Sure, being a Grazer by birth or by learning, you somehow get used to being disappointed time and again. All the same, I am optimistic about the City of Design. Why?
City of Design is not a lot of the things you might expect. It is not a festival, it has no end, no gigantic budget, no City of Design boss, and, in truth, it isn't even a title.
City of Design is an invitation by UNESCO and an ensuing commitment. It is an obligation to reflect on one's own city and to develop projects suited to improving the lives of people living in the city with lasting effect. One of the basic conditions is to share this experience with other cities and perhaps even to develop other, joint projects.
But this takes us right to the next level of the discussion, for working on these issues – I am deliberately avoiding the term “solving” – requires more than the work of individual experts. Open-design systems, as currently already exist in the world of information and in many areas of design, will increasingly supersede hegemonic systems in the future, producing new and more creative solutions. Wikipedia or Linux have already shown that many brains think better than few.
As a medium-sized city, Graz has much to contribute in this respect. Smaller, finer, faster than the big cities.
But it will therefore take much more than a single organisation to develop projects. The city's collective brainpower is needed.
But the large amount of creative and also critical potential in the city is cause for hope.
Scepticism? Absolutely! We need to be distrustful wherever the idea of the City of Design becomes a mere pretty bow, when the region or the media mess up the idea, “What? It's a designer house, bench, power plant, etc., isn't it? It's beautiful.” When this happens, the educated, conscious public has every right to shout “Stop thief!”.
The criteria for achieving a City of Design will be found where comprehensive design exists. Perhaps an ideal situation won't come about quickly, but after all, complex processes do take time. There's plenty to be done, as we know, and opposition will be strong. Who likes having to get used to something new if it also means using your own grey matter. Still. Letting things just slide and leaving them to their own devices – or, even worse, to a select few “experts” – won't make us prouder. So there's much to be done together. Let's get down to it! The others (Cities of Design) are already watching us.
This article (in German) was first published in the May issue of the Megaphon magazine.