Designblok 2024 to celebrate youth and longevity in art
The annual Designblok, the biggest festival of its kind in Central Europe, has just got underway at a number of venues in Prague. This year, the festival centre – the so-called Superstudio – is located at the historical building of Prague City Museum, which opens to the public for the first time since its reconstruction. I discussed the event with Jana Zielinski, the director of Designblok, and first asked her about the choice of this year’s main topic, which is Youth:
“We decided to choose the topic Youth because we believe that if you have high quality work, it contains longevity and eternal youth.
“We have, of course, many programs which support young designers, young talents, but we think that when you create a high quality and beautiful design, then you really are part of eternal youth and eternal longevity. So that's why.”
One of the highlights of this year's Designblok is an exhibition called High Craft, which will take place at the Prague Castle Riding School. What will be on display there?
“It is basically the crème de la crème of Czech design. There are companies, producers, as well as designers who connect in a very successful way traditional high craft and contemporary design. You will find that in glass works like Květná, Rückl, Brokis, Moser and all these very traditional glass factories, which work with great contemporary designers.
“But there will also be designers who are on the edge with art like Lukáš Novák or LLEV. And there are also some very special projects in jewellery and fashion. So it is about the connection of what can be done with our beautiful Czech traditional craft and the best contemporary design.”
The main foreign guest of this year's Designblok is British designer, architect and artist Ron Arad. Can you tell us a bit more about him?
“He is basically a legend in the world of design. He was very, very big in the 80s and 90s, but his work still goes on, although he will soon turn 75. And I'm very glad that he came to Prague to obtain the award for his contribution to the world of design.
“He will introduce here his completely new piece of furniture, called One Page Armchair. It was done for the Italian company Moroso, which is one of the best furniture companies in the world, and the artistic director of Moroso company, Patrizia Moroso, is coming to Prague as well. And we will have the exhibition in Konsepti in Holešovice.
“What persuaded him to come to Prague, when we discussed the possibility at the Milano Design Week, is that he was a big friend of Bořek Šípek. So I'm very glad that Bořek Šípek still opens the door to the world of design to us.”
One of the festival's main venues will be located at the Prague City Museum's main building at Florence, which will be open to the public for the first time since its reconstruction started in June 2020. And that will be the location of what you call the Superstudio...
“Yes, the Superstudio is the location for producers, so it will feature various cooperation projects between designers and companies. For example, we have a beautiful exhibition of Panter & Tourron, Swiss designers cooperating with Vitra, but also a lot of Czech companies.
“So you will find there more than 40 exhibitions in the beautiful building in the Museum of Prague and I'm very grateful to the director Ivo Macek that he allowed the visitors of Designblok to see the newly reconstructed building.”
Is there anything you are particularly looking forward to this year?
“I'm very glad that the guest of honour of this year is Winy Maas, architect, founder of MVRDV, an architectural studio from The Netherlands, because his studio has just signed the contract for new buildings at Prague Airport. So we have this beautiful opportunity to announce that we will have some great contemporary architecture constructed in Prague in the future. And we can take the opportunity to announce it at Designblok this year.”
