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From September 5th to 8th, the 11th edition of the Czech Design Week festival will welcome visitors for the first time at two locations in the center of Prague. The Mánes Exhibition Hall will showcase current collections from hundreds of Czech and international designers, brands, and studios. The festival will also invite visitors to the Clam-Gallas Palace for the accompanying New Generation exhibition, featuring a selection of works by emerging talents in design and art, who are already among the most prominent creators in the country. Their creators are definitely worth watching in the future. This year, the festival will again feature a daily accompanying program of lectures and discussions on topics such as artificial intelligence, art investment, and media creation.
During four days filled with design, the Mánes Exhibition Hall will feature panel installations showcasing a selection of contemporary works by Czech and international designers, students, brands, and studios across all design disciplines.
Talented designers from Czech and Slovak art schools will also bring their current work to the Mánes Exhibition Hall, with individual installations by, for example, Ema Domanická, Markéta Masnicová, Marek Hanák, Karolína Kučerová, and other students from various studios at Prague's UMPRUM. Joint exhibitions will also feature students from the Product Design studio at FUD UJEP, the Fashion Design studio at UTB Zlín, and the Glass studio at VŠVU in Bratislava.
The functionalist Mánes building, which has been associated with art for nearly a hundred years and will showcase almost a hundred names and creators at Czech Design Week, will be programmatically complemented by the Clam-Gallas Palace with its accompanying New Generation exhibition. In the halls of this historical gem of Prague's Baroque architecture, which recently underwent extensive renovation, works by nearly fifty designers and artists of the youngest generation will be presented, including František Jungvirt, Pavlína Šváchová, Tomáš Kučera, Mikolášková&Drobná, Matěj Macháček, Kryštof Strejc, Barbora Lepší, and Zuzana Badinková.
The New Generation exhibition, part of this year's festival, is being created in collaboration with the Museum of Prague. “Through this exhibition, Czech Design Week aims to support young creators, as the festival has been built upon them since its inception. The majestic spaces of the Clam-Gallas Palace allow us to showcase a festival selection of designers and artists who are still at the beginning of their careers, yet their collections and works are already among the most prominent being created in our country,” said festival director Lukáš Pipek regarding the New Generation exhibition.
This year, leading brands will again be present at the festival, increasingly collaborating with young Czech designers, partly thanks to the festival's activities. Xiaomi, a global technology leader, will present its smart home concept to visitors through an installation designed by designer and glass artist František Jungvirt, who will complement the installation with his current vase collections. PlayStation will commemorate the 30th anniversary of its first-generation gaming console at Mánes through an installation by designer Filip Hrubý from the Glass Studio at UMPRUM.
The installation by Adam Keprta, a designer from Zlín's Baťovka, will also feature his latest collection of beverage mugs, which he designed for the Baileys brand to mark 50 years since the first mixing of this liqueur drink. And for half a century, iconic beverage and tableware glass has also been created under the Crystalex brand. Crystalex will also present its current collections at Mánes, the latest of which were created under the direction of the brand's new chief designer, Martin Jašontek.
Accompanying Program
The exhibition line at Mánes will be accompanied by a daily series of lectures and debates focusing on current topics and emerging works. Visitors will be able to delve into the allure and challenges of artificial intelligence, which is increasingly permeating creative work, discover the art of art investment itself, or get an inside look at how cultural events are created and how today's lifestyle media operate.
The accompanying program will also feature partner projects such as the We’re Next fashion show for young talents and Rare Places, which offers tips on unusual and often hidden architectural gems in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. For example, the Crystalex brand will introduce its new Flagship store opening in mid-September in Prague's Masaryčka.
Czech Design Awards
Czech Design Week will also traditionally conclude with the Czech Design Awards ceremony, the 11th edition of which will take place on Sunday, September 8th, at 6 PM in Mánes. The awards, which focus on prominent creators of all generations and aim to support the laureates in their future work, are presented not only for the Discovery of the Year category but also for exceptional work and for design installations within the Czech Design Week festival.
In addition to automatic inclusion in the next edition of Czech Design Week and broader production and media support from the festival, awarded designers also receive prizes in the form of functional glass vases designed by František Jungvirt. The awards were produced at the AJETO glassworks in Lindava, which is a partner for this year's awards. The AJETO glassworks, co-founded by designer Bořek Šípek and celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, will also present itself to visitors through a thematic installation in the Mánes Exhibition Hall.
Design stores
However, visitors can not only discover but also purchase current designs outside the main exhibition spaces, for example, at partner design stores Artisème in Malá Strana or The Design near Havelská Market, where a joint exhibition 'Fire Walk With Me' by designer Blanka Němcová and painter Richard Nestler is currently on display. Concurrently with the festival, the UM Gallery will launch the 'Boundaries of Serendipity' exhibition by designers Karolína Kučerová, Františka Benčaťová, and Paula Benčaťová, whose work is also associated with the Czech Design Week festival.
The Czech Design Week festival will take place from September 5 to 8, 2024. The opening ceremony will be followed by an evening afterparty on Wednesday, September 4, at the Mánes Exhibition Hall, sponsored by the Ploom brand. The visual identity of this year's festival was a collaborative effort by graphic designer David Novák (Dacid) from Prague's UMPRUM and motion designer Kamil Ansorge.
