"Lucas Verweij"

Beyond The New Manifesto @ Salone Milan 2015

Beyond The New Manifesto @ Salone Milan 2015

One of the main talking points of this year’s Salone Milan 2015, was Beyond the New, a strongly worded manifesto critiquing the design industry, written by designer Hella Jongerius and theorist Louise Schouwenberg that challenged the state of contemporary design.

Jongerius and Schouwenberg argue forcefully that industrial design has become stagnant, with genuine innovation replaced by too great a reverence for commercialism and the production of new products for newness’ sake.

Beyond the New suggests design has become “an empty shell, devoid of meaning and substance” and deplores “the obsession with the New for the sake of the New”.