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Made in Switzerland

5 Oct 2005 Category: Events & Exhibitions, Japan, Worldwide

An exhibition called “small + beautiful” (design from Switzerland) is taking place at D-Akihabara Temporary. Last week, I attended one of the related events, a the lecture titled “Made in Switzerland” where curators and designers talked about Swiss design.

“D-Akihabara Temporary” is the project to transform a closed down middle school into a museum for a limited time only. Having graduated from middle school over 10 years ago, I went through the school gates with sense of nostalgia. Uh oh, I was late for school again! I rushed through hall way to get to the classroom. When I got there, there were no mean homeroom teachers waiting for me, but I was welcomed warmly by speakers with smiles.

I was expecting a “lecture style” with the audience in the seats and presenters on the stage. However it turned out to be completely different. Small groups of about 30 audience members and 6 speakers(including the Moderator, Riichi Miyake) walked around the exhibition rooms together, and speakers explained about each pieces at an extremely close range.

Kobi Gantenbein, the chief editor of “Hochparterre”, a magazine for Swiss Architecture and Design, Zurich and Ariana Pradal, the editor of “Werk, Bauen + Wohnen” mainly lead the lecture. They made three points about Swiss society, “the majority of people belong to the middle class, and the nation is economically affluent”, “at once very traditional and very modern (due to large number of immigrants and having four official language)” and “tourism is huge industry (there are some Swiss stereotypes that sell such as Heidi and Matterhorn.” With that as a background, we looked at Swiss design one by one.

When I thought about Swiss designs, “Swiss Army Knives” and Swatch were the first things came to my mind. However, looking at exhibition, there were so many things I was familiar with already without knowing they were from Switzerland. For instance, bamix, Pingu, Kickboard and FREITAG bags, I’ve been surrounded by them. “Wow, they are all made in Switzerland!”

Finally we moved to the other room, where we had a round table discussion. Tom from IMGSRC and Regula Kong from Pro Helvetia brought up a very interesting point. That being, Swiss designers sometimes include a Swiss flag (white cross on red background) on their product. They were curious if it was because Swiss people think highly of tradition and are proud of being Swiss.

It’s true that Swatch has white cross whereas I’ve never seen Japanese flag on any product (especially on a cool product) Kobi explained, “There are 4 major cultures in such a small country. So, we need some kind of agreement or bond to tie ourselves together. And since tourism is so important, using flag can be marketing purpose.” The whole lecture was so interesting.

It turned out to be a fun lesson in the middle school in ages. Why don’t you look for Swiss design around you?

small + beautiful
design from Switzerland
Date: Tuesday, September 27 - Sunday, October 23
Place: D-Akihabara_Temporary

Written by Kyoko

"small + beautiful design from Switzerland" Poster

Kobi Gantenbein, explaining Swiss design

attentive audience

Ariana Pradal, very cute person with cheerful smile all the time(Right). Professor Riichi Miyake, the moderator(Left)

Smiling on his face, Kobi listening to Ariana's talk

designs display "Swissness." Ski boot and Saint Bernard

long seller furnitures

moved to lecture room from exhibition room. Round table discussion was held here. (you can tell that ths place was used to be school)

Tom Vincent from IMGSRC(Left). Frederic Dedelley, designer(Right)

Ariana talks about "it PET BADDHA" from it design (http://www.it-happens.ch/)

Ariana demonstrats how to use "it PET BADDHA"

Regula Kong from Pro Helvetia(Left) talking to Kobi

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