CITIZEN made a successful debut at the Milan Design Week recently, coming away with two awards at their first appearance at the prestigious international design festival. Participating in this international celebration of design to spread their message about the evolving future in watch design, CITIZEN won prizes in two categories at the exposition’s official competition, the Milan Design Award Competition. Citizen was adjudged winner in the “Best Entertaining” and “Best Sound” categories. It was the first time in the Award’s history, that one company has won two categories simultaneously.
The theme of the installation CITIZEN revealed at the venue, the Triennale di Milano, was “Light Is Time.” A magical space was created by employing around 80,000 main plates, the foundation supporting all other components of a watch. The exquisite, dynamic space generated enormous buzz during the expo, drawing around 50,000 attendees over six days. The excitement was so great that the amount of visitors had to be controlled on consecutive days.
DGT architect Tsuyoshi Tane, based in Paris, and the CITIZEN design team worked on the installation. Representing the elements of light and time, it was formed according to Mr. Tane’s idea: “Light is time. Without light the concept of time never would have arisen.”
Milan Design Award
Hosted by Elita, the Italian culture association, this was the fourth year of the Milan Design Award Competition, in which a grand prize and five category prizes are awarded. The venue is the Fiera in Milan, Italy where the MILAN DESIGN WEEK (Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milano), an international furniture trade show, is held, but the competition is organized separately and is open to participants in installations in the Fuori Salone put on throughout the city of Milan.
DGT (Dorell.Ghotmeh.Tane / Architects)
DGT is an international architecture practice founded in Paris in 2006, and is directed by Dan Dorell, Lina Ghotmeh and Tsuyoshi Tane. The winner of the international competition to design the Estonian National Museum, (to be completed in 2016), DGT has numerous ongoing projects globally, gaining the
practice much attention worldwide. In 2008 U.K.-based ICON Magazine selected DGT among the “20 essential young architects.” In 2012 DGT was a shortlisted finalist for the competition to design the New National Stadium of Japan. DGT has won numerous other prizes including the young architects prize from the French Ministry of Culture (2008), the Architects Association of Milan (2008), and the Red Dot Award (2013).