The Czech capital and largest city Prague is preparing to welcome the 11th annual Czech Design Week. The exhibition which will present the latest collections from local designers, ateliers, studios, and brands, will be held from September 5 to 8 at two locations, the Mánes Exhibition Hall and Clam-Gallas Palace.
Clam-Gallas Palace is a new location for Czech Design Week’s visitors—as previously the festival was taking place only at the Mánes Exhibition Hall—and will host an exhibition of the “New Generation” of the design and art scene’s pioneers from Czechia and Slovakia. These will be the names that will set trends and new directions for the future of Czech design.
“The Czech Design Week festival has developed and focused on the discovery of young talents over the years. We, therefore, perceive the opportunity to present to the public a comprehensive selection of young design work on the premises of the baroque pearl of the Clam-Gallas Palace as a unique culmination of this effort. A big thank you goes to the Museum of the City of Prague, which provided us with these magnificent spaces and participated in the realization of the exhibition.”
the director of the Czech Design Week festival, Lukáš Pipek
Exhibitions at the Mánes Exhibition Hall will traditionally consist of themed panel installations of selected designers, studios, and brands and their latest design work, news, and designer collaborations. It will also feature the Czech Design Award ceremony focused on young talents and design discoveries. This is also where the opening ceremony, followed by an afterparty later that evening, will take place on September 4.
Czech Design Week is an important event for the country’s design scene, as for the past decade it has been representing the works of young Czech designers and shaping the local art, design, and craft scene. To mark the beginning of the second decade organizers opted for a few changes in the design and program of the festival.
First and foremost, this year’s exhibition will feature daily discussions focused on the current issues in the world of design—from the protection of rights in the creative spaces to tackling political issues in art and design. The other two updates are related to the visual identity of the festival—the change in the graphic design of the festival accompanied by the launch of its new website designed by graphic designer David Novák (Dacid), and the new logo that was designed by Viktor Mizera, a graduate of the UMPRUM Type and Typography Atelier and the author of the previous logo of the Czech Design Week.
The main partners of the Awards ceremony this year are Glassworks and the Glassmaker’s Tavern AJETO. For this ceremony, their craftsmen created trophies in the form of limited design glass vases designed by František Jungvirt, whose works will be presented among other collections from such renowned Czech designers as Lukáš Jabůrek and the Dechem studio.
“The Czech Design Week festival was founded with an effort to support Czech design… Over the years, this goal has transformed into an entire platform that not only presents the current work of Czech designers and creators every year, but also discovers new talents who have shaped and will continue to shape Czech design in the following years I believe that the festival will continue to develop this goal in its second decade.”
-the director of the Czech Design Week festival, Lukáš Pipek
