MCBW 2022 in Review

Munich Cre­ative Busi­ness Week (MCBW), the largest design event in Ger­many, has come to an end after a nine-day marathon event with 170 indi­vid­ual activ­i­ties in var­i­ous for­mats, 100 speak­ers, 160 pro­gram part­ners, 40 reg­is­tered design shops, and many vis­i­tors. Post­poned until May, MCBW took place in sum­mery tem­per­a­tures, enabling par­tic­i­pants to view the city through a design lens inside and in the open air. For the orga­niz­er, bay­ern design, the event was favor­able for experts and the pub­lic alike.

MCBW PUB­LIC SPACE – pop­u­lar, pub­lic, interactive

Mov­ing Hori­zons, the mot­to of MCBW 2022, also was reflect­ed in MCBW PUB­LIC SPACE. The 38-meter-long swing instal­la­tion set up in the cen­ter of Kun­stare­al München was used approx­i­mate­ly 33,000 times. Imple­ment­ed by OHA (Office Heinzel­mann Aya­di), this promi­nent­ly placed eye­catch­er con­veyed the event’s guid­ing theme in a spir­it­ed and approach­able man­ner. Along with the rest of this year’s MCBW, this attrac­tion drew atten­tion to a whole new lifestyle pro­pelled by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and oth­er crises: uncer­tain­ty due to shift­ing norms and the need as well as the oppor­tu­ni­ty to act flex­i­bly in the face of it – and the courage to tack­le things in a new way. Lisa Braun, Direc­tor of MCBW, com­ment­ed: “The idea was to illus­trate this year’s mot­to, Mov­ing Hori­zons, and restore a feel­ing of light­ness for the public.”

Per­son­al encoun­ters were pos­si­ble again

The joy of being able to meet in per­son again was pal­pa­ble at MCBW MEET & GREET. This open­ing net­work­ing event fol­lowed a new talk for­mat, MCBW TALK & CON­NECT, which addressed desires for emo­tion­al­ly and col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly cre­at­ed mod­els and work­styles to cope with nec­es­sary tech­ni­cal, sus­tain­able, and cul­tur­al changes. “At inter­dis­ci­pli­nary talks experts, includ­ing Wolf­gang Lot­ter, Ursu­la Tis­chn­er, Sina Port, and Francesca Bria, dis­cussed options for using design active­ly in per­son­al, sci­en­tif­ic, and entre­pre­neur­ial set­tings,” Nadine Vicen­ti­ni, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of bay­ern design, recapped.

Pre­mi­um-lev­el pro­mo­tion of young professionals

Focus was not only on oppor­tu­ni­ties for dia­log among estab­lished design­ers. The three-day hybrid SCI­ENCE MOON­SHOT work­shop was designed by VERE­IN INNO­VA­TION 4.X to pro­mote young pro­fes­sion­als altru­is­ti­cal­ly, sup­port­ed by teams of researchers who shared their cumu­la­tive know-how and skills, com­ple­ment­ing all busi­ness trades and require­ments. The result was a force to be reck­oned with: As part of the Lumobag sys­tem cre­at­ed by Czech-Aus­tri­an physi­cist Rad­ko Pavlovec, spe­cial sun­light reflect­ing sand­bags are being placed in desert regions to help reach the glob­al 1.5 degree tar­get. How­ev­er, Pavlovec believes the project in no way replaces decar­boniza­tion of the earth’s atmos­phere, an endeav­or that has to be addressed at the same time.

Test­ed and proven

Pop­u­lar agen­da items again were includ­ed in MCBW. For exam­ple, DESIGN­WALK con­nect­ed sev­er­al ana­log sta­tions – design shops and cre­ative work­shops – at Munich’s attrac­tive Glock­en­bachvier­tel dis­trict via an audio guide. A host of vis­i­tors took this walk­ing tour indi­vid­u­al­ly over the dura­tion of MCBW.

The eco­nom­ic rel­e­vance of design

The eco­nom­ic aspect was includ­ed this year as well: In a quan­ti­ta­tive study con­duct­ed in the run-up to MCBW orga­niz­er bay­ern design explored the influ­ence of design on the econ­o­my. “Look­ing back on the COVID cri­sis years, the eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion and the orders on hand, the rev­enue, and the employ­ment sit­u­a­tion all were sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter than expect­ed,” says Vicen­ti­ni. “How­ev­er, the rec­om­men­da­tions for action show the need to enhance com­mu­ni­ca­tion of the poten­tial of design-relat­ed con­sult­ing ser­vices because cur­rent­ly the cor­po­rate sec­tor is not tak­ing advan­tage of them to the extent it could.”

Look­ing ahead to 2023

MCBW will con­tin­ue in 2023: From May 6 to 14 Munich again will be trans­formed into a live­ly design fes­ti­val with cov­et­ed suc­cess­ful for­mats and brand-new content.