David Report is just back from two days at the Milan Design Week. We had the normal “Groundhog Day experience” (it’s our 23rd year in a row) – Milan in April is an epicenter of design where the latest products are presented for news-starving journalists and bloggers. As well Milan Design Week is an “office party” for the design world. But one thing that strike us is the growing design tourism. Milan Design Week is slowly turning into a huge festival, which hails design and offers plenty of parties during night time. Nothing wrong that design is turning social – for us Milan has for a long time been more about meetings and experiences than products anyway. But after a while you feel empty. It’s more about the world of design than the design of the world. More shape than content. More product than process. More fashion than long-term solutions. There are of course exceptions; Design Academy Eindhoven are showing some really clever projects. We also like the Nano supermarket which discusses what the next nature is and the Soda Bar at MOST.
But we want to see more of “official” knowledge sharing and clever discussions. More design critisism. More companies that actually are interested to discuss uncomfortable but important subjects – can we go on and just produce more and more? And honestly – do we really need another chair? It’s a lot of powerful companies here – we would like to see them lead the discussion about how they can use their power to really make a change – and not only provide for more consumption.
It’s too much of business as usual. We say like Richard Branson – screw business as usual! Be good, drive positive change and you will make good business. The quote by Mahathma Gandhi at one of the walls inside Superstudio says it all; You must be the change you want to see in the world.
Here are some snapshot experiences. Unsorted. Uncommented.
Finally some design tourism from Via Tortona:
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