Kick Off event
Missed the start or want to refresh how Dutch creative sectors - design, fashion and architecture - have joined forces within DutchDFA, a four-year programme established to strengthen the international position of Dutch design? Programme, pictures and videos of the launch on December 16th are now online. See and hear how the Ministries of Economic Affairs, External Affairs, and Education, Culture and Science join hands and plans with a scarf by Aziz. DutchDFA Programme Director Christine de Baan clearly set out the programme and its ambitions, stressing the importance of relating design to urgent issues in specific local contexts and of international partnerships and knowledge exchange, as well as the benefits of a cross-sectoral approach and the necessity of a substantial expansion of international networks. ‘After four years, Dutch design should be even more geared to current global issues - social, economic and cultural - than it is now.'.
Shared design visions online
Browse the website www.dutchdfa.nl for a continuously updated collection of projects by designers and architects from the Netherlands. For instance, want to know how to raise the profit of entrepreneurs in The Hague’s multicultural Schilderswijk by food design? Or see the plans by ArtEZ for a new use of the Guantanamo Bay prison after it's been closed? Once you’ve read the story on www.dutchdfa.nl, you'll return for an update soon.
The DutchDFA site will continue to grow in the coming months, providing facts and figures on Dutch fashion, architecture and design (education, policies, economic value, etc), links to and information about the most important organisations in the field, and updates on the DutchDFA programme.
Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science Ronald Plasterk, and his colleague, European Affairs Minister Frans Timmermans, made a wonderful movie about Dutch culture and design (subtitles forthcoming).
Focus on China, India and Germany
The focus for building an international network starts in three countries: China, India and Germany. Nearby, with strong cultural and economic connections, Germany is an important market with a genuine interest in the Dutch experimental approach. While in faraway China and India, an exploding economy and transition from an agricultural to a (post)industrial society is rapidly changing the economical, cultural and physical landscape. How to preserve local culture in this wave of globalisation, and how to deal with unremittingly urgent questions concerning sustainability, living conditions and social cohesion? The conceptual and socially oriented approach of Dutch designers can make an important contribution towards solving these issues.
Benthem Crouwel's Germany based office earns the highest certificate for sustainable building for the Etrium HQ in Cologne.
In 2008 Jurgen Bey created a present-day interpretation of traditional Chinese crafts culture for Contrasts Gallery in Shanghai.
Masterplan Xinjin WaterCity by MVRDV embraces water in a fast developing city in China.
