Judges visit Dublin to assess city's World Design Capital 2014 bid

JUDGES OF Dublin’s ambitious bid to be designated World Design Capital 2014 completed an intensive two-day assessment visit to the city at the weekend.

The delegation from the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design has already visited Bilbao in Spain and is now in Capetown, the other two cities shortlisted from 56 worldwide for the coveted title.

The winning city will be announced in October.

The delegates were welcomed by Taoiseach Enda Kenny at Government Buildings and met Dr John Hegarty, Provost of Trinity College, where the Pivot Dublin bid strategy, pioneered by City Architect Ali Grehan, was presented. On the itinerary were visits to Irish designers and workshops, the Guinness Storehouse, Ballymun Regeneration, Kilbarrack Fire Station, Baldoyle Library and the Dublin City Civic Offices in Wood Quay to see the RIAI awards and launch of the Designing Together exhibition. Also on the schedule was a lunch with Harry and Rita Crosbie, another at Howth harbour in Aqua with local representatives, dinner in the Hugh Lane Gallery with designers and in Thornton’s restaurant.

“It is very exciting to see so many young people doing creative things in Dublin,” said delegate member Dilki de Silva, secretary general of international council, which is based in Montreal.

“We want people to get involved with design and to educate cities about the value and importance of design in community building. I have seen a lot of passion here and people who want change. What you have here is a project that belongs to the community.”

An English-educated economist originally from Sri Lanka, de Silva is a specialist on SME developments and first visited Dublin in the 1970s as a student. “I didn’t expect the new facilities like the Grand Canal Theatre downtown and the new conference centre. Dublin has a vibrant European feel to it and I see more similarities between young people here and Eindhoven rather than London,” she said.

“You are now in the midst of a design community and the rest of the world is looking at Dublin. How you leverage that to your benefit is up to you.”

World Design Capital is a biennial city promotion project that celebrates cities that use design for development, to improve their social, cultural and economic life. By investing in the arts, public spaces and a new industrial zone, Turin which won in 2008, reinvented itself as a modern metropolis and now attracts more visitors annually than its Winter Olympics. Helsinki will be World Design Capital in 2012.