Vienna Design Week 2010 – Liechtenstein Museum “Barock Splendour and Stainless Steel”

For us the Wiener Palais Liechtenstein is a building with almost religious meaning.

For it was, in many ways, the place where Michael Thonet got his first big break – and so the point from where the Thonet story starts to turn and to become a success story.

Some have Mecca, others Bethlehem – and we have a 17th century garden residence in north Vienna.
All of which speaks volumes for the quality of our social lives.

For the Vienna Design Week, in contrast, the Liechtenstein Museum is the sumptuous and extravagant location for the annual Design Week Opening Party.

While we imagine such an opening ceremony could be just as successful with a couple less speeches – yes we know sponsors are important, but as all designers know so is proportion…. the real highlight of the evening was the opening of the exhibition “Barock Splendour and Stainless Steel”: three specially commissioned installations dealing with the theme “tableware with a past and a future.”

As a foretaste for the forthcoming exhibition on Duke Albert of Sachsen-Teschen’s ceremonial silver tableware, the designers Olgoj Chorchoj (Prague), Makkink & Bey (Rotterdam) and Claesson Koivisto Rune (Stockholm) were each given one room in the Liechtenstein Museum and free rein – or given the location that should probably be free reign – to interpret the theme.

An interesting observation for us was the fact that two of the works – independent of one another – echoed one of the central topics of the Vienna Design Week; helping traditional Austrian design manufacturers remain current without losing touch with their history and roots.

The results, however, could barely have been more different.

And so where Claesson Koivisto Rune collaborated with the Vienna crystal manufacturer J & L Lobmyer and the Wiener Silber Manufactur to produce a range of wonderfully elegant yet robust vesicles; Studio Makkink & Bey’s cooperation with the silversmiths Jarosinsky & Vaugoin and the former court confectioner Demel resulted in an apparently abstract and incoherent world of silver and sugar.

Olgoj Chorchoj tackled the theme a little more literally and in doing so produced without question one of the most interactive installations of Vienna Design Week. One of those wonderful creations that simply invites the public to react and play with it.

The success with which the three design studios tackled the theme is naturally a subjective question for each individual visitor; and clearly each work has its own strengths and weaknesses.

While for us such exhibitions are admittedly little more than a pleasant diversion from the rigours of the job; “Barock Splendour and Stainless Steel” is one of the more pleasant diversions we’ve enjoyed this year.

The opening party then went on until the wee small hours; however, we left good and early in preparation for the days ahead.

Honest!

“Barock Splendour and Stainless Steel” can be viewed until November 9th in the Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna.