In 2020 the EU Commission launched the “New European Bauhaus”, which aims to engage and involve more European citizens in creating a climate-neutral, sustainable European continent by 2050.
The Design Council's contribution to this important process has been to initiate talks with a number of exciting people who have met in different ways – ‘Walk & Talks’, ‘The Dinner Talk’ or the ‘Virtual & Vinous’ – with the aim of discussing our four questions listed in the prepared TalkMenu on the right.
A number of exciting quotes, conversation fragments and pictures have come out of this, which we have gathered here on this page. We hope there will be many more Bauhaus Conversations in the coming months. Perhaps you'd like to join, too?
"A climate-neutral Europe in 2050 is a place where there is first and foremost room for everyone, regardless of ethnicity, gender or political beliefs - because when people feel good, they do good things."
Philip Heide –
Design student, KADK
“By 2050, Europe's internal borders will have almost disappeared. Small city states will have replaced the nation states.”
Luise Noring –
CEO, City Facilitators + Assistant Professor, CBS
“We live in harmony with the life around us. Culture and nature are fused together, man and machine, work and leisure.”
Lars Thøgersen –
Designer, Chairman of the Design Council
“In 2050, a sustainable, climate-neutral Europe will be created and founded in systemic solutions across value chains and supported by clean energy production.”
Lene Damsbo Brix –
Architect
“Buildings are a key part of our ongoing experience with life.”
Lone Feifer –
General Secretary, Active House Alliance
“The better other parts of the world fare, the better Europe fares.”
Anders Michelsen –
Associate Professor at the Department of Art and Cultural Studies, KUA
“In 2050, sustainable development is no longer something we talk about. By that time, everything we do is de facto sustainable!”
Steffen Petersen –
Engineer, associate professor Aarhus University
“That we have made the past manifest in the present; where we are shaped by earlier societal experiences.”
Stine Fausing –
Didactic designer, nurse
“The world doesn’t look that different, but our behaviour is different. We share more and we love more.”
Thit Juul Madsen –
Head of Strategic Partnerships DDC
"We have created sustainability in relation to nature, for humans and the climate."
Hanne Karin Jacobsen –
Artist and designer
“2050: Value is our relative concept of worth, and is a guiding aspect in the many decisions we take every day. There is a value to everything, ethical, personal or cultural, or an economical value.”
Lone Feifer –
General Secretary, Active House Alliance
“We are driven more by desire than by duty. We eat super-foods every day and gourmet home-grown foods from our city garden at weekends.”
Luise Noring –
CEO, City Facilitators + Assistant Professor, CBS
“Daily life in 2050 acknowledges the whole person, and the fact that it’s natural to live a climate-friendly and healthy life - both physically and mentally.”
Pernille Stockmarr –
Museum Inspector, Design Museum Denmark
“The good life in 2050 will be defined by local roots, small resource consumption and time to linger.”
Anders Brix –
Professor, KADK
“We need to make the Bauhaus project concrete and accessible, so that many more people have the courage to become involved in our future and in the challenges that lie ahead.”
Gitte Just –
Pause Alkymist
“We must have developed a form of common core narrative - a European celebration of unity, where we all bring a dish.”
Stine Fausing –
Didactic designer, nurse
“That we succeed in creating more inclusive, small communities both locally and across Europe.”
Susanne Justesen –
Ph.D. Innovation advisor
“The big organisations must support the development of a new Bauhaus through young people, start-ups, art and culture.”
Mathilde Aggebo –
Dean of the Design School KADK
“Sustainability is right in front of our noses. We must learn from New Nordic when it comes to food, where you have to eat what’s in season (again!) and use local materials, and not concrete which has an extremely high carbon footprint.”
Kenneth Hviid –
Model carpenter and manager, Odense City Museums
“We must understand that living in harmony with the climate is a prerequisite for us to have both an economy and a society.”
Sune Kjems –
Designer, Director VIA Design
“New Bauhaus: We will need a change of system in the EU based on the next generation’s values if we are to succeed in creating the necessary design skills.”
Thomas Madsen-Mygdal –
CEO TwentyThree
“In Europe (and globally) we must become better at working together so that we avoid undermining each other's green taxes, corporation taxes, etc.”
Jens Frahm-Rasmussen –
Group Lead & Tour guide
“A great opportunity is to make the green transition concrete and felt by creating a project that results in a tangible new piece of furniture or furniture series. This would bring Danish design progressively into the future in an inclusive way together with the rest of Europe.”
Henrik Taudorf Lorensen –
CEO Takt
“We must not forget that fossil CO2 only accounts for 50% of the climate impact (Concito 2012). The remaining impact comes from other effects such as deforestation and more powerful greenhouse gases. It is therefore important that we are able to measure the climate impact of the product solutions that we develop.”
