? : Design Academy Eindhoven questions the role of design

Milan – Yesterday, at the world’s largest furniture fair, a director from one of the world’s leading design schools asked what might have sounded like an odd question.

‘In 2010 is design still about furniture?’ asked Anne Mieke Eggenkamp, chairwoman of Design Academy Eindhoven, as she opened the academy’s exhibition, entitled ‘?’.

Echoing Alice Rawsthorn’s comment this week in the New York Times – ‘does the world need another chair?’ – it’s a query that’s reverberating around the design world and especially at Milan Design Week.

‘?’ takes the question one step further, examining the role of design and the designer. The exhibition suggests one answer: to question.

‘We’re showcasing the critical process, the thinking process behind design,’ Ilse Crawford, head of the academy’s Man and Well-being department and curator of ‘?’, told LS:N Global at the opening yesterday.

‘To arrive at the right answers we must ask the right questions,’ she added.