daringdesign: Chinese and Dutch Designers With Guts

In terms of design, the Netherlands and China seem to be another’s opposite: the small pioneer for conceptual design versus the economic superpower. But daring designers live and work in both countries. Designers with ideas, designers with guts.

With the exhibition daringdesign, the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) in Rotterdam will present the most prominent 8 of them. One by one they will show their eye-catching and sometimes highly controversial projects – from fashion collection to book, from scale model to art project. 

Similarities in approach

The eight designers in daringdesign have much in common. They are critical, raise questions, extend boundaries and do not evade commercially or politically sensitive issues. At the same time they are realistic. They look around them all the time and respond to contemporary developments. Their work emphasises concepts like context, tradition and craftsmanship, thereby giving design a new significance and more quality in a world that is increasingly dominated by globalisation, commercialisation and standardisation.

Participating designers

From China: Ai Weiwei (architect/artist), Urbanus (firm of architects), TO MEET YOU (graphic design agency) and Ma Ke (fashion designer).

From the Netherlands: Rem Koolhaas/OMA (firm of architects), Hella Jongerius (product designer), Alexander van Slobbe (fashion designer), and Irma Boom (graphic designer).

Background 

daringdesign is the sequel to Taking a Stance, an exhibition that toured China in 2010. It was put together by the NAI and commissioned by DutchDFA. For daringdesign the NAI has asked the 8 designers to present a new project or to elaborate their existing presentation further. Moreover, the exhibition will be twice the size of its predecessor through the addition of a specially designed contextual layer, by designer Hendrik-jan Grievink.