London Design Festival Preview – The V&A and The Brompton Design District

For the third year running, the Victoria & Albert Museum is acting as the focal point for the London Design Festival.

As with the previous two years, a number of site-specific installations have been commissioned to run alongside design-related exhibitions at the museum. This year’s V&A shows are the Postmodernism blockbuster and Daniel Charny’s Power of Making exhibition .

Installations at the V&A start before you even enter the building, with Amanda Levete’s Timber Wave piece stretching out on to Cromwell Road from the Museum’s Grand Entrance. Inside, highlights include the Bouroullec Brothers’ Textile Field floor installation, which will provide a relaxing way of taking in the V&A’s Raphael Gallery, and Murray Moss and Materialise’s 3D printing exhibition, which will see rapidd prototyping exhibits scattered throughout the museum.

Israeli designers Betatank are creating an installation for the Tunnel Entrance, while the Exhibition Road entrance will host a Postmodern Café. Ron Arad is recreating his Thumbprint chair in bronze for the Madejski Garden.

As with previous years, there will be a series of breakfast talks – this year in association with Google and featuring Marcel Wanders, Kiki & Joost and Priestman Goode’s Paul Priestman. In addition, Tom Dixon, Lulu Guinness, Annie Lennox and AS Byatt are among those who have curated their own ‘tours’ of the V&A site.

Just down the road from the V&A, the Brompton Design District, which is focussed around Brompton Road, will feature a host of exhibitions and pop-ups.

The Vera, Chapter One exhibition at 2 Cromwell Place, is based around the fictional character Vera, whose story has been developed from a series of photographs found in a second-hand shop. Artists and designers have been asked to respond to one image each in ‘Vera’s’ story.

The Marion Friedmann Gallery is hosting the Enlightened Waste exhibition, which features the work of French-Mexican designer Thierry Jeannot and Austrian artist Gisela Stiegler. The pair have created light objects using waste packaging material – such as a chandelier made from 1500 plastic bottles.

Students from the Royal College of Art’s design products department will be working with Simon Hasan to create temporary displays in Fendi’s new Sloane Street store.

Other highlights include Methods of Imitation at Paper Tiger, which will feature work by Markus Bergström, Daniel Eatock and others, and Mint’s Mint Explores show, which will feature an exhibition of Martin Margiela Furniture.

To find out more visit http://www.londondesignfestival.com/content/london-design-festival-va-3 and www.bromptondesigndistrict.com.

The London Design Festival runs from 17-25 September. See the Design Week blog for our preview for the Pimlico design district. We will be previewing 100% Design and the Covent Garden Design District tomorrow.