PASSIONSWEGE 2020

15 years of the Passionswege! The Passionswege have shaped VIENNA DESIGN WEEK like no other festival format. As a pilot project and cornerstone they are even a year older than the festival itself. The focus of this curated format, which sees design as a unifying, creatively fertile element, is the cooperation – as equal partners – between designers and Vienna’s craft-based businesses. An intense exchange of know-how provides the basis for an open, experimental process, which is free of commercial pressure and whose aim is to develop unexpected solutions, projects, and products or, simply, to ask the right questions. In more than 100 cooperative commissions stretching back over the past 15 years, a process combining a sensitive approach to given reality with visionary thinking has led to the creation of countless objects, which have transformed the work of all those involved and transported the audience of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK to the world of traditional artisanal production. To mark the anniversary of the Passionswege, VIENNA DESIGN WEEK expanded an exhibition conceived for Collectible, the Brussels design fair, into a retrospective that was completely devoted to the delights of the collectively created objects. What’s more: The first 15 years of the format were exemplified by the cabinet of glass & mirrors that the Swiss artist Daniela Schönbächler developed with J. & L. Lobmeyr – the partner with whom VIENNA DESIGN WEEK has cooperated most often as part of the Passionswege format.