Now in its 16th year, the Helsinki Design Week celebrated the theme Commitment Matters, raising questions regarding how we can achieve and improve on meaning and long-term value in design.
Jan Vapaavuori, mayor, Helsinki, said, “Design is and should be present in everything we do. Now more than ever we must ask ourselves how design can improve lives, create commitment to modern democratic values, promote sustainability and innovation in urbanisation, and provide us the tools needed for championing in the post-COVID world. I believe in exposing people to these questions through design. Partnership with Helsinki Design Week helps us achieve that.”
For the duration of the festival, local and international visitors to the virtual city experienced a transformed urban realm, finding themselves in flowing water or standing on grass, under Escher-inspired bridges, or looking up at the street’s facades which have been coloured, and patterned with flowers and moving abstract shapes.