If you were asked to choose the most iconic chair in the world, odds are that the choice would fall on one of the greatest classics – Eames DSW chair, Harry Bertoia’s Side Chair, Verner Panhon’s all-plastic moulded chair or Thonet’s revolutionary bentwood chair. And yet, the most iconic chairs may not be those that populate our everydayness – pieces that silently define how we relate to objects through memory. When his Polypropylene chair was first released in 1963, Robin Day may not have imagined that it would both leave a mark on the world of design as the first mass-produced, injection-moulded chair in the world, as well as capture the collective memory as one of the most widespread, ubiquitous yet unobtrusive objects, that almost everyone has, at least once, used.

“In my long years of designing, the thing that has always interested me is the social context of design and designing things that are good quality that most people can afford,” Day observed in 1999. “It was always my mission to mass-produce low-cost seating, because I do think that clarity and what we call “good design” is a social force that can enhance people’s environments.” That ethos, perhaps, was reflected the commissions he would work on throughout the years, becoming an expert on public seating design, as some of his most memorable projects included seating for the Barbican, Royal Festival Hall or London Underground, the latter two still in use today.

This year marks the centenary of birth of Robin Day, born on 25 May 1915, creating the perfect opportunity to examine his legacy as one of the most important British designers, in a series of events and exhibitions, that culminate in a special installation staged at London’s V&A Museum in the occasion of this year’s London Design Festival. While Day was known for his experimentation with at-the-time novel materials and inventive use of technology, the installation – titled “Robin Day Works in Wood” – is focussed on objects and furniture design made of wood. Juxtaposing his designs with personal objects, the exhibition will be set in a specifically commissioned installation created by Turner-prize nominated collective Assemble. Taking the form of a ‘forest’ – as a reference to the landscape of Day’s childhood – the exhibition will remain on show until 27 September 2015.

Have you ever considered design to be overwhelming? Touching realities, objects, disciplines and crafts as different as glassmaking, automobile industry, packaging or motion graphics, design gives shape to nearly any sphere of human activity. It can be simple and straightforward or conceptual and inquisitive; it forms such a complex and articulated ecosystem of activities and artefacts that it is sometimes unbearably difficult to grasp. And yet, when all those spheres of activity collide, the result is often an exuberance of intelligence, wit and insight or, on the contrary, of uselessness, waste and superficiality.

As any other grand design fair, this year’s London Design Festival presents a healthy mix of both. It is insightful and innovative, as well as somewhat repetitive and futile. As such, it is, in fact, an accurate representation of the many faces that form the design sphere. Founded in 2003, London Design Festival has opened its 12th edition with a program of around 300 projects scattered between various design districts, small independent spaces and established design institutions. Lacking a well-defined core such as Milan’s ‘fiera’, the Festival shifts its focus between talks, exhibitions, presentations, events and specially commissioned projects, such as two Landmark Projects – one at the V&A developed by Barber and Osgerby and one in Trafalgar Square by Morrison, Patternity, Raw Edges and Studioilse –, a series of installations at the V&A Museum, Global Design Forum panel, six design districts – Brompton, Chelsea, Clerkenwell, Islington, Queens Park, Shoreditch, rather than designjunction, 100% Design, Focus/14 or Tent London creative hubs.

Lasting a little more than a week – the festival opened on the 13th of September and lasts until the 21st – London Design Festival explores design’s diversity and apparently endless limits. It shows its relationship with the past and monumentality with Barber and Osgerby’s installation in V&A’s Raphael Gallery; it shows design’s reflection on design itself with Formafantasma’s “From Then On” project for Established & Sons; it demonstrates its relationship with subtle gestures and peculiarities of everyday life with Fabrica’s “Extra-Ordinary Gallery” at the Ace Hotel in Shoreditch; it explores its storytelling abilities through “Crafting Narrative” exhibition at Crafts Council; and, most of all, it explores its inevitable, fundamental relationship with the industry with projects that range from new furniture designs for Vitra to a conceptual mini market set-up by Hay, eloquently showing the dense, seamless and perpetuate transformation of contemporary design practice.

Scholten&Baijings “The Dinner Party” at V&A

We have often wondered if there will come a time when design museums might actually give a more realistic view of design practice than the currently used ‘look and adore, but do not touch’ mode of display. This time hasn’t actually arrived yet, even though Dutch design duo Scholten&Baijings have come quite close. “The Dinner Party” is an installation that tries to create both a dialogue between the historical setting of V&A’s Norfolk House Music Room, as well as propose a lived-in setting for their trademark tableware projects.

Typographic Circle’s Circular Magazine

Another event at the V&A is worth mentioning: the exhibition showcasing issues 8-18 of Typographic Circle’s Circular Magazine. Founded with the goal of creating a community of type-lovers as well as promoting graphic design – and especially typographic – culture, each issue of the magazine was completely different both in style and content, evolving with the passing of time.

