Trend Forecaster Li Edelkoort Shares Her Thoughts on The Radically Evolving Design Industry

An oracle-like presence, Li Edelkoort has advised the design industry with big-picture lectures, books, articles, and exhibitions to wide influence for more than forty years. Her company, Edelkoort Inc., counts three offices worldwide—one each in Paris, New York, and Tokyo—that track the pulse of lifestyle and culture, to economy and social science. From 1999 to 2008, Edelkoort was chairwoman of the Netherlands’ Design Academy Eindhoven, and in 2011, cofounded the School of Form in Poznan, Poland. On the tails of her recent appointment as dean of a new Hybrid Design program at New York’s Parsons School for Design— a multidisciplinary course soon to roll out this year and next—we met with the forward-looking Dutch doyenne to hear what she sees in store for the future.