Design Week: Prague vs. Vienna Showdown (and Forum 2000)

Before I tell you about Forum 2000, I just realized I went to Vienna 2 weekends ago and never told you about it. I don’t know how I let that one slip my mind. Well, the primary reason why I went there was because Bara really wanted to visit Vienna design week before Prague’s Designblok started the week after so she could compare the two. I’m glad I went because I not only went to Vienna, but I got to compare the two as well. And, before we went to Vienna, Carly, Bara and I had a nice little pit stop in Bara’s little Moravian Village of Kvacice.
There’s only so much one can say about a little Czech Village, so here are some pictures to do the talking for me:

And now on to Vienna. It is beautiful. Vienna kind of reminds me of Prague if all of Prague’s buildings turned white and if Czechs gained a wee bit more fashion sense. I wish I got to spend a little more time there to appreciate the city in full, but to be honest I missed Prague a little. There’s just something about this city. Here’s a photo of Vienna. Pretty but no Prague, right?

As for Design Week in Vienna, I was a little disappointed. Most of the exhibits were a bit hard to find and not very impressive. The coolest thing I saw was probably the furniture made out of recycled material. In Prague, however, there was not only interesting furniture but plenty of jewelry and artwork as well. Designblok in Prague was also much better organized than Designweek in Vienna: I didn’t have to hunt for the different exhibits and there were at least 50 in each building. Overall, it was still worthwhile to see both and compare. And Carly and I managed to visit a gallery featuring Jan Švankmajer and Salvador Dali. Both were very cool.

And now, for those of you that aren’t familiar with Forum 2000, it is basically an intellectual conference whose main goal is “to identify the key issues facing civilization and to explore ways to prevent the escalation of conflicts that have religion, culture or ethnicity as their primary components.” There were plenty of very impressive people there (such as the presidents from Georgia and Kosova, among other brilliant professors and leaders). I found most of the panels I went to very interesting. My favorite was a discussion about Corruption and Society focusing mainly on Russia and China. Another great thing about Forum was the food. So good. I got well fed, well educated, the opportunity to see Vaclav Havel (though he spoke Czech so I didn’t really understand him despite my month+ of Czech language class). Overall, a very excellent experience.

And that’s all the blogging I’m going to do for tonight. I have to study for my Czech quiz and then leave soon to go meet up with my “Czech Family.” (I feel like I just got adopted). And tomorrow I leave for Budapest! I have a nice long bus ride ahead of me.

Na Shledanou,
Lesia