Porto Design Biennale throws open design critical thinking with major events

"Design has emerged in recent years as a key discipline for thinking about the city and building its future. This international phenomenon is particularly important in Matosinhos and Porto, two cities that have brought design practice into the centre of their cultural strategy, not limiting its potential to the artistic field, but using it continuously as a catalyst for social, economic, technological and environmental change."

These are the words Mayor Rui Moreira, and Chairman of the Board of Porto Design Biennale used to open the programme of this fundamental project on design, for the first time organised in Portugal.

The first Porto Design Biennale (PDB), organised by ESAD-IDEA and the joint collaboration of the Municipalities of Porto and Matosinhos, runs from 19 September till 8 December.

The inauguration week concludes on 28 September and kicks off this fundamental project, aimed at discussing Design from the social, technological, political and climate viewpoint, under the umbrella topic "Post Millennium Tension".

The Biennale programme is organised in three nuclei, namely, Present tense, Design and Democracy and Design Forum. The objective is to make PDB a space of production and sharing of knowledge, both in the city of Porto and at international level.

The invited country is Italy, and the Territorio Italia is curated by Maria Milano. The conference Abitare Italia ? icons of Italian design, curated by Paolo Deganello and Maria Milano, on show at Palácio das Artes - Fundação da Juventude, Porto, opening at 4pm. Entrance free.

The exhibition explores the history of Italian design in the context of international design culture, namely through objects that were not mere expressions of a function or of a productive necessity, but above all that were the expression of a new idea of beauty, of a new aesthetic that also brought out the actual value of objects.

Later that day, at 7pm, the exhibition Fiction Practice - Young Curators Lab will be on display at the Museum of Quinta de Santiago, in Matosinhos.

Porto Design Biennale programme continues till 8 December.

See here for further information.