Since April, spring has become more and more vibrant. In addition to the vitality of the natural world, there are also major art and design events all over the world.
The well-known Milan Design Week has just ended, along with Boston Design Week, Peruvian Latin American Design Festival, Bruges Triennale in Belgium, Icelandic Design March, and Logroño International Architecture and Design Festival in Spain...... It's about to take turns soon.
Each "festival" presents many works and also shows the unique urban temperament of the local area, and the audience is ignited not only to pay attention to the cutting-edge trends of design, but also to enjoy each place. Together, we will focus on the six high-profile international art and design festivals, looking back on & previewing the long-lost "peak" of global design.
For this year's Milan Design Week, the organizers announced a people-centric pavilion layout ©, Delfino Sisto Legnani
01Crazy Milan Design Week！与设计疯狂约会的热情南欧
Milan Design Week, known as the "Olympic" event of the world's furniture design & display, is undoubtedly the most popular global design event in April. During this period, the world's most cutting-edge designs and classics come together in Milan, a city where the classic and the modern meet. Although it is called "Milan Design Week", in fact, the city's frenzied pursuit of design originated from an official organization, the Salone del Mobile del Mobile.
Ma Yansong's "Walk" installation in collaboration with Amazon, located in the ancient courtyard of the Cortile della Farmacia of the University of Milan, features a sustainable aluminium structure.
The Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milano (Salone) was originally an annual furniture fair held in Milan, which was founded in 1961 and moved to its current venue in 1972, with a history of 62 years. In the early 80s, people began to spontaneously bring design from a single venue to different parts of the city, eventually forming a "Fuorisalone" with a series of city-related activities.
From Brera to 5Vie, neighborhoods are interconnected and explore the intersection between design and art, fashion, food and technology. Events include installations, lectures, temporary exhibitions and pop-ups, taking place from exhibition halls and galleries to private palaces and public spaces.
AMDL Circle工作室为意大利品牌 Ethimo 设计的 Cosmo凉亭。
During his time at Salone, Milan was transformed into a playground of passionate and sophisticated design. From April 16 to 21 this year, more than 400,000 visitors from all over the world gathered here, and the organizers also opened the circulation design to the public in a humanized form. The original goal of the exhibition has been achieved – now Milan has become an important design center in Italy and throughout Europe.
The scene of Milan Design Week 2024
© Ph. Romano Dubbini
Milan Design Week 🔗 www.salonemilano.it/en
02Stopped in North America
Come to Boston and feel the sea breeze of design
Boston is all the way to the outside world. Located in the heart of Massachusetts, "Athens, USA" has long been a source of culture and history that has always attracted people to travel and explore, but now design is becoming another reason for people to come here.
2024 Bols
Don Design Week
© MIT List Visual Arts Center
Every year at Boston Design Week, designers are given awards, and this year the ceremony takes place on May 3. In Boston, there is always a keen interest in design. Not content with the city's pre-existing history, there is a belief that today's designers must be able to foresee the future, and this design trend explores everything from innovative design to historical design maintenance. Boston Design Week also deconstructs important social issues into everyday life.
From April 23 to May 5, the 11th edition of Boston Design Week held more than 70 design events throughout the city and surrounding areas under the theme of "Designing for the Future, Preserving for the Future," matching people's specific interests in a variety of special areas, including architecture and urban design, landscape architecture and outdoor living, social impact, professional attention and handmade design.
Boss over the years
Cover of the Don Design Week guidebook
Boston Design Week aims to create a participatory, citywide event that insists that design should play a role in everyday life, and the public is encouraged to explore the many facets of design in this context. With the salty sea breeze and the modern and classic streets, we can experience Boston's different but consistent appearance while stopping and swimming.
Boston Design Week 🔗 www.bostondesignweek.com
03 Latin American frenzy
A "city of gods" that speaks all year round, with year-round sunshine, sea breezes, architecture and plants, it is no wonder that Lima, the capital of Peru, is known as the "Garden City" of South America. Straddling the north and south banks of the Aprimac River, the city takes its name from this, meaning "God Who Speaks". Art and design are so in harmony with Lima that the Latin America Design Festival (LADFEST) based on it has become another calling card for the city.
The design festival, which has been held annually in Peru since 2015, is back again. Mood and colour are the most striking features of the festival, during which up-and-coming designers and artists, as well as design-loving audiences, will flood the city. LADFEST is already a large-scale design festival that has influenced the world.
Each edition of LADFEST will have its own theme and inspiration. For example, in 2017, the design of the 3rd edition of LADFEST was inspired by the Kalundarya celebration. Blending Catholic piety with the hustle and bustle of the festival, the festival invites thousands of musicians and dancers to perform in the city, giving citizens and visitors a visual experience unlike anything ever before. The city is filled with a wonderful atmosphere, with dance, music and bright colors that combine to form the urban design undertone of Lima in April. According to statistics, it attracted more than 2,000 attendees that year.
