21st April 2018

Adorno x Beirut Design Week

- words by Laura

You don’t have to look very hard to see that architecture and design in Beirut is having a moment. As international architectural firms like Snøhetta, Herzog & de Meuron and Foster + Partners queue up to design jewels for its glitzy waterfront, elsewhere grassroots groups mount campaigns to save historical buildings – many of which are under threat. Homegrown design talent like minimalist duo Ghaith&Jad, provocateur Marc Dibeh or design activists 200gr are getting international recognition and Beirut Design Week (this year set for 22-29 June) is the fastest-growing design festival in the MENA region. Beirut’s a city in constant flux, of contradictions (sometimes sublime, sometimes maddening), always bubbling with energy. I first went back in 2009 and reader, I’m hooked!

Karma Dabaghi at BDW.

It’ll come to no surprise then that digital platform Adorno has turned its spotlight on Beirut. Sitting somewhere between a city guide and a design shop, Copenhagen-based Adorno is an online gallery and marketplace that presents collections of one-of-a-kind and limited-edition pieces from a tightly-curated selection of designers from the world’s creative hubs. Having already ventured outside of Europe to São Paulo and Mexico City, Beirut is up next, with an exhibition of collectible design assembled from the city’s top talent due to open on the first night of Beirut Design Week on 22 June. At the end of the festival, Adorno will announce the selected pieces that will be taken into its first Beirut city collection and sold worldwide for ten months afterwards.

Dana Adada at BDW.

Applications opened last week for designers and start-ups based around Beirut to submit small-scale, or limited-edition pieces that express the distinct feel of Lebanon’s design culture and fit in with this year’s theme ‘Design and the City’. Any discipline goes – from fashion and furniture to urban and industrial design – but craft excellence, original thinking and a focus on sustainable or socially conscious is high up on the wishlist.

Saccal Design House at BDW.

Each of the entries will be judged by Adorno founder Kristian Snorre Andersen; Joy Mardini, founder of Joy Mardini Design gallery; Ana Dominguez Siemens, the curator behind Adorno’s Madrid and Barcelona collections; and Wallpaper* editor-at-large (and MENA design expert) Suzanne Trocmé. If you have ideas for products that will have a positive, life-enhancing impact on homes or public spaces in city environments, and embody Beirut Design Week’s trademark spirit of collaboration and exchange, it’s time to apply!

To find out more about Beirut Design Week, visit their website here.