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    • Partner GLASHÜTTE COMPLOJ in the Westbahnstraße, glas manufactory
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    Discover Austrian Design

    Lilli Hollein is an expert on Austrian design, former director of the Vienna Design Week and currently the director of MAK (Museum of Applied Arts). She takes us on a discovery tour of the Austrian design scene.

    From children’s bicycles to facade lighting, from linen tablecloths to wine glasses, from sofas to ceramic plates for gourmet restaurants: Austrian design is almost always combined with extraordinary craftsmanship. This is why the design pieces are rarely found in large quantities, but rather as part of exclusive mini-series. They are innovative and show progressive thinking, a love for experimentation and a value for traditional materials and precise craftsmanship. 

    All of these are aspects Lilli Hollein likes to highlight. „In Austria, innovation, and the openness for unconventional as well as qualitatively outstanding collaboration with artistic approaches are still in the tradition of the Wiener Werkstätte, an arts & crafts movement of its own at the beginning of the 20th century.“

    “Designers don’t promote consumption - it is not about fulfilling desires, but creating things that last.“

    Direktor Lilli Hollein with a glas from ZALTO
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    Lilli Hollein

    Manufacturer x Design

    Handmade items are still highly valued in today’s Austria. The claim of exclusivity is always associated with the character of an insider tip because the sought after objects are not widely available in such excellent quality. Numerous manufacturers such as Augarten, Lobmeyr, the enamel producer Riess, the silversmith Jarosinski & Vaugoin, linen manufacturers Vieböck and Leitner from the Mühlviertel or the furniture shop Wittmann, all share traditional as well as contemporary Austrian design combined with excellent craftsmanship. Partly, this was a result of Hollein’s efforts to promote this bridge between tradition and innovation within the framework of the Vienna Design Week, as she created a space where traditional manufacturers meet and collaborate with interesting designers.

    A Design Journey Through Austria

    Lilli Hollein is an expert in Austrian design, co-founder and former director of the annual fall festival Vienna Design Week, Austria’s biggest design event. Along with the Museum für Angewandte Kunst (MAK) in Vienna, whose directorship she just recently occupied, the Ars Electronica in Linz, and the renowned design academies such as the Angewandte in Vienna, the New Design University in St. Pölten or the Kunstuniversität Linz, she sees herself as a „tessera” in the rich variety of places that showcase and create an experimental, social and sustainable product design.

    Interview with Lilli Hollein

    “We have an active, international, and very interconnected design scene with an incredible bandwidth of social design, experimental and product design.”
    austria.info: If you were to visit Austria now, which designers would you explore?
    Lilli Hollein: It is hard to pick just a few because we have so many interesting designers with progressive approaches who are also doing research. There is, for example, Eoos, who are working together with a Swiss company on a toilet that separates solid particles from liquid ones. A very important contribution in the effort to mitigate climate change. The enamel manufacturer Reiss has become a trendsetter again since it was discovered that for people suffering from allergies, enamel is better than any other alternatives. The product designers at Dottings created an entire new product line for the company.
    austria.info: Where do traditional crafts and modern design meet?
    Lilli Hollein: Off the top of my head, I’d say Karak. The company creates stone tiles after an old Japanese firing method combined with new design. Or the blown glasses from Zalto Glas in Gmünd, which are a favorite of Heinz Reitbauer at the famous Steirereck restaurant. I am also intrigued by the eyewear from Andy Wolf Eyewear in Graz. And the hand stuffed sofas from Wittmann make sitting down a blissful experience.
    austria.info: Where are Austria’s design hot-spots?
    Lilli Hollein: The Werkraum Bregenzerwald is definitely worth a trip. In Vienna, several designers share a studio at Hütteldorferstraße 59, including the fashion label Wendy & Jim, the design-trio Breaded Escalope and Klemens Schillinger. The designs from Lucy D or Mischa Traxler are always eye-catchers. And when you eat at the gourmet restaurant Konstantin Filippou, you’ll sit in a chair by Martin Mostböck, which you can find only in that location.

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