PASSAGEN 2012 proved to be a major success: visitors from the design world were able to discover young, talented designers while the event provided a rich source of inspiration for general public visitors. January 16, 2012 saw the event off and running in impressive style: trade visitors drawn from both national and international circles along with the media were en route, threading their way through the approximately 200 exhibitions offered up by PASSAGEN, among them the exhibition by this year‘s “A&W Designer of the Year”, Patricia Urquiola, in Cologne’s Südstadt neighbourhood.

This year saw Cologne’s furniture stores and flagship stores out in force. An example was in Cologne’s Rheinauhafen harbour area, whose numerous showrooms proved to be a real magnet for design specialists and in particular for architects. The Belgisches Viertel neighbourhood and the Design Quartier Ehrenfeld, Cologne’s two hip and happening city quarters, saw movers and shakers from the international design scene attend a large number of exhibitions featuring predominantly young designs in a crossover of design, fashion, pop music and urban-style design.

The platform for young design, DESIGNERS FAIR, was presented for the fourth time this year in Cologne’s Ehrenfeld district in three different exhibition buildings covering 2,000 m2 in total centred around the Heliosstrasse. Featuring exhibitions by a whole host of new names in design and sponsorship stands for young design labels, the DESIGNERS FAIR pulled in a record number of visitors. A new event this year was the PASSAGEN university forum: instead of appearing at imm Cologne, 12 design faculties presented work by students in the artrmx-Halle. The university forum represented a new format allowing various academic establishments to exhibit ‘all under one roof’. And the forum’s spectacular success this year means it will return in an expanded form at PASSAGEN 2013.

Along with the Belgisches Viertel, the Rheinauhafen and the Cologne Südstadt neighbourhoods, the Design Quartier Ehrenfeld proved to be one of the real crowd-pullers at this year’s PASSAGEN, drawing around 30,000 visitors. Along with around 70 exhibitions in the neighbourhood – including the DESIGNERS FAIR and the university forum – it featured its own workshop program and designs from the DQE scholarship holders. PASSAGEN’s music program, Cologne Music Week, has expanded with the new Klubkommlive program which played in a host of new clubs in Cologne’s creative quarter.

Alongside the Institut français Köln and Instituto Italiano, this year saw other cultural institutes in the city enter the fray:  the Museum of Applied Art in Cologne (MAKK) held the “Architektenmöbel” exhibition (“Architects’ Furniture: from Aalto to Zumthor”) with an accompanying program, while  the Ungers Archiv für Architekturwissenschaften (UAA) and Museum Ludwig also got in on the act. The MAKK’s visitor count of almost 6,000 was a new record.

The 150,000 visitors at this year’s PASSAGEN in the design city of Cologne included a huge number of professional visitors and a wide-ranging general public contingent. 2012 was the 23rd time that PASSAGEN has been held.

We look forward to seeing everyone back at the next PASSAGEN, taking place from 14 to 20 January 2013.