The Czech fair plays host to a raft of manufacturers and individual makers maintaining the relevance of a centuries-old trade

Largely spared the bombings of the Second World War, Prague remains one of the most well preserved — and architecturally beautiful — European cities, with most of its urban centre now designated as a Unesco World Heritage Site. Today, the metropolis is also an anchor for diverse creative scenes, ranging from architecture and urban design to abstract art and artisanal crafts. Here, many artists, architects, craftspeople, and designers often find themselves negotiating between past and present; the deeply entrenched histories of their surroundings and today’s most pressing challenges. A staple event for the past quarter century, Prague’s annual Designblok festival surveys developments in a wide and expanding range of creative disciplines.

This year, the multi-pronged happening — held from October 3 to 15 — placed particular emphasis on the theme of history and evolution. Trade fair-like showcases entitled Superstudio and Openstudio covered new products from established brands and speculative projects by young talents respectively. Staged in the city’s Neo-Renaissance U(P)M (Museum of Decorative Arts), the latter was programmed, in part, around the topic of high craft; highlighting how various up-and-coming talents are reinterpreting age-old artisanal traditions specific to the region while imagining new and authentic propositions. And where collective Fractum Object riffs on the ancient tradition of pottery — imbuing the hand-formed ceramic vessels with viscerally-intricate textures, Johan Pertl implements moulded glass as an almost stone-like, heirloom material.

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