November 6 - 13, 2008

location
Archivio Di Stato
Via Piave 21
10122 Torino, Italy

with:
Bas van Beek
Frank Bruggeman
Demakersvan
Richard Hutten
Hella Jongerius
Chris Kabel
Joris Laarman
Tomáš Gabzdil Libertiny
Atelier van Lieshout
Minale Maeda
Christien Meindertsma
Bertjan Pot
Vincent de Rijk
Wieki Somers
Studio Makkink & Bey

opening hours:
11.00 to 20.00 hrs
Saturday November 9th
Notte Della Arti Contemporanee
11.00 to 24.00 hrs

Thinking around other ways of understanding, practising and developing design, "International Design Casa" opens up a comparison between the design culture of Torino and Italy with that of other cities and countries around the world. Some of the most prestigious bodies linked to design will temporarily find a ‘home' in Torino and open the doors to the public to make themselves known, to present their own national design situation, the policies adopted to promote it, and future prospects. A swathe of exhibitions scattered throughout the centre of the city bring to Torino an original and simultaneous vision on how the culture of design is expressed in other parts of the world, ranging from the lively European panorama to the rapidly developing countries of the Far East.


This exhibition has been made possible by the
City of Rotterdam

Curated by VIVID Gallery, Rotterdam
Organised by VIVID Gallery & Margriet Vollenberg
Graphic Design: Léon&Loes, Rotterdam

thanks to:
Threes Moolhuysen-Coenders
Pyrasied, Leeuwarden
Solid Lighting, Rotterdam

torinoworlddesigncapital.it

VIVID presents on occasion of Dutch Design Days in Belgium:

DUTCH DESIGN PORT in Antwerpen

October 28 - 31, 2008

location:
Militair Hospitaal
Marialei 53
2018 Antwerpen

opening Tuesday October 28, 8 pm
by drs. P.J. Langenberg
Consul-generaal der Nederlanden te Antwerpen

with:
Bas van Beek
Frank Bruggeman
Demakersvan
Richard Hutten
Hella Jongerius
Chris Kabel
Joris Laarman
Tomáš Gabzdil Libertiny
Atelier van Lieshout
Minale Maeda
Christien Meindertsma
Bertjan Pot
Vincent de Rijk
Wieki Somers
Studio Makkink & Bey

This exhibition has been made possible by the
City of Rotterdam

Curated by VIVID Gallery, Rotterdam
Organised by VIVID Gallery & Joost Maaskant
Graphic Design: Léon&Loes, Rotterdam

thanks to:
Dutch Embassy Brussels
Netherlands Consulate General, Antwerpen
Militair Hospitaal Antwerpen
Threes Moolhuysen-Coenders
Pyrasied, Leeuwarden

dutchdesigndays.be

Casa Rotterdam

Chris Reinewald

When you enter Rotterdam you find yourself driving through a 'sampler' of late 20th and early 21st century architecture. But not only that. The international port city of Rotterdam is also the home port of a vibrant creative industry. In addition to world-famous firms of architects - Rem Koolhaas’s OMA, West 8 with Adriaan Geuze and the MVRDV collective – you will also find the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi), with an architecture biennial, here. Art colleges such as the Willem de Kooning Academy, art and design courses, the Berlage Institute and the drama courses offered by Codarts have created a good artistic climate to soak up and work in after graduation too. With a multicultural, relatively young population, Rotterdam is also European Youth Capital in 2009.

Designers of international renown, such as Hella Jongerius and Richard Hutten, chose former warehouses for their studios and bases. Fashion designer Marlies Dekkers has her headquarters in Rotterdam. The industrial design agency WAACs Design & Consultancy played an instrumental role in the Senseo, an ingenious coffee machine developed by Philips and coffee producer Douwe Egberts. The work of industrial designer Huibert Groenendijk includes the water taxi, which provides a fast solution to crossing the Maas.
The necessary graphic designers, Studio Dumbar in particular, and multimedia-designers are also active in the city on the Maas. Visual artist/designer Joep van Lieshout even established his own free state, AVL-Ville, with his shocking creations, albeit within Rotterdam’s city boundaries.

