The 25 th anniversary of founding the Hungarian Design Award has proven to be a wonderful occasion for the design community, in this case the Hungarian Design Council and the Design Terminal Non-profit Organisation, to organise a week-long event called Design7, a first in the history of Hungarian design. The nineteen events of the Design7 week, which took place at thirteen venues, enriched the contemporary arts programme of the Budapest Autumn Festival, and are sure to mark the beginning of a long-lasting tradition. The design week introduced contemporary design trends in not only a Hungarian but in an international context too, with the participation of talented people ranging from the youngest generation of designers to the great old masters of the profession, and was accompanied by an as yet unprecedented number of visitors, Austrians, Czechs, French, Dutch, German, Polish and British alike, arriving at the capital between 15 th and 24 th October. Seminars, conferences, large- and small-scale exhibitions, book- and periodical presentations, as well as a great number of design tours contributed to the colourful programme of the Design7 event. The most prominent events of the week were the Hungarian Design Award 2004 ceremony, and the opening of the exhibition Twenty-five Years of Hungarian Design. Those who walked through the venues of the Design7 week were most probably convinced that a new chapter has been opened in Hungarian design with successful international co-operation to begin anew following the standstill that burdened the profession in the years after the political transformation. Young Hungarian designers can again look to the future with growing optimism, while the older generation can once again feel that their talent and one-time successes are finally recognised again.
The detailed programme of the Design7 week can be found at the website www.design7.hu