Grand Prix Design 2023 – From couch to children’s book: This is how Swiss design goes from world to culture

The BAK honors Eleonore Peduzzi-Riva, Chantal Prod’Hom and Etienne Delessert with the Swiss Grand Prix Design.

Apparently, Switzerland is too small for successful careers in design. Because the two award winners of this year’s Swiss Grand Prix Design of the Federal Office of Culture BAK have one thing in common: they all started their professional careers outside of Switzerland and achieved success there.

Famous color artist: Etienne Delessert

Etienne Delessert, born in Lausanne in 1941, is now an internationally successful illustrator. After studying graphics, he first made a name for himself in Paris and later in New York: as a poster designer for advertising, as an illustrator and as an author of children’s books, especially in French-speaking countries.

He has illustrated over 80 books since the 1960s. Particularly worth mentioning: “Comment la souris reçoit une pierre sur la tête et découvre le monde”. The book encourages children to discover the world to this day. Delessert developed it with the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget.

Etienne Delessert has also worked with Eugène Ionesco. The Franco-Romanian author said of him: “Delessert discovers beauty, a magnificent display of beings and things in color and through color.”

Legend:

A small, mischievous figure under a huge red hat: Yok Yok was a child star in western Switzerland in the late 1970s.

Etienne Delessert

In the 1980s, the color artist Delessert worked together with the Swiss television RTS for the Yok Yok series of animated films. With the Grand Prix Design, the BAK reminds us that the busy illustrator is Swiss.

Design Discourse Ambassador: Chantal Prod’Hom

The youngest of the group also comes from Lausanne: the 66-year-old art historian Chantal Prod’Hom. This is only the second time that the BAK has honored an intermediary since the first Grand Prix Design in 2007. The first was design theorist Sarah Owens 2021.

Legend:

Chantal Prod’Hom founded and managed a foundation to realize exhibitions with artists who are still little known.

Agency Muto

Chantal Prod’Hom was introduced to design while scouting for talent from around the world for photographer Oliviero Toscani and Luciano Benetton’s Fabrica, a research center for communication and visual arts in Treviso.

As director of the Mudac Museum for Design and Contemporary Applied Arts in Lausanne, she provided a platform for the previously non-existent design discourse in French-speaking Switzerland from 2000 onwards. For this she now receives the Grand Prix Design.

Product design pioneer: Eleonore Peduzzi Riva

«Eleonore Peduzzi Riva contributed to the golden age of Italian product design by pioneering modularity and reinvention of traditional materials.» This is what the Federal Design Commission writes about the third prizewinner, who worked in interior design and industrial design.

Legend:

The Tatzelwurm is her baby too: Eleonore Peduzzi Riva went to Milan at the end of the 1950s and became part of a scene that aimed at a more open society.

BAK / Diana Pfammatter

Nevertheless, Peduzzi Riva does not appear in contemporary literature. It is therefore important to discover her and her work.

As a designer, the native of Basel never put herself in the foreground, understood authorship as a team matter. In the 1950s she moved to Milan to study. She still lives there – and in Basel.

Legend:

The Tatzelwurm: De Sede’s sofa has also been featured in several Bond films.

Carla de Benedetti

She developed the modular DS-600 sofa by De Sede, a design icon, also known as the Tatzelwurm, in a team in 1972 – together with Ueli Berger, Heinz Ulrich and Klaus Vogt. The three men are known.

With the Grand Prix Design, the 84-year-old Eleonore Peduzzi Riva is now receiving recognition. So better late than never.