Toronto’s Interior Design Show opened its doors for the 14th year. It is Canada’s largest contemporary design event, with colourful exhibits throughout the sprawling main Toronto Convention Centre floor.
In addition to big name sponsors like Scavolini, Dekla and Elte, there were many smaller, independent craft designers like Muma Fine Woodworking from Stratford, with their elegant dark furniture creations.
New this year was the IDS Platform presented by prime sponsors Rado and Audi. It’s a series of talks, installations and exhibits, highlighting the cultural content of design. So in addition to the floor exhibits and features, programming included the Trade Talks Speakers Series; the IDS Booth Awards and Design Awards. Conversations in Design is an annual one-day symposium offering exposure to the most creative people and ideas to help participants build their architectural and design practices. Designer Karim Rashid was a Conversations In Design Speaker and the opening night party DJ this year. The symposium hosted 12 speakers for this year’s theme: Trailblazers and Trendspotters.
One of the opening night festivities included the unveiling of the new Audi A5 Cabriolet by Shauna Levy and sponsor Mike Briscoe, director of marketing and product management at Audi Canada.
And Friday was IDS professional trade day for professional members of the design trade. It was designed to inspire, educate and expose professionals to products, designers, and ideas from international and national perspectives.
Felt gets sexy: StripTease
A major highlight of IDS12 was the seductive design entrance installation, StripTease, under the supervision of Roland Rom Colthoff, principal architect at RAW.
“We wanted something that was sensual, because a lot of these shows you don’t get up close to materials too often,” Colthoff tells Metro.
“We wanted to be somewhat experiential, so it wasn’t just something that you walked around and looked at but something you actually passed right through to enter the show, to create a bit of a buzz or a sense of anticipation.”
