Moscow Design Week, which is taking place this year for the fifth time, traditionally chose as its main venue the large hall in the Artplay design center, building No. 2. Here, on two floors, various design objects are shown: furniture, sculptures, posters. The general theme of the exhibition is “Innovation to save the planet” - the problem of preserving the planet and its resources, and man is seen as one of the valuable resources. The topic is popular, it has inspired architects and designers to experiment and discover for many years, suffice it to recall the recent Pritzker Prize laureate Shigeru Bana with his cheap and fast-built cardboard houses for homeless people.
A notable guest of the exhibition was the familiar (and dear) IKEA, which stands out among the majority of participants not only for the budget of the products, but also for the pavilion, which looks like a real house with a gable roof. Beds strewn with pillows, roomy wardrobes, wooden horses, cozy floor lamps and a string of kitchen taps, in a word, a complete set for creating comfort with simple means. By the way, on Saturday, October 18, representatives of the company will read a lecture “Love Wakes Up. Nature wakes up”- this is how Ikeev's motto sounds this season.
The organizers of the Weltformat graphic festival, which last fall brought posters from Lucerne to the HSE, this year gave Muscovites an excursion into the world of graphic design, talking about identity, font development and, of course, their own festival. How? Using my work as an example, of course. Viewers can reflect on the role of the poster in the life of a modern city dweller by studying Swiss examples located on the third floor. The posters are made in different techniques and formats, and each of them is placed on a wooden easel.
The widely announced installation of the Tam-Tam school, an institution for young designers, founded by the leader of Alchemy, Alessandro Guriero, was taken outside by the organizers and installed on the balcony in such a way that the view of the Spaso-Andronikov Monastery opens up from behind the sculptures. Laconic head-idols made of white plastic are not alien to curiosity: from the lips of each of the Whispering Heads, quiet voices can be heard, setting out recommendations: to work, to honor many gods, to think about the cyclical nature of life. The most understandable thoughts are expressed by female voices, semi-scientific abracadabra - by male, and the last head in the chain even emits only a measured hum.
Generalizing and rethinking sculptures from Easter Island, the designers invited modern townspeople to talk almost to the walls - white, impenetrable and completely artificial. This proposal in itself is a good reason to think about it.
The most iconic project of Moscow Design Week - "Design SuperHeroes", introducing the general public to the gurus of world design and their products, this year turned into a half-empty dark room with ironic products of the Memphis group and several other design icons: sofa lips, phallic cacti, gear chairs. Under all the products, there are frankly not enough signatures with the names of the authors: apparently, the viewer simply has no right not to know them.
In the same room there is a conceptual cube: a portal to human height, the outer part of which is dark as night, and the inner part is a set of glowing rectangles, reminding the viewer of Zaha Hadid's aesthetics and at the same time proclaiming: "Movement as a design element." The play with light is also played on the only white wall of the hall: beautiful compositions created by electric lamps settled here. The theme of graphic parallelepipeds is continued by a forest of rectangular columns with supergraphics, opposite the window on the floor above.
A somewhat frightening introduction of technology into the human mind was demonstrated by the Varennye Organism design bureau, and literally: with the help of a helmet, visitors to the exhibition can participate in a strange game when their head becomes a joystick that controls reality. The organizers promise that in a couple of years the whole world will be subject to our brain waves and offer to start training today - such a technocratic utopia.
Expanding the geography of design and mapping new points to the Russian consumer has always been one of the important tasks of Moscow Design Week. This year, the attention of the curators was drawn to Austrian industrial design - and not in vain: looking at these objects (even the most biomorphic ones), you immediately remember what language the Bauhaus spoke. Simple geometric volumes and achromatic color combinations are still relevant - especially when done with such taste and love. Unfortunately, you cannot sit on the art objects - this is strictly prohibited.
On the exhibition area, to the left of the stairs, a small library was organized, where visitors can look through the numerous printed materials of the exhibition in a cozy atmosphere. The furniture for this corner is provided by Bene: guests can rotate around their axis in the chairs with high headrests from the Parcs series, as well as try themselves as a designer, drawing the workplace of their dreams.
Close to the library, guests can admire the beautiful household utensils - including Alessi products: the very programmed silver teapots and corkscrews.
Design would not be design if it was not addressed directly to the consumer. That is why the exhibition includes the Design Market, where you can buy books and magazines on the topic, as well as designer jewelry, technical accessories and medium-sized décor.
Oddly enough, the most amusing and attractive objects of the exhibition turned out to be simple and tangible things, those that can be bought right now: furniture covered with 3D textiles and not afraid of rain and sun, modular systems made of tempered glass, ceramic lamps. Another wooden pavilion-house, filled from top to bottom with old issues of the Seasons magazine, which you can freely take with you, has become the center of attraction for visitors. Opposite this pavilion are mobile stands of the TATLIN publishing house, introducing visitors to young Russian architects and their projects.
The exhibition is full of interesting design products, and despite the feeling of some chaos, it pleases the visitor with many mischievous objects, and the game moment, as you know, is very important today.
