The history of design is online free of charge: the heritage of pictures and details from the MoMa, New York, from 1929 until today (Museum of Modern Art Archives).
Instead, Milan – after the closing of XXI Biennale- looks ahead and stands out once more with the groundbreaking format Design City Milano (October 1st to 9th): a selected program of events focused on the today and next design culture.
The program includes two workshops on workplace: Green Office Design (by Assufficio on October 6th) and Office Design Ibrido (by WOW! Webmagazine with Dieffebi on October 7th).
Design Weeks are spreading all over the world: they are mostly boring, as well some exhibitions, planned as business events, and follow the same old pattern; maybe they are good for doing business but don’t cause surprise and don’t grasp the change of scene.
Something got stuck in that settled and consistent System that, as from the postwar period, has produced the cult of Design Made in Italy and the Compasso d’Oro -the oldest design award- made the Salone del Mobile the major fair in the industry on an International plane and gave rise to the incomparable and extraordinary event known as Fuorisalone in an almost spontaneous way.
Now Design needs to feed on something else. The debate is focused on the ethics of design, placing emphasis on the sustainability of a system still producing more than it is needed, on the social role that design should play, on the potential in shaping a better future and its impact on people’s life quality.
These key themes have been expanded to the architectural project at the Biennale di Venezia by Alejandro Aravena and brought to the attention of the world.
The wave of innovation now arousing the interest of the design community was also catched by the British Council that launched in Milan the platform Invention in Design, stressing the need to collaboration between designers and producer with scientists, technologists, and researchers.
In Milan you can feel the need for an actual and constructive discussion; it is no coincidence that contamination, hybridization and co-planning are the keywords in the Design City Milano program.
The basic levers for a creative industries are to open the planning process through the collaboration with different sectors and offer opportunities to ideas that are the catalyst for invention are the basic levers for a creative industries.
Yet the design industry still feeds on famous designers’ and star architects’ griffe, self-regarding events, copies, forms without contents, meaningless objects… thus risking death from indigestion.
Editorial by Renata Sias, editor WOW! Webmagazine.
