From 7 to 11 October, the festival returns with more than 300 designers, studios and brands. This year’s theme is Light, explored through large-scale installations, new projects and leading international names
From 7 to 11 October, Designblok returns to Prague for its 28th edition, this year centred on the theme of Light. Light is explored as both a material and a design tool, as well as through the possibilities opened up by new technologies. More than 300 designers, studios and brands will take over venues across the city, from the Trade Fair Palace of the National Gallery Prague to Prague Castle, and from the Museum of Decorative Arts to the Industrial Palace, which reopens after four years of renovation.
Among the most anticipated international guests is Marcel Wanders, who will receive the Designblok Award for Outstanding Contribution to Global Design. The award offers an opportunity to look back at a career that began in the 1990s and has produced objects that have since entered design history, from the 1996 Knotted Chair to his lighting for Flos, as well as the founding of Moooi 25 years ago.
With Lee Broom, light becomes an installation. The British designer brings BEACON to Prague for the first time, a project created in collaboration with Czech company Brokis and previously presented in London and during Milan Design Week. The work will be installed outdoors in Jan Palach Square, in front of the Rudolfinum.
At the Trade Fair Palace, returning after three years as the heart of the festival, Maxim Velčovský presents Veranda, an interactive installation built around light and movement. On the fifth floor, Designblok Selects brings together 28 objects and new releases selected from the Czech and international design scenes. Among them are a limited-edition gold Panton Chair by Vitra and the Axis collection designed by Laurids Gallée for Moser.
Also worth a visit is the Museum of Decorative Arts, where Retro Lamps: Forgotten Stories of Czechoslovak Design brings back into the spotlight table, floor and pendant lamps produced in Czechoslovakia between the 1950s and the 1980s. The objects are the starting point, but the exhibition focuses above all on the designers, whose names often remained in the shadow of the companies that manufactured their work. The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Parisian gallery Initio Arts & Design and curated by Eva Slunečková.
At Prague Castle, in the Chapel of the Holy Cross, Eva Eisler presents Circle of Silence. For the first time during Designblok, the deconsecrated chapel opens to the public with an installation in which light is not the subject itself, but rather the medium through which to experience the space and its silence.
Among the new products on the programme are the first lamp by Master & Master, designed by Tomáš Král, a new armchair by Lucie Koldová for LD Seating, and a collection of handles and hooks designed by Jiří Pelcl for M&T. Lasvit will present a project created in collaboration with Rizzoli New York, while the garden of the Museum of Decorative Arts will host an intervention by German designer Bodo Sperlein.
The festival’s international dimension also extends to the Designblok Talks, taking place on 6 and 7 October. This year’s guests include Sebastian Herkner, Daniel Rybakken, Claudio Silvestrin, Christophe Delcourt and Laurids Gallée, alongside a selection of leading figures from the Czech design scene, from Lucie Koldová and Jan Plecháč to Dechem and Maxim Velčovský.
And then there is Prague itself. Designblok is not confined to its main venues, but spreads across more than 50 showrooms, galleries and independent spaces. At Konsepti in Holešovice, visitors will find new projects by Christophe Delcourt for Molteni&C; Bulb will showcase a selection of pieces by Marcel Wanders and Moooi; while the new Rückl flagship store opens its doors in the city centre. A way of moving through the festival by following the light - but above all, the design — from one neighbourhood to the next.
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