Gone are the loosely organised events such as the "Test Run", which took curious people on a roundabout trip through the capital to visit shop after shop plugging their latest designs. Exhibitions are now on the programme, highlighting the latest of Danish or other foreign design, as well as work by Hungarian companies. Gone too are the "Designtrap" walks around the city. The week, which is being held for the sixth time, is out of its adolescent period and has entered adulthood. With a new logo and a new profile, Design Week has become utterly professional and looks set to take its place beside other big European design events such as London's 100% Design festival.
At the opening of Design Week above the Gödör Klub on Erzsébet Square, the Design Terminal showed Hungarian brands that have made it on the international design scene: clothes by Nanushka, Etalon audio equipment, furniture by Dávid Obendorfer, crystal by Ajka Kristály, as well as book design, computer animation, medical equipment, coffee makers and bathroom scales. These were just a few of the things that Hungarian designers have successfully brought to foreign markets.
In the promenade in front of the Terminal, winners of the latest Danish Index Award can be seen, among them urban furniture that swells up when wet and a simple plastic top that turns a beverage can into a sharps container.
The two exhibitions show what 21st century design is all about.
Much, much more is in store during the week. Budapest's design studios are all opening their doors - really, all you have to do is ring the bell. There will be exhibitions of Finnish, Swedish, Turkish and Swiss design, as well as workshops and children's programmes. What is missing from this year's festival is communal design: objects and space created not by professional designers, but by ordinary people. Although Design Week may have narrowed its focus, it did so in the interest of raising its profile to an international level, and done so it has.
Author: Eszter Götz