Anyone who creates (or not) also wants to experience top-notch enjoyment. When it comes to entertainment, Rotterdam has plenty to offer: the famous International Film Festival Rotterdam, North Sea Jazz Festival, Gergiev Festival, Art Rotterdam and the design events 100% Design and Object Rotterdam, in addition to a Rotterdam Design Prize. In the Museumkwartier (museum district), you can find the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, NAi, Chabot Museum, Rem Koolhaas’s Kunsthal and the modernist monument Villa Sonneveld, all just a stone’s throw from each other.
Added to this, a wide range of events, including the Rotterdam Marathon, Museum Night, the fantastic, multicultural Summer Festival, Formula 1 demonstration drives and the Red Bull Air Race, draw great crowds to Rotterdam. And not forgetting the football clubs, such as Feyenoord, Sparta and Excelsior.
Rotterdam’s ambience as the gateway to the world is tangible in Hotel New York, from where ships of the Holland America Line once set off for the New World. It comes as no surprise that the hotel and restaurant have a pleasant, Rotterdam no-nonsense recalcitrance about them. In the immediate vicinity, you can also find the Photography Museum, housed in the Las Palmas building.

The position Milan occupies for furniture design and Turin for industrial design is comparable to that enjoyed by Rotterdam. Product design not only serves as an expression of lifestyle, but also as a catalyst for innovation, in keeping with Rotterdam’s dynamism.
In the past ten years, the Netherlands has put itself on the world design map, with Droog Design and the many associated designers. There is also two-way traffic between Italy and the Netherlands. Two years ago, for instance, the big Italian furniture brand B&B Italia took a 50% stake in the avant garde design label Moooi, the brainchild of top designer and entrepreneur Marcel Wanders. Moooi presents designs by Bertjan Pot, Jurgen Bey, Joep van Lieshout and Maarten Baas. The latter is famous – or infamous ? – for the deliberately torched furniture he makes for the New York design gallery Moss.

With a host of Dutch and international designers (Jaime Hayon for example), the Rotterdam design gallery Vivid profiles itself as an exhibition space cum platform for designers and public. In the past, Vivid has successfully taken part in leading design fairs in New York, Miami and Basel.
For Casa Rotterdam, which seeks to display Italian ‘designo’ in combination with designs from other countries, Vivid made a representative selection from work by fifteen Rotterdam-based designers.
Jurgen Bey operates on the interface of interior, architecture and design and is not scared to experiment. He makes chairs which seem to melt into each other, introvert armchairs for an insurance company or a tree-trunk bench. Every one an icon of Dutch Design.
His playful furniture and products – such as the two-handled Domoor mug - made Richard Hutten “big in Japan”, a status he manages to qualify with his Rotterdam level-headedness.
With her furniture for such design producers as the Swiss Vitra and consumer ceramics for IKEA and the Frisian Royal Tichelaar, Hella Jongerius links the concept with elegant, appealing styling in her Rotterdam ‘Designlab’.
With their graduation project, a computer-aided version of a baroque table, the Cinderella, Demakersvan (Jeroen Verhoeven, Joep Verhoeven and Judith de Graauw) shot to fame, with their table ending up in the New York Museum of Modern Art.
Only recently, the same thing happened to the Slovak designer Tomás Gabzdil with his Bee Vase. After studying at the Design Academy, Gabzdil set up his studio in Rotterdam. So too the Japanese-German design duo Kuniko Maeda/Mario Minale with their minimalist furniture pieces.
The testing of materials in terms of the strength of carbon fibres inspired Bertjan Pot to create ultra light and transparent furniture, the Carbon Copy Chairs, produced by Moooi.
Rotterdam’s Wieki Somers makes a wide variety of products, balancing between common sense and intuition. A vase appears to bud like a sprig of blossom whilst a porcelain teapot has the shape of a boar’s skull, kept warm by rat fur.
Joris Laarman added an unprecedented decorative twist to the prosaic central heating radiator with a meandering curl. Chris Kabel reduces objects to a basic form, as in his Shady Lace - a parasol with a lacy, foliage canopy.
In addition to his anarchic art projects, Joep van Lieshout makes sturdy seating and has provided many a Dutch museum with colourful plastic lavatory cubicles.
For more than twenty years, Vincent de Rijk has had his studio in Rotterdam. His oeuvre extends from modest ceramic forms to ingenious cupboards, both based on a modular approach. Bas van Beek presents himself with cheeky ceramics, in which he re-interprets existing vases. Frank Bruggeman paints his sturdy furniture in the same signature colour, blue. Christien Meindertsma, finally, focuses her conceptual design studies on animals, such as pigs and sheep.
All of these international designers come from Rotterdam or thereabouts.
Vivid often exhibits new work by them, varying from unique pieces to furniture made for the furniture industry.

Chris Reinewald, design publicist Items and Het Financieele Dagblad