Breaking the Glass Ceiling by Tina Marković and Karla Bastalić, as seen at Zagreb Design Week 2024 As previously noted, the theme of Zagreb Design Week 2024 was Breaking the Glass Ceiling, a theme that the organisers neatly, and pleasingly, expanded away from its conventional understanding in terms of gender parity and towards a demand for a design practice and design industry, or perhaps more accurately, a demand for a design practice and design industry in Europe, more inclusive that that
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The European design calendar is dominated by a few mega events, colossi whose shadows not only define the calendar but tend to hog the media and therefore the popular perception of contemporary design, not least since that media became primarily the unreflective echo chamber of Instagram; yet colossi whose (invariably stupidly high) costs mean that only those with the deepest of pockets can hope to find success at such events, only those with the deepest of pockets can hope to register on the
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It is, we'd argue, fair to say that most people in western Europe still have a very stereotypical, skewed, if not prejudiced view of late 20th century design in and from those nations that form the eastern half of the European continent. With Retrotopia. Design for Socialist Spaces the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin, in cooperation with numerous museums and institutions from across eastern Europe, provide an introduction to post-War 20th century architecture and design in and from Croatia, the
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In our post from the excellent exhibition Croatian Holiday at Vienna Design Week 2012 we questioned the curators assertion that through incorporating contemporary designers into a nation's tourist industry one could help that nation promote a contemporary national identity abroad. Our scepticism wasn't levied at the employment of designers in, for example, creating furniture for hotels, the interior design of tourist attractions or promotional material, but much more about employing designers
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