Your design cities pt 2
Pretty places
To coincide with the Design Cities exhibition at the Design Museum, Don't Panic ran a competition calledYour Design Cities on Flickr requesting users to submit their photographs documenting contemporary design in cities. From over 1000 entries, we asked judges Angus Hyland (Pentagram), Deyan Sudjic (Design Museum), George Oates (Flickr) and Kevin Cummins to select their favourite twenty.
Here are Kevin and Deyan's selections, along with their thoughts on the images.
Kevin Cummins
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"I chose this photograph because I liked its pure graphic quality."
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"I chose this photo again because I liked its pure graphic quality (and also to prove that I hold no prejudice towards Liverpool despite being Mancunian myself)."
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"I chose this photo for its graphic quality (again? - ed) and bold use of colour. I wanted to see who might sit at that table later in the day."
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"I chose this photo for its graphic quality (of course - ed) and because the use of colour and rain perfectly encapsulates the qualities of a European industrial city."
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"I loved the graphic quality (sigh) of this photograph and the strength and imagined relationship between the the two figures."
Deyan Sudjic
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"Every designer wants to put their name to a chair. Gio Ponti’s Liva Chair designed in the year 1937 and produced by L’Abbate is made in beech wood and lacquered in eleven different colours. This intriguing photograph captures the chairs’ sculptural form and the jumbled furniture almost forms a skyline."
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"This image captures the creativity and energy of the city. Cities are created by the inhabitants who shape the landscape – sometimes without permission. With a range of type, the eye dances over the graffiti here ,which although I can’t understand, feels familiar. A very flat image – you wonder what the context is and what lies beyond the frame."
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"This is a great architectural project which takes the classic jumble of tall Amsterdam houses and gives them a contemporary lease of life. The Scheepstimmermanstraat (Shipwright's Street) has 60-or-so houses and all are unique and designed by architects such as Herzberger, van Velsen, Höhne & Rapp and MVRDV. The photograph is all about these remarkable houses and lead the eye down this waterfronted street."
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"An important part of any urban metropolis, transport all too often has the emphasis on function rather than fun. The design of these trains is shiny, organic and fluid, and pictured here end to end they form a pleasing image full of character and warmth."
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"Jan Kaplický designed the Selfridges department store in Birmingham (2003) in the shape of a sensuous free-form iceberg, finished in Yves Klein blue and studded with silver discs that gave the completed building something of the character of a Courrèges metal dress from the 1960s. It is pierced only by a scattering of windows that gather at pavement level like swooping teardrops. There can be no sharper division between two worlds that utterly fail to meet than the gulf between the dreaming vision of Selfridges, and the banality of the rest of the shopping centre around it. They are two worlds that physically touch, but utterly fail to acknowledge each other."
Thanks to all the entrants! You can find out more about all the photographers, and see the rest of the entries over at www.flickr.com/groups/designcities/











































