Place: Cologne Furniture Fair Date: 2001 Drive in – a design exhibition of 25 young designers Click on images to enlarge After the award winning exhibition Waschtag (Upcoming designers of the year 2000 awarded by the magazine Architektur & Wohnen) a group of young designers hit again the cologne ground with a fine exhibition. They touched the borderlines of design and yet created some serious statements. Participants of drive in: Werner Aisslinger (D) bibi*gutjahr (D), chalet5 (CH), Karen Chekerdjian (Leb), el ultimo grito (GB / E), Konstantin Grcic (D), Kitchen & Rogers, KRD (GB), RADI (F), N2 (CH), Dumoffice (NL), IDSland (F), Marti Guixe (E) Theme of drive in Like »Waschtag« »drive in« tries to deal with and work on a topic of general interest. The automobile and the design of it seem to be a new working field for all the participants and a topic worth discussing. More and more interior designers are involved with the interior design of cars by big automobile companies. The time that we spend within a car is getting closer to a state of living – we tend to ignore this fact sometimes. While living in static rooms (houses/apartments) is happening in very intimate realities the car is public and yet functioning like a static room. This mobility of the room cannot be read by the interior design. The automobile is considered to be our lust and frustration. Design trends, styles and signs of the time can be predicted within cars. The automobile is becoming a scientific laboratory for technical innovations and new communication tools. The automobile industry designs concept cars far beyond the reality of function and pragmatism but decorated with pseudo esthetic blisters out of metal and plastic. But what changes? What is the role of the car today? Can we find the humane in this emblematic object of our society? Can we go against the mainstream of auto-theory to find a fresh terrain of collective thought? Cars, Furniture, Living spaces – can we find interfaces? »Drive in« will find answers to questions. The car as urban furniture A project by karen Chekerdjan FREE options for the improvement of urban city life. Your car becomes urban furniture, a place of communication and interaction, a personalized object. a- an integrated public bench to be used by whoever when car is parked. b-a green area on the roof of the car with an automatic watering system! c- a feeding tray placed on the front of the car. Try to convince birds to come back to the city and drive in company. Cars could become something else, changing is not enough anymore. A car parked in a public area should take part of the street life. Pick a flower. Have a seat. Find new ways to break individualism in the city. My car is mine when I use it, and when I park it, it creates his own environment. It is no more only about shapes and performance. It is more about attitude. This project will maybe show how rigid the car image is today. Cars are so much enclosed into a clean, safe esthetic. They just reflect a social status and have no cultural input at all. It is perceived as a very private object but conceived as a public space. Some taxi drivers are decorating their inner space. I think I will watch them. http://www.drive-in-cologne.de/drivers.html