David Wojcik, born in Augsburg in 1989, studied product design at the University of Schwäbisch Gmünd. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2016. During his studies, in 2015 he was one of the founders of BOXBOTE LOGISTICS GMBH, a company with 52 employees, where he managed the design department. In 2017 he co-founded the INNOIT Agency, which employs twelve people and where he took on the role of creative director. Another company will follow in 2020: KROOT, which he also co-founded.

In her many years as a curator and author, Paola Antonelli has impressively demonstrated the extent to which design influences the development of culture and society, as well as how strongly it shapes our living environment. At the same time, her work raises awareness of taking a responsible approach to design in terms of people and nature; not only for designers, but also for all those who buy products and integrate them into their everyday lives.

Paola Antonelli was born in 1963 in Sardinia and studied architecture at the Polytechnic in Milan. Before becoming a curator at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in 1994, she taught design theory and history at the University of California in L.A. In 2007, she became senior curator for the areas of design and architecture at MoMA. As senior curator at MoMA, she caused a sensation virtually from the very beginning, with exhibitions such as »Thresholds: Contemporary Design from the Netherlands« (1996), »Humble Masterpieces« (2004) or »Design and the Elastic Mind« (2008), which staged everyday products as if they were exhibits in a museum. As curator of the recent XXII Triennale di Milano, which drew attention to the need for sustainable design under the title of »Broken Nature«, Antonelli demonstrated how design is important more than ever today.

Whether as a curator, editor or author, Paola Antonelli's work to date has made an extraordinary contribution when it comes to ensuring that broader swathes of the public perceive design much more as a diverse cultural asset – and thus as part of an individual and societal identity – instead of reducing it only to aesthetics and function.

The winner of the “Public Choice Award 2021” was chosen by public vote from amongst the products presented in the online winners’ gallery. This year’s favourite was the Don Majestic Hotel in Punta del Este, Uruguay - designed by Guevara Ottonello Architects. An interesting, timelessly elegant building, whose iconic appearance becomes even more impressive thanks to its striking slats, which separate the continuously glazed floors from each other.