STA, 8 October 2019 - The Month of Design (Mesec Oblikovanja) event, bringing together around 300 participants from 19 countries in Southeast Europe, got under way in Ljubljana on Tuesday with the Design Expo fair and presentation of a number of awards.
Organised by the Zavod Big centre for creative business, the 17th Month of Design will bring together lecturers and debaters at a number of events on architecture, wood design and creative tourism, among others.
Also to be conferred are awards for product design and fashion, interior design, innovative carpentry and creative tourism, according to the festival's website.
The main event of the festival will be the international exhibition BigSEE, which will feature award-winning projects in four categories in national pavilions set up in Design City in Dunajska Street.
A special Big SEE Visionary Award will go to four "visionaries who have inspired and moved the boundaries of design and architecture with their oeuvre, developing the creative environment of Southeast Europe."
Several awards were already conferred today, including the Design of the Year award, which want to Gigodesign for Bokashi Organko 2, a minimalist kitchen compost bin made from recycled materials, the jury wrote.
Moreover, the Private Interior award went to Dan Adlešič, Gregor Bucika and co. for the Ansambel flat, which counters the trend of hyperaesthetic flat designs by using a more personal touch, and the Public Interior award to Nuša Jelenec for the pizzeria Trappa project that experiments with new spacial relations, materials, textures and colours.
Also conferred was the Timeless award, going to glass designer Tihomir Tomić for a glass coffee cup which he designed in 1980 and which was produced in a limited edition by the Steklarna Boris Kidrič glassworks in v Rogaška Slatina.
The jury wrote that the relatively long glass-working tradition in Slovenia had attracted various artists who primarily worked in other fields. Tomić, a graphic designer by training, worked at Steklarna Boris Kidrič and created a number of daily use products, decorative items and glass sculptures, many of which unfortunately remained limited to a test edition.
The coffee cup, made from hand-blown glass in a translucent and etched version combines pure form and experiment - etching with acid - along with an excellent and precise execution. Simple, essential, timeless, the jury wrote.
Design City also hosted today a design conference featuring presentations of award-winning projects and of successful companies promoting progress empowered by design.
The Month of Design will run until 8 November, featuring another 60 partner events all around the Slovenian capital.
