Late Submission: Dutch Design Week 2010

Sprookjes NV Leo Coolen, Sprookjes NV

Elly and I casually approached the same old central station to wait for a friend travelling into the city at the usual waiting spot. Naturally of course, out of routine, we expected to see a sea of regulars, as not too many people in Eindhoven care to break the appearance a.k.a monoculture mould and venture into what some like to term: freak mode. However, this rainy Friday afternoon brought a whiff of difference to the city’s air.

As the two of us anxiously walked into the building, a sudden rush of ‘arty’, ‘hipster’ or even ‘indie-like’ people – who ironically created a homogenous-like mould strong enough to distinguish them from the locals – streamed out of different trains, paced in our direction, marched straight pass us and then magically disappeared into the city, leaving a stench of wonder all over our clothes.

The peculiarity of that grey day in the station went as far as witnessing an assorted bunch of people, squeezed into a 20 by 20 metre demarcated area, gyrating to the sound of, well, nothing really – until we realised they had white headphones shoved into their ears and were having a private silent disco, without inviting. Ah but alas, there is nothing more comforting than having a go at a group of people making asses out of themselves. I was envious. Elly was too. We wanted to be in the know and most importantly, we wanted in on the silent disco.

Dutch Design Week (DDW) 2010 was in the building. Infact, it was all around the city – bringing along an energy great enough to wake the city of lights. As a means of not only promoting design and designers in the city but also punting Eindhoven as a design capital nationally and internationally, the Design Platform Eindhoven decided to bring the ninth annual DDW to my temporary city. This seven day event was jam-packed with conferences, workshops, exhibitions and plenty parties.

The following Friday Elly and I cleared our not-so-busy schedules and set off into the sunset to actively be one with DDW. Cycling through the bustling maze of Eindhoven we took the ‘pink’ route allocated to us by DDW – which was made up of some great and some ordinary installations in the windows of many commercial trading stores.

The pink path lead us straight to – well not exactly, we had to stop and ask people for directions – Strijp S, the central hub of DDW. This characteristic part of town – made up of refurbished defaced, neglected and derelict industrial buildings – was the perfect backdrop to the event which showed off industrial, spatial, textile and graphic designs – to mention a few. From new comers to season design vets, design week featured them all, 1 500 designers to be exact – and we were more than delighted to have gone.

Here are some of the designs we saw: