designboom Announces the 2019 Design Prize Winners

“For me, Milan is the epicenter for young design. A lot of my friends and colleagues live here; there’s a community that supports new ways of thinking,” said Virgil Abloh at the DESIGN PRIZE 2019 in Milan. Abloh, Michael Anastassiades and Tomás Saraceno were but a few names among the 10 winners who took home the golden Madonnina Statuette award last Tuesday night. This year’s award ceremony marked the third edition of the Milan-based program, launching Milan Design Week.

Spanning to such award categories as “Best Designer,” “Social Impact,” “Experimentation,” “In The Realm Of Art,” and more, the winners were voted up online out of 3 nominees, shortlisted previously from 900 submissions. Abloh won “Communication”; Michael Anastassiades, for “Best Designer”; and Tomas Saraceno for “In The Realm Of Art” while Philippe Starck was crowned the “Lifetime Achievement” honor to conclude the categories.

Check out the list of winners below and visit designboom’s website to read more about the event’s turnout.

In other news, Notre Dame Cathedral’s main structure & bell towers were spared from the deadly fire.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
- Michele De Lucchi (ITALY)
- Jasper Morrison (UK)
- Philippe Starck (FRANCE)

COMMUNICATION
- Virgil Abloh for Off-White™ and Louis Vuitton (USA)
- Gucci, Campagna Gucci SS18 Hallucination (ITALY)
- Hermes exhibition at the Museo Permanente in Milan and Gingle Games at Maison Hermès, Ginza store in Tokyo (FRANCE)

SOCIAL IMPACT
- Ocean Cleanup, Boyan Slat (NL)
- Warka Water, Arturo Vittori (ITALY /US)
- Forensic Architecture, The Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London (UK)

DISTRIBUTION
- Apple Store in Milan, Foster and Partners (ITALY / UK)
- JINS (JAPAN)
- Nomad, Giorgio Pace and Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte (ITALY / CANADA)

IN THE ARTISTIC REALM
- On Air by Tomas Saraceno at Palais de Tokyo in Paris (ARGENTINA)
- Digital Art Museum in Tokyo by Teamlab (JAPAN)
- Ethera by Edoardo Tresoldi at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (ITALY)

EXHIBITION
- V&A Dundee, Kengo Kuma (JAPAN/ UK)
- Night Fever at Vitra Design Museum, Konstantin Grcic (GERMANY)
- Freeing Architecture at Fondation Cartier, Junya Ishigami (JAPAN / FRANCE)

EXPERIMENTATION
- Formafantasma (ITALY)
- Max Lamb (UK)
- Michael Young (HK, CHINA / UK)

DESIGN CURATOR & DESIGN CRITIC
- Fun House Snarkitecture on show in Washington D.C by Maria Cristina Didero (ITALY)
- Hans Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine Galleries’ artistic director and Interview Marathon in Chicago (CH)
- Manifesta 12, Andrés Jaque,Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Bregtje van der Haak, Mirjan Varadinis in Palermo (ITALY)

BEST DESIGN NEWCOMER
- Sabine Marcelis (NL)
- Erez Nevi Pana (ISRAEL)
- New York Sunshine (USA)

BEST DESIGNER
- Michael Anastassiades (GREECE)
- Nendo (JAPAN)
- Patricia Urquiola (SPAIN / ITALY)

🙏🏾✨® @designboom pic.twitter.com/Cd8vUzkphJ

— virgil abloh (@virgilabloh) April 15, 2019