Swiss Design Awards

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The Swiss Design Awards [1] competition is a hundred-year old design award and one of the three means of design promotion by the Swiss government's Federal Office of Culture, along with the Most Beautiful Swiss Books and the Grand Prix Design. They are open to Swiss designers and to designers resident in Switzerland. Around 17 prizes of CHF 25,000 each are awarded each year. [2] The Federal Design Commission (previously known as the Federal Commission for Applied Arts) acts as the jury. The commission is assisted by recognised experts, who it invites for the jury. [3]

The type of work accepted in the competition includes graphic design, products and objects, fashion and textile design, photography, scenography and mediation, media and interaction design, and design research. [4]

The competition takes place in two rounds. In the first round, participants submit an entry. The candidates selected by the Commission are invited to a second round, where they present their work at the Swiss Design Awards public exhibition. The exhibition takes place every year in June, at the same time as the Art Basel and Design Miami/Basel exhibitions, and attracts more than 12'000 visitors every year. [5] The committee selects the winners shortly before the opening of the exhibition.

The competition is influential in Switzerland. It is critically reputed and its relatively high money prize can exert a positive impact on designers' careers. [4]

History

The competition was founded in 1917 as a sister competition to the Swiss Art Awards, which had been running since 1898. In 1917, the Swiss government created the Federal Commission of the Applied Arts (FCAA) to support the applied arts via grants, exhibitions, subsidies for professional associations and general financial backing for the applied arts. [4] [6]

The FCAA was initially under the control of the professional associations Schweizerischer Werkbund SWB and L'Oeuvre. [7] From the 1960s, in the international context of social norm upheaval, the government began a process of reviewing cultural policy. [8] A group of experts was asked to provide advice, which became known as the Clottu Commission. [4]

In the 1990s, the Swiss Design Awards in particular, and the Federal Office of Culture's approach to cultural policy in general were heavily criticised by the Schweizerischer Werkbund. [4] This contributed to a redefinition and relaunch of the competition in 2002. [9] [10]

In 1997, the government celebrated 100 years of Swiss Federal Design promotion with the publication Made in Switzerland. [11]

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References

  1. ↑ "Swiss Design Awards". swissdesignawards.ch.
  2. ↑ swissinfo.ch, S. W. I. (2024-06-10). "Federal Office of Culture presents the 2024 Swiss Art and Design Awards". SWI swissinfo.ch. Retrieved 2024-10-09.
  3. ↑ FOC, Federal Office of Culture. "Schweizer Designpreise". www.bak.admin.ch. Retrieved 2024-07-25.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Berthod, Jonas (2024-05-06). The Prize of Success: The Swiss Design Awards and the Closed Networks of Promotion. Design. Vol. 64 (1 ed.). Bielefeld, Germany: transcript Verlag. pp. 42–43. doi:10.14361/9783839471913. ISBN   978-3-8376-7191-9.
  5. ↑ "Swiss Design Awards". swissdesignawards.ch. Retrieved 2024-07-25.
  6. ↑ Bundesbeschluss vom 18. Dezember 1917 betreffend die Förderung und Hebung der angewandten (industriellen und gewerblichen) Kunst. Bern: Swiss Federal Government (published 1917). 18 December 1917.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  7. ↑ Gnägi, Thomas; Nicolai, Bernd; Piai, Jasmine Wohlwend; Schweizerischer Werkbund, eds. (2013). Gestaltung - Werk - Gesellschaft: 100 Jahre Schweizerischer Werkbund SWB. Zürich: Scheidegger & Spiess. ISBN   978-3-85881-387-9. OCLC   863141402.
  8. ↑ Hauser, Claude; Seger, Bruno; Tanner, Jakob; Bühler, Rahel, eds. (2010). Zwischen Kultur und Politik: Pro Helvetia, 1939 bis 2009. Zürich: Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung. pp. 48–49. ISBN   978-3-03823-593-4.
  9. ↑ Crivelli, Patrizia; Schweiz; Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, eds. (2003). Swiss Design 2002: Netzwerke - Reseaux - Networks. Baden: Lars Müller. ISBN   978-3-03778-001-5.
  10. ↑ Barbieri, Chiara; Berthod, Jonas; Delamadeleine, Constance, eds. (2021). Multiple voices. Swiss graphic design histories / editors Sandra Bischler, Sarah Klein, Jonas Niedermann and Michael Renner. Zürich: Scheidegger & Spiess. pp. 19–31. ISBN   978-3-03942-020-9.
  11. ↑ Crivelli, Patrizia; Schweiz, eds. (1997). Made in Switzerland: les collections de photographies de la Confédération; [publié dans le cadre de l'exposition "Made in Switzerland..." au Muséee de l'Elysée à Lausanne, du 29 novembre 1997 au 1er février 1998]. Zürich. ISBN   978-3-9520855-6-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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