Village Square EU

This year's guest country of the Vienna Design Week is Europe. At the festival headquarters, the guest country shows up as an architectural intervention: the EU Village Square. The open space located in the heart of a settlement serves as a public place that is jointly owned by all of its surrounding inhabitants. It is a Third Place – separate from the home and the workplace – that ideally becomes an extended living space for its users. The EU Village Square offers Europe an inviting and open presence at the festival that facilitates encounters, experimentation, debate, and the transfer of knowledge. For visitors – from school children to design professionals – it offers a wealth of information as well as the opportunity to participate and to join in the daily discussion events. Supported by the Federal Chancellery in the context of the Conference on the Future of Europe, the 2021 format asked what the EU can do for the creative industries and what the creative industries can do for the EU.