20.11.2023
How can design contribute to both socially and ecologically sustainable solutions? How can it be critical and connect us to the objects, spaces and services we need in a meaningful way? Vienna Design Week seeks answers to questions like these over ten days in late summer each year with a wide range of different events. In addition to focusing on the design of products, it also asks what role the work of designers plays in living together in the city and around the world.
Vienna Design Week 2023 in the 2nd district
Now in its 17th edition, Vienna Design Week 2023 places the second district of Vienna at the spatial center of its exhibitions. The multidisciplinary design festival moves through the city from edition to edition, changing the focus district and the main venue every year. The latter is usually an interim use. The special thing about the centers is that they are reformulated into something new depending on their appearance, condition, size, etc., without covering up the building and its history.
Headquarters 2023: the former Magdas Hotel near the Prater
In 2023, Design Week, together with Kreative Räume Wien, was able to find a very special location as its headquarters: The former Magdas Hotel in the Prater, owned by Caritas. Following the relocation of the social business hotel to its new location in the Third District, the building that was previously used stood empty. In late summer 2023, the former hotel premises will now be transformed into a design venue. The interim use property on the edge of the historic Wurstelprater offers enough space for a colorful kaleidoscope of beguiling contributions, program points and curiosities, including an info point and pop-up cafe.
Review & preview
In previous years, Kreative Räume Wien has supported the aims of the festival and partner projects that move between creative use of space, design and society. We are all the more pleased that this year we were able to successfully network the festival in the search for a headquarters.
The next edition of Vienna Design Week is expected to take place from September 20 to 29, 2024.