Madrid Design Festival 2020: Redesign the World

From February 1st to 29th the city of Madrid will host the third edition of the Madrid Design Festival, which in 2020 comes loaded with new content and innovative showpieces based on the slogan "redesign the world".

From architecture to graphic design, communications and interior design, the new edition will bring together exhibitions by well-known designers such as Patricia Urquiola and Juli Capella, - who will present their work at the Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa- while also highlighting emerging designers.

Among the most notable elements of the festival are the MadridDesignPRO professional seminars, which as in past years will take place at the Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid (COAM) on the 13th, 14th and 15th of February. Experts such as Ron Arad, Mario Ruiz and Giorgetto Giugiaro, alongside well-known panelists from design studios such as Neri&Hu, CuldeSac and Studio Banana, will discuss  today's major social and professional challenges through the prism of design.

In total the event will feature 250 activities, 66 exhibitions, 12 installations and the participation of more than 400 professionals. For a few days, all of this will turn Madrid into the global capital of contemporary design and will put the work of young designers in the spotlight.

The latter is the particular focus of projects such as the Touch Wood competition. The challenge is to design “infinite objects” which use wood as their primary material. In addition to the initiatives directed at younger designers is a contest based around the theme "Feel the Future": the Rado Star Prize”, the festival's main sponsor.
 
Beyond these activities, throughout February the Spanish capital will fill with a multitude of events and exhibits at many museums across the city, such as for example the ,“Open by Design” exhibit which presents industrial design from the 1960s and which will take place at the Museo del Traje, or the “Tout va bien” retrospective, dedicated to artist Joan Rabascall and presented in a space at the Tabacalera.

Likewise, exhibits scheduled in other iconic locations around the capital are fundamental to the event, such as the three which will be located at the National Museum of Decorative Arts, the tours organized at the National Archaeological Museum and the Museum of Romanticism or the guided visits to the Madrid Caixaforum.

And of course design lovers can't miss the “new ways of life” exhibit dreamed up by Ikea at the Palacio Santa Bárbara, - which aims to look into the future and imagine the homes of tomorrow -, or the series of talks and activities organized by the Consentino Group in the Consentino City Madrid space and at the Roca Madrid Gallery.

The various experimental workshops deserve a special mention, such as the Matadero Madrid Mutant Workshop, based around the co-creation of storyboards exploring possible futures of the city. Not to mention the Design and Digital Culture Encounters activity series organized by MediaLab-Prado and the Papercut Workshop at the ABC Museum.

Finally and with a focus on the national scene, the contributions of the various design schools will be highlighted, such as those from the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, the Universidad de Navarra and the Madrid Instituto Europeo de Diseño (IED), all of which have primarily been created by students of those institutions.

And to cap it all off, we couldn't fail to mention the connection between the Madrid Design Festival and Barcelona Design Week, -with a workshop directed by Soulsight's strategic consultant to tackle the challenges faced by both cities in the 21st century - or Basque Living Madrid, the multi-brand showroom which presents different designers from Basque Country and Navarre.