"The Eindhoven Miracle"

Knowledge

A seminar during Dutch Design Week will, for a change, not focus on design but on the host city, Eindhoven. How did a regional town become one of the most important design cities on the globe?

By Editor Design.nl /asdf 18-10-2012

A seminar dubbed "The Eindhoven Miracle" will examine the history of Eindhoven as a hub of creative activity. The seminar is inspired by Richard Florida’s seminal work "The Rise of the Creative Class" (2002), describing this new class as a key driving force for economic development of post-industrial cities. Cities wanting to attract a substantial part of the creative class need to possess "the three 'T's": Talent, Tolerance, and Technology.

In recent years Eindhoven has received more and more recognition for it’s efforts in this field. It was for instance voted "Intelligent Community of the Year 2011" by the New York based think tank Intelligent Community Forum, which said about the city: “It is constantly creating and redesigning itself based on its goals. It never loses focus.”

In the Netherlands the city was voted "Best Inner City 2011-2013," owing to its spatial planning projects of recent years. As the mayor said in response: “It’s especially lacking an old inner city that has forced us to focus on the future, to innovate, to inspire and to apply daring architecture.”

“These days the ‘Eindhoven Miracle’ manifests itself in many cultural initiatives and businesses,” write the organizers of the seminar, “for instance Strijp-S, DDW, the High Tech Campus, the Temporary Art Centre and Van Ganzewinkel. It’s due to the cooperation between economic, academic and creative biotopes, and the space given by the city for innovation through experimentation that a future crucial role is ensured.”

The event in Eindhoven is only the kick off of a project leading to a two day event in Amsterdam (15 & 16 February) organised by famous concert hall Paradiso in the capital, tv-broadcaster VPRO and book publisher Podium.

Het Wonder van Eindhoven
6-8pm, Friday 26 October 2012

Images: the Philips 'Lichttoren' (Light Tower) - after being build in the 1920's this building was the symbol of electronics giant Philips, the company that pushed Eindhoven to become a major city. Nowadays it's part of Eindhoven's design infrastructure. The (former) factory building to the left houses the DAE.

 