The Dutch are born on a bike, it is sometimes said. They use the bike in large numbers in their daily commute to school or work or as a tool for transporting kids, groceries and mail. As a healthy hobby for young and old or as a (top-class) sport, they ride it by the thousands on the road, on the track, on forest paths or on a cross-country course. Yes, the bicycle is even considered a vehicle for good causes.
The Designhuis in Eindhoven honours this phenomenon in the form of the exhibition ‘ Bicycle’. The exhibition will give an overview of the bicycle in its context, as a means of transport, a social phenomenon, as a means of recreation, as a lifestyle, as a means of engaging in (top-class) sport. The Designhuis will show how such an ordinary and everyday object as the bike remains a subject of research, development and design creativity. Motivated by desires and needs of consumers or by their own experiences designers keep finding inspiration for new forms, functions and materials in an ‘ordinary’ tool like the bike. It is exactly the cross-pollination between the creative industries and the manufacturing industries that appear to be a fertile breeding ground for innovation.