News View
For discerning, a few choice destinations for 2010
2010-01-14
Seoul
PLAYFUL FLAIR Forget Tokyo. Design aficionados are now heading to Seoul. They have been drawn by the Korean capital’s glammed-up cafes and restaurants, immaculate art galleries and monumental fashion palaces like the sprawling outpost of Milan’s 10 Corso Como and the widely noted Ann Demeulemeester store—an avant-garde Chia Pet covered in vegetation. Now Seoul, under its design-obsessed mayor, Oh Se-hoon, is the 2010 World Design Capital. The title, bestowed by a council of industrial designers, means a year’s worth of design parties, exhibitions, conferences and other revelries. Most are still being planned (updates at wdc2010.seoul.go.kr). A likely highlight: The third annual Seoul Design Fair (Sept. 17 to Oct. 7), which last year drew 2.5 million people and featured a cavalcade of events under two enormous inflatable structures set up at the city’s Olympic stadium. ARIC CHEN
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