New Olds: Design Between Tradition and Innovation

„new olds“ presents sixty exhibits that explore design between tradition and innovation. Design has a short and highly successful history in the West. Outside the western hemisphere too design is gaining significance, and not just as a profession. What are seen as successful idioms are copied and varied, but many of the motifs that are sold as “new” actually derive from a historical context and formal idiom, and are self-contained products of one country or culture, representing a new interpretation of traditional forms. Designers today are taking a keen interest in tradition in both a strategic and formal and aesthetic sense – in recycling and redesign, by transforming design classics and using traditional methods for new materials.
The exhibition “new olds. Design between Tradition and Innovation” is the latest in a series of design exhibitions in which the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V. (ifa) focuses on specific trends in design.
With contributions from: Volker Albus (curator), Renny Ramakers, Gerrit Terstiege, Wolfgang Ullrich.