Design festivals are a great chance for cities to showcase their creative talent, and provide fantastic networking opportunities and the opportunity for rising talent to rub shoulders with some of the best names in the business. 

In some cities, these festivals have become major touristic events, with Venice’s “Biennale” or Milan´s “Fuorisalone” examples of festivals that are renowned worldwide. From the 14th to the 16th of February this year, it will be Madrid’s turn to host some of the worlds best designers, when the city holds its first design festival, organised by “la fabrica”. 

Planned as a new annual event, the Madrid Design Festival will branch all disciplines of design, including architecture, graphic design, interior design and communication. Throughout the weekend, an impressive 48 exhibitions, guided visits and urban installations will be held throughout the city. 

Although the festival runs over the second weekend in February, some of the associated exhibition have already. Over 100 hours of activities are planned with more than 70 invited talented designers. 

Jennifer Stienkamp's installation tree-art will be exhibited at the event

Additional events include conferences, masterclasses, workshops, debates between pairs of designers and exhibitions, in a part of the festival entitled MadridDesignPro. The event is conceived to promote design as a tool for social transformation. Those wanting to plan their itenary in advance can find the locations of each participating exhibition of the festival map.

Jaime Hayon, founder of Hayon Studio, will present a retrospective exhibition of the works by Jaime Hayon, one of the most acclaimed designers of his generation.

The list of star designers taking part in the festival make this an unmissable event, and include names like Jasper Morrison, 300.000 km/s, Ronan Bouroullec, Rossana Orlandi, Abbott Miller, Oskar Zieta, Martí Guixé, Inma Bermúdez, Takk, Marlène Huissoud, Dagmar Kestner,Paloma Cañizares, Izaskun Chinchilla, Alberto Barreiro & Juan Herreros.

Jaime Hayon's mon cirque black vases

The programme for the festival is packed with top quality events that make it a weekend not to be missed. Some standout exhibitions and installations from the festival are listed below:

Avanto Architects' wooden public sauna on Helsinki seashore. Image © kuvio.com

February 7th - 18th, all day

During the festival, The Hotel “Only You Atocha” will offer visitors the chance to experience the renowned health benefits of a Finnish sauna. Holding an important place in Finnish culture the health and wellbeing effects that can be attained in a Finnish sauna are well known. Apart from the health benefit, these spaces also constitute a social and family act of the Finns.

“Democratic design”

February 13th - 18th, all day

Throughout the Madrid Design Festival, IKEA will show the future of Democratic Design in La Neomudéjar (Antonio Nebrija street). They will host an exhibition in which the upcoming IKEA collections will be presented and discussed in relation to “democratic design”. IKEA design director will hols design talks during the event, along with invited international designers including Piet Hein Eek and Bea Åkerlund.

“El original es de Vitra”

February 1st - 24th, all day

This exhibition about the work of Swiss furniture house, Vitra explains the history behind each original Vitra work, including sketches, prototypes, material choices and modifications. The exhibition portrays a thought process in which nothing was left to chance.

While many of the events held over the weekend will be free, tickets for the MadridesignPro events can be obtained from the festival website. A full programme of the event can be downloaded here.

Top image: Enorme Studio's installation "Mountain On The Moon", in collaboration with MINI, will be exhibited at Madrid Design Festival

All images © Madrid Design Festival, except otherwise stated

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