Art and design go hand-in-hand. Every design has art in it and every art has design in it. The idea behind Designuru is to spread this word. In collaboration with one of their platinum partners Marble Centre International, the fourth edition of Designuru (Designuru 4.0) celebrated art, architecture and design. We get up close with Gunjan Das, principal architect of Indian Institute of Design to know everything about the festival, future projects and more.
How would you say Designuru 4.0 was different from the previous editions?
What we've done very differently is that we've made all our inner circle partners do the follies or the installations where we got a designer to partner with every inner Circle partner to create the installation, which we had done last year. But that was in the Designuru 3.5, which is a smaller format Designuru, which we do in an indoor venue. This large format Designuru was really for the public. This was the first time that we had done it and it has been extremely well received. The designers had taken it upon themselves to create these beautiful installations. We've got great support from all our partners to provide the material or expertise and the skill to execute the installation of the folly.
Last time, Designuru took place at BIC. Why was there a shift in venue this time?
We do a large format Designuru every alternate year. This previous one happened on December 21. Before that in 2019 and before that in 2016. And every year in between, we do a smaller format, what we call mini Designuru which is a weekend edition which we had done two or three times at BIC. So, the one which will happen this December will again be the smaller format and indoor. The focus here is not on the public.
Using Designuru, how are you planning to bridge the gap between design and art?
I don't see any gap between design and art. Design is art and art is design. Having said that, the 15 follies at the festival are all pieces of art, but they're all designed by architects or interior designers. We also brought in various dying art forms. We want to encourage architects and designers to incorporate these art forms in their designs so that the art tells the story of our design.
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