Czech Contemporary Design, Prague
Two Design Centers Define Central Europe’s Modern Industry Style
Design - everything from fabric and furniture to ashtrays and autos - helps drive post-Communist Czech economy. Prague design centers combine exhibits with shopping
It is fitting that the Czech Design Center, the beginning of contemporary design in the Czech Republic, is housed in the Mozarteum, designed as an apartment house and theatre in 1911-12 by Jan Kotera, a leading and innovative architect of the inter-war period. Located in Prague’s Nové Mesto district (Jungmannova Street n.30), it is a popular stop for visitors touring Prague’s outstanding art and architectural sights.
Before the Czech Design Center, Czechs made good functional products but they were old-fashioned and ugly, and they did not sell well abroad. In 1964 a former director saw a design show in the west and returned with a vision to improve product design. By the later 1980s, the spirit of the Velvet Revolution that ended the Soviet era brought new life to the country and its products, led by organizations like the Czech Design Center and Profil Media.
Czech Design Center
In 1989 the Center opened, working with small and medium sized businesses to boost sales by developing new, attractive designs. “Design is not capitalist or socialist” became the motto. The mission is to aid smaller businesses to achieve better design by encouraging them to engage trained designers in product development.
Designers who work with the center must be graduates of a design school, produce a portfolio of their work, and have exhibited in the Czech Republic and internationally. TheCenter conducts an annual student design competition, maintains a list of 5,000 qualified designers and operates an exhibit gallery of their work, open to the public
Design Blok, a Private Initiative
Profil Media, another hotbed of design, it is a private business engaged in contemporary design. One initiative, Designblok – Days of Design, is an annual six-day show held in early October. Nine years old, Designblok’s attendance has grown from only a few hundred people to thousands in 2007. Over 177 shows, lectures, exhibitions and special parties are held in more than 60 venues throughout the city and involve the most active firms, companies and designers in the country. A full range of products -- fashion, furniture, glass, pottery and life-style items -- expose cutting-edge Czech designers and producers to international attention.
Profil also publishes The Blok magazine. “It is more an inspirational book than a magazine,” says its editor Jiri Macek. “It is about ideas, the work of Czech designers, a place for their presentations. The Blok,” he laughs, “is published as we have money and time.”
The Czech Grand Design Awards were held in February 2007 for the first time and they had a full house for the design awards. The annual awards are in eight categories. The purpose of the awards is to help connect design and industry. Macek says enthusiastically, “Eighteen years after the revolution they are beginning to see that good design can be good for business.”
Top Shopping Venue
Profil Media, (Komunardu 32, Tel: 420 267 990 545) shares a renovated factory building with a number of top rate designers and producers. On the ground floor (and glass enclosed roof space) look for Koncepti and in the former attic space be sure to see Tune the Bulb. This location is a top shopping venue for even the most jaded design lover.
Design Blok plans to collect the best works of Czech producers and sell them in their store starting in 2008. Like the Design Center, they work with companies to improve sales by improving the design, attractiveness and utility of their products But the two are competitors as well, which is good for the future of Czech design.
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