Viviane Stappmanns + Mateo Kries

Viviane Stappmanns

Viviane Stappmanns is a curator at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein.

She is interested in exploring the contribution curators can make to rethinking design as a practice concerned with ecological and social sustainability. In her exhibition and teaching work, she experiments with new, collaborative approaches to curating and exhibiting.

She has taught at different schools and universities, among them the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia and, most recently the University of Arts and Design in Karlsruhe. Prior to working at the Vitra Design Museum, Viviane has worked as an editor and curator within architecture and design contexts in Australia and Germany, and holds degrees in Interior Design and Journalism.

Her most recent exhibition, “Here We Are! Women in Design 1900 – Today!” (2021) will be shown at the Kunsthal Rotterdam in 2022. Currently, she is working on the international travelling exhibition “Garden Futures”, due to open at the Vitra Design Museum in Spring 2023.

Mateo Kries

Mateo Kries has been director of the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein since 2011.

After his studies in art history and sociology, and a trainship at the Museum of Berber Culture in Marrakech, he joined the Vitra Design Museum in 1995 as a curator. He was appointed museum’s chief curator later on in 2006. During this time, he was in charge for numerous exhibitions and co-founded the Berlin DESIGNMAI Festival.

Mateo Kries is author of various books and articles on architectural and design, and is a regular member of international juries and appointment committees. He is co-editor of the “Atlas of Furniture Design” (2019), the most comprehensive publication ever published on this topic.