the center of interest, but people, knowledge, attitudes, and the process of working together. This exhibition, curated by Sophie Lovell and designed by Studio Makkink & Bey, mixes centuries of craft skills with new design thinking and shows that design can be inspiring to everyone—producer and consumer alike. It is about the soft and hard values of design as a facilitator for bringing people together and enhancing the commercial and creative profile of a city at the same time.

First presented during World Design Helsinki 2012 this extended exhibition at the MAK also draws on the museum’s rich collection and archive material of works by Viennese manufacturers, some of which have been in business for generations.