By Editor Design.nl / 19-10-2009

During a festive ceremony on the first day of Dutch Design Week, twenty winners were announced for the 2009 Dutch Design Awards, alongside other major awards for design excellence and achievement.

For the seventh edition of the national awards covering Communication, Product, and Spatial design, winners included Thonik (Best Corporate Identity) for 11th Venice Architecture Biennale, Maarten Baas (Best Product Autonomous Design) for Real Time, Iris van Herpen (Best Product Fashion, Jewellery & Accessories), René Put (Best Graphic Design) for Braille stamps, Aldo Bakker (Best Product Living) for Porcelain Tableware. For a full list of winners please see the awards website.

The big winner of the night was Wieki Somers who won the overall Golden Eye Award and Best Cultural Interior for the Merry-Go-Round coat rack at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. The jury commented, “The Merry-go-round coat rack is a spatial ballet for coats, with a colour palette that is determined by the season. Its presence is so strong that one starts experiencing the museum the moment one enters the space: something as banal as a coat rack has clearly become a work of art itself. By participating, the user becomes part of the design. The engagement of the designer is tangible, the technical and aesthetic execution is excellent; all these qualities together make this the best design of the moment.”

Other award winners included Jelte van Abbema (The Rado Young Designer Award), Flying Grass Carpet (Audi Dutch Design Award), Demakersvan (Toon van Tuijl Design Prize) and Gert Dumbar (BNO - Piet Zwart Life Time Achievement Award).

Led by Karien van Gennip (Chairwoman, the Netherlands), the international jury of the awards consisted of Li Edelkoort (France), Cara McCarty (USA), Marcus Fairs (UK), Christoph Zellweger (Switzerland), Ilse Crawford (UK) , James Woudhuysen (UK), Rajesh Kejriwal (India), Ravi Naidoo (South Africa), Axel Enthoven (Belgium), Will Erens (Belgium), Timo de Rijk (Chairman selection committee Product), Bert van Meggelen (Chairman selection committee Spatial), Ton Kooymans (Chairman Rado Young Designer Award), and Vincent van Baar (Chairman selection committee Communication).

For the duration of Dutch Design Week, (17-25 October) an exhibition of the finalists and winners can be seen in the Brainport Greenhouse on the Stadhuisplein in Eindhoven. Afterwards, the exhibition will travel to several international destinations.

Main image: Wieki Somers, Merry-Go-Round coat rack
Image: Aldo Bakker, Porcelain Tableware
Image: Maarten Baas, Real Time
Image: Studio Roosegaarde, Flow 5.0
Image: Iris van Herpen, Mummification

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