President of the country at the opening
The address of the President of the Republic of Slovenia, Dr. Danilo Türk, at the opening of the 20th Ljubljana Furniture Fair
Ljubljana, 3 November 2009
Photo: Miha Fras
Thank you, dear prize-recipients, esteemed guests, ladies and gentlemen.
To have the honour of opening this Fair is one of the more pleasant opportunities and one of my more pleasant duties. Not only because of the tradition that this Fair upholds, not only because of what this Fair will reveal to us shortly, but also because of a deeper truth conveyed by this Fair. In human life, there is a certain fundamental connection between form and function. All of the things man surrounds himself with relate to function and also to aesthetics, and they relate to form. This Fair gives us the opportunity to examine, under one roof and in a short period of time, a part of these fundamental connections of the human ambient as indicated by the present time. Throughout the human history, these two elements have been closely connected; however, not always in the same manner. There were long periods when function had to be given absolute priority, when form and aesthetics were a luxury characteristic of aristocrats and those better off, and less accessible to the wider public.
Things have changed. They have changed fundamentally and they have also changed in places where function was given priority over form for long historical periods. They have changed in a way, which forces us to think about them in a developmental context. If we ask ourselves today what the substance of our development is, i.e. of the development of a country such as Slovenia at our present developmental stage, it will not take us long to establish that the essence of our development is the cultivation of our lives and our environment. We must be able to cultivate this environment in all possible manners. The cultivation of the environment is also the way to a greater economic efficiency and a greater success.
We belong among societies which, according to current international comparison, are among the 30 most developed in the world. We tend to forget that. Sometimes, it even surprises us when the former president of the United States of America confirms this; our media is surprised that foreigners see us among the most developed world countries. We are among the most developed countries in the world and the developmental problems, which we are dealing with, are characteristic of such countries. It is particularly in this context that a good understanding of the connection between form and function - between the aesthetics and usefulness - is necessary, as is the awareness that it is particularly this close relation between the two, always historically present, that indicates today what our development is and what it should be in the future.
In this sense, we have had results already in the past. Today, we presented prizes to some of the best designers and authors of the best functional solutions; but we should be aware that we have had results for a long time. Those of you who have ever been to New York, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) could see the Rex chair, designed by Prof. Niko Kralj, who worked together with the company Stol Kamnik and was very successful in selling 2 million of such chairs. I myself also used these chairs in the past. Unfortunately, they are not as readily available today as they used to be; nonetheless, they still represent one of the best functional and aesthetic solutions that I am aware of. A country with a past and with people who are capable of connecting function and form, must be self-confident. And we should be self-confident in this sense and we must see today’s time, the moment of this Fair, as an opportunity to pose the question if perhaps it is time for new thoughts. That our thinking should not be contained by the recession; that we must consider the period of exit from the recession and the period following the recession. No recession lasts forever. Perhaps our recession is nearing an end in some aspects and it is correct that we should consider the future. To a great extent, this future relates to form and function; it is also connected with the resolution of certain problems having persisted for too long.
In Slovenia, the furniture industry is very much connected with wood as one of the most comfortable raw materials, most comfortable in terms of design and most pleasant for human use. However, the issue which we were unable to resolve so far is, does our society sufficiently understand the importance of wood, does it know how to use it and utilize it, and does it know how to sufficiently cultivate its riches. Here we are lagging behind. We should be satisfied and proud of our designers, but we cannot be proud of the level of wood industry in Slovenia. This field offers us much greater potential and a lot more opportunities than we are able to take advantage of; it is also marked by many bad practices which must be remedied. I am surprised that the export of timber still represents a significant activity of the Republic of Slovenia. I am surprised that the construction of energy efficient houses has not become a more important aspect of our economic development. I am surprised that we have not been able to connect the talent in the field of design with our competencies in the field of technology and the opportunities provided by nature. We should be concerned that we are not capable of successfully connecting this into a successful developmental strategy. We should be concerned because of economic aspects, we should be concerned because we know that following the recession, we will need a new developmental drive and in this new developmental drive, also new ideas including those based on our knowledge and our natural resources. And we should be concerned because our future increasingly depends on our imagination and our inventiveness. And in this aspect, the wood, our design capacity, our design knowledge and technological competences provide us with opportunities we should certainly not miss.
I am here today to officially open the Fair and to express a few of my thoughts on the subject. I am here today also to reiterate the importance of connecting all of our sectors for our common success; and in view of developmental opportunities, to highlight the significance of the forest also for other aspects of our living - for a better environmental protection, for a more cultivated life. All of these are things which should come to mind at an event such as today’s Fair. I do not wish to use today’s opportunity for a too comprehensive debate on our developmental challenges. I hope, nonetheless, that you will still consider these challenges, that we will have opportunities to return to these and find good solutions. I do suggest that we devote today to the Fair, to see what it has to offer, to establish what economic opportunities are brought by this time nearing the end of the recession and to again congratulate all our prize-recipients. I will conclude with congratulations, with expressing my hope that there will be more fairs like this one in the future and with congratulations to Ljubljana Exhibition and Convention Centre for organising these fairs. I hope that we all benefit from this exhibition to the largest extent possible.
Thank you.
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