Anders Koefoed –
Co-Founder Målbar
“Denmark can bring a special focus on involving architecture.”
Stine Fausing –
Didactic designer, nurse
“Denmark's contribution is our craft and education tradition and high professionalism. A New Bauhaus centre in DK must contain a new version of the centre for building restoration”
Elsebeth Gerner Nielsen –
Secretary General of the Danish Folk High Schools
“Perhaps Copenhagen could to a greater extent become a model city for the rest of Europe in terms of sustainability, and especially in terms of how to sustainably finance the good life; the good city life.”
Luise Noring –
CEO, City Facilitators + Assistant Professor, CBS
“How about if we set the bar so high that we turn the entire Danish building stock into one large European laboratory for sustainable construction, helped along the way by a circular economy?”
Ditte Lysgaard –
Managing Partner Lendager
As a host, you can choose from three different formats: Walk & Talks, the Dinner Talk or the Virtual & Vinous Conversation.
Download our guide here - which will help you host your first BauhausConversation
We have created an invitation that is easy to customise and send to the person or people you would like to hold a Bauhaus Conversation with.
All formats use the same ConversationMenu, which features four questions for the conversation to be based around.
As soon as you have finished your BauhausConversation, you can submit your ideas, thoughts and quotes to us here:
Christina Halskov
Laust Lauridsen
Patrik Gustavson
Kasper Salto
Susanne Justesen
Lene Dammand Lund
Claus Mølgaard
Boris Berlin
Thomas Madsen-Mygdal
Lena Valez Madsen
Ditte Lysgaard
Thomas Bentzen
Boris Berlin
Claus Mølgaard
Caroline Lindberg
Kenneth Hviid
Niels Jakubiak
Lars Thøgersen
Jan Dahl Andersen
Henrik Gommesen
Bryndis Stefansdottir
Ida Engholm
Pernille Stockmarr
Anders Michelsen
Elsebeth Gerner Nielsen
Søren Nielsen
Alma Nielsen
Thit Juul
Anders Brix
Riem Zouzou
Lene Damsbo Brix
Philip Heide
Sofie Piil Grau
Kristian Kolding
Adam Mørk
Anne-Sophie Rørth
Peter Lawaetz
Lone Feifer
Camilla van Deurs
Pernille Berg
Signe Sand
Steffen Petersen
Ditte Lysgaard
Johnny Svendborg
Gitte Just
Anna Rich
Birgitte Boesen
Graves Simonsen
Anders Koefoed
Jamie Wallace
Anne Qvist
Karen Blincoe
Sune Kjems
Gry Friis Guldberg
Sune Kjems
Luise Noring
Stine Fausing
Lasse Offenberg
Jens Frahm-Rasmussen
Anne Due Kirkegaard
Christian Bason
Christian Olesen
Mads Quistgaard
Ida Engholm
Karsten Ravn
Henrik Taudorf Lorensen
Mathilde Aggerbo
Maria Flora Middelboe Andersen
Since the EU Commission launched the visionary New European Bauhaus last year, ideas, thoughts and initiatives have blossomed across Europe, all focusing on how together we can create a better, greener and climate-neutral Europe by 2050.
There is also a lot happening in Denmark. For example, BLOX and DI have brought together a larger group of players across the construction industry (including the Design Council) - where they are currently working on bringing Denmark into the European playing field. The Design Council also wants to put Denmark on the field and we want to ensure that DESIGN plays an important role in the New Bauhaus movement, which is really beginning to flourish around Europe.
So the next step for us - and for our Bauhaus Conversations - is to reach beyond Denmark's borders and use an English version of our ConversationMenu to start talks with other global citizens, both in Europe and in the rest of the world. This will hopefully allow us to gather even more perspectives, reflections and ideas around the sustainable and climate-neutral Europe of the future.
When the EU launched the New European Bauhaus vision, the Design Council set up its own Bauhaus Group, which quickly decided that this would be an important area for the Design Council. It was a vision that we could fully endorse.
It led to us setting up a fast-working project group consisting of Susanne Justesen and Mads Quistgaard, which in early January was able to introduce the Design Council's New Bauhaus Concept (a ConversationMenu with four questions, a ConversationGuide with three formats, and a DocumentationPackage that could collect images, quotes, fragments and reflections from each of the conversations held).
At the beginning of March, we were then able to introduce this website, which we hope will help attract even more people to join the ConversationMovement towards our Europe of the future. Meanwhile, we also hope that this site serves as inspiration both in Denmark and in the rest of Europe when it comes to finding topics and themes for discussion as part of our ongoing work with the New European Bauhaus.
We hope to shortly introduce an English version of this site to allow BauhausConversation to be held in a more international context. More on that soon ....
If you have any questions or would like to know more, please contact Susanne Justesen from the Danish Design Council.