So Sottsass at Darkroom

If it weren’t for our unconditional love for everything even slightly related to Ettore Sottsass, we would have dismissed this project in a second. “So Sottsass” is a collection of objects that stylistically interpret the designs of the grand Italian master, giving a quirky touch to the shop’s selection. So, if you can’t afford a real Sottsass piece, you can maybe temporarily satisfy your needs with a quirky pillow, a totem light by Jamie Julien-Brown or a Studiopepe Kora vase.

Wonderland at 19 Greek Street

Even though the premises of this exhibition seemed actually far more interesting than what we got to see in there, this Soho space is worth visiting. With the goal of (once again) inquiring into that ambiguous space between art and design, Wonderland brings about 18 pieces by 12 designers, which range from furniture made combining wood and cast aluminium to lamps made combining industry and hand-craft. Even though the idea of exploring the boundaries of design practice is always interesting, we didn’t find many encouraging takes on that thought in this display.

Faye Toogood for Established and Sons

English brand Established and Sons has invited Faye Toogood, London-based designer, to create an installation for their showroom. Named “The Conductor”, the installation is made up of a series of fluorescent lights controlled by analogue toggle switches, embedded in blocks of coloured resin, through which the cables can be seen, interpreting the brand’s new collection of colourful resin furniture by Jo Nagasaka. Playful and visually somewhat mystical, this project is to be read under the ‘just for fun design’ label.

The main venue of the Festival, which this year bears the slogan “Design is Everywhere”, is hosted by the Victoria and Albert Museum. V&A’s rich collection is the perfect setting for creating connections and reflecting on design practice. At the intersection between centuries-old crafts and up-to-date design, the V&A will be hosting different initiatives, from a real-life installation with objects from its collection designed by Scholten and Baijings, to Swarovski “God is in the details project” which will offer a closer look (literally) at the museum’s collection.

As with any other fair or international event, London Design Week has given birth to a set of collateral events, mainly organized in design districts around town. Even though Brompton Design District is the oldest cluster, nevertheless Eastern London has lately been true hub of creative activity. Hence, Clerkenwell Design Quarter with its retail spaces and Shoreditch Design Triangle with design studios and young creatives are the ones that need your attention.

Last but not least, we feel the need to mention in a concise to-see some events that have already been put on our design calendar for this year’s Festival: Max Lamb and his terrazzo project developed for dzek, Wrong for Hay collection directed by Sebastian Wrong for the super-exciting Danish brand Hay, Graphic Africa at Habitat‘s Platform gallery, and, of course, two days of talks at Global Design Forum at the V&A.

p.s. Even though we are still sleepy from our holiday break, we cannot but end this post on a critical note and think, once again, that events like London Design Festival or Salone del Mobile, should carefully think what is actually their role in contemporary design world and if 19th century world’s fair exhibition model should still be applied today.

To ring in this year’s London Design Festival this week, a group of luminaries from around the design world gathered to commemorate the groundbreaking on the Design Museum’s new space. Slated to open in 2015 in the former Commonwealth Institute in Kensington, the new spot is to be a massive upgrade from its present riverside space and will transform the institution into the planet’s premier museum of design.

The big names invited along for the occasion each chose an item or two or three to place into a time capsule that will be buried inside the building’s foundations. And since the Robert Matthew-designed brutalist landmark is being spared the wrecking ball unlike many of its equally significant 1960s contemporaries, chances are pretty good that it’ll be around for at least as long as the rest of London stands.

Terence Conran (who has been a seminal figure behind the Design Museum since its inception) buried an iPhone 4S, a tin of anchovies, and a bottle of 2012 Burgundy (a lovely way as any to sum up humankind’s design accomplishments up to now…), while the museum’s director Deyan Sudjic added the London 2012 Olympic Torch. Kenneth Grange (who was the subject of a recent retrospective exhibition at the museum), Ingo Maurer and Thomas Heatherwick, on the other hand, opted for grand gestures of simplicity, with the former tossing in Arne Jacobsen’s iconic, minimalist Cylinder Line cafetière and the latter two together including a good old fashioned filament light bulb.

Margaret Howell, Paul Smith and Zaha Hadid – not a one of them known for modesty – fittingly dropped in examples of their own work: Howell included an image of the soon-to-be-revamped Battersea Power Station, Smith contributed his stamp design for this year’s Olympic games, and Hadid a scale model of her signature white elephant, Rome’s MAXXI. (Perhaps she’s anticipating its razing in the not-too-distant future…) But if inclusion in the time capsule signals an anticipation of erasure from general existence (will our great-grandchildren know what an Edison lightbulb looks like?), Cecil Balmond’s choice of an EU flag and a 1€ coin is more than a little thought provoking…

What would you bury?