Latin American Design Festival ©2017 by Raul Matali
This highly creative and inspiring festival takes place between April 11 and 12 with a series of workshops, exhibitions and visits throughout Lima, but some of them will run until May and June.
Latin American Design Festival 🔗 ladfest.org
04 Ancient cities in Western Europe "Canvas"
The answer to these questions, whether urban art, contemporary art, and the old city should be integrated with the old city, and whether the scope of art must be framed, may be hidden in the Bruges Triennial.
The famous work of the 2nd Bruges Triennial, the sculpture "skyscraper" (skyscraper) made by STUDIOKCA from 5 tons of marine plastic waste.
Although the first edition of the Bruges Triennale took place in 2015, the city had a tradition of triennials as early as 1968, 1971 and 1974. The new urban exhibition is more like a continuation of history, with Bruges as the core, focusing on contemporary art and architecture, and inviting artists from all over the world to co-create, using the texture of Bruges city streets as a canvas during the period of April ~ October of the year of the year, to create urban art that belongs to the citizens.
As is customary, each Triennale will have a big theme. The first edition was entitled "Bruges as a Megapolis", which presented an imaginary of the city of Bruges: "What will it be like when this small city full of history becomes a cosmopolitan city?", while the second exhibition focuses on the cultural history of Bruges and how it has remained dynamic and resilient in the social state of the time. In the last edition, the Triennale changed its previous positive theme and began to explore the scars and past under the surface of the city under the theme of "Trauma" (TraumA).
2024年布鲁日三年展预告 © Sumayya Vally
Each edition is relevant to the current social environment, and this year, from 13 April to 1 September, the public spaces of Bruges city center and Zeebrugge Beach will once again become a platform for contemporary art and architecture. The 4th edition of the Bruges Triennale will continue to be firmly anchored in the theme of looking to the future – how can we improve the livability of Bruges and beyond, in a conservation-oriented way, and how can we respond to issues such as sustainability and change in a conservation-centred UNESCO-certified historic environment?
Bruges Triennale 🔗 triennalebrugge.be/en
05 "March" in Iceland
Reykjavik's color spreadIceland's capital, Reykjavík, is not a Nordic city in the traditional sense. Vibrant colors are harmoniously arranged in it, and beyond the Northern Lights become a sight to behold in the city. In 2008, Iceland was facing bankruptcy, and the following year the first Design March was held in the capital, Reykjavik, in an effort to revitalize the city through the power of design.
© Design March
Despite its name, the event has been postponed to May in recent years. In fact, since 2021, the March Design Festival has been scheduled to be held on the first weekend of May for three consecutive years. This year, the show has been brought forward to April 24-28. As one of the biggest events in Iceland's capital, the crowd is more enthusiastic than ever.
In addition to design and architecture, the event also explores fashion and a variety of other design disciplines, such as furniture, products, graphics, and food. At the same time, artificial intelligence has been introduced into this context. These attract forward-thinking and innovative visitors to create a platform for Icelandic and Scandinavian design in a surprising way. Inspiration and fun are mentioned here repeatedly, and the exhibition is delivered to the viewer in a much wider form, whether we are in Iceland or not.
Designing with nature © Design March
As the organizers emphasized, exhibitions are life, stretching from the harbor to the main street, with studios and galleries open to the public, every space deserves attention, and exhibitions are everywhere. If you happen to be in Iceland during this time, these pieces and forums representing contemporary Scandinavian design will make your visit worthwhile.
March Design Festival 🔗 www.honnunarmidstod.is/en/honnunarmars
06 on the banks of the Ebro River
Don Quixote and his retinue Sancho were on an adventure on the banks of the Ebro River, a celebration of architecture and art, a well-known story that makes the Ebro so mysterious and fascinating. Located on the banks of the Ebro River, Logroño, the capital of La Rioja, is a historic town in northern Spain that is becoming known for its alternate identity as the site of the Concéntrico International Festival of Architecture and Design. Once known as a source of pilgrimage, Logroño has been transformed into a new "sanctuary" of architecture and art.
Concéntrico推出街头十年项目 © Concéntrico 10
Concéntrico aims to propose a reflection on the city and the environment. Held annually in the Spanish town of Logroño, this design festival will bring together emerging designers and architects from all over the world from April 25 to May 1 this year. They will present a series of temporary installations, each of which can be freely relatable to the urban public space.
艺术家Camille Walala在城中用色彩"投射阴影",meii estudio、Clara Torregrosa和Gabriel Millán在洛格罗尼奥城中建造"城市游泳池",艺术团体Fantastic Plastic在建筑上套上充气的银色圆环...... 在Concéntrico期间,整个城市将使尽浑身解数传递欢乐。
© Concentric
Logroño International Festival of Architecture and Design
🔗 concentrico.es/en/
Which design festival are you most interested in?Have you ever experienced it?Welcome to leave a message to share
Edit — danz
撰文— boobam
Figure— Official website of each design festival