Martín Azúa, La Fábrica, and Inés Llasera Receive Spain’s 2026 National Design Awards

Diana Morant, Spain’s Minister of Science, Innovation, and Universities, has announced the individuals and organizations honored by the National Innovation and Design Awards 2026. These awards recognize the professionals, companies, and organizations that have played a decisive role in enhancing the prestige of Spanish design and showing that integrating it into a corporate strategy is a key driver of innovation and competitiveness.

In the “Trajectory in Design” category, Martín Azúa has been honored for a career spanning more than 30 years devoted to exploring design’s most humanistic and symbolic dimensions, grounded in the belief that objects are part of personal and social identity, and that nature, craftsmanship, and sustainability define the profession’s ethical and aesthetic vision. A multidisciplinary designer born in the Basque Country and based in Barcelona, he has developed a cross-disciplinary practice spanning product design, spatial design, exhibition curation, research, and teaching, collaborating with companies such as Vibia, Mobles 114, Roca, Camper, Nani Marquina, and Ferran Adrià. The jury particularly recognized the coherence of his body of work, whose most iconic project, the Basic House, is part of New York’s MoMA collection, and the strength of a career that combines representation in leading international public collections with an ongoing contribution to Spanish design through his teaching at the Elisava Faculty of Design and Engineering of the University of Vic in Barcelona since 1995.

In the “Design and Company” category, the award went to La Fábrica Gestión Más Cultura, for showing over the past 30 years that design can be the structural element that creates, shapes, and transforms Spain’s most significant cultural projects. Founded in 1996 by Alberto Anaut on the belief that every detail is important, La Fábrica is not a company that commissions design: it is a company built on design, using formal excellence, meticulous attention to detail, and conceptual coherence as its approach in every initiative. The jury recognized La Fábrica’s exceptional ability to create distinctive cultural formats with their own identity, continuity, and lasting impact, placing design at their core - from Matador magazine and PHotoESPAÑA to the Madrid Design Festival, NotodoFilmFest, Festival de las Ideas, and FORMA, Spain’s first international collectible design fair - as well as its decisive role in creating some of the country’s most prominent cultural centers, including La Casa Encendida, Matadero Madrid, and La Térmica. With nearly 16 million visitors to PHotoESPAÑA, more than 1,100 titles published by its imprint and distributed across 49 countries, and a network of partnerships with leading international museums and institutions, La Fábrica has played a decisive role in transforming how culture is conceived, designed, and experienced in contemporary Spain.

In the “Young Design Professionals” category, Inés Llasera received the award. This was in honor of her role as a leading figure in a new generation of Spanish women designers committed to a practice deeply rooted in material experimentation, contemporary craftsmanship, and the dialogue between nature, identity, and objects. An honors graduate of the Madrid School of Design, she has built a remarkably consistent and mature international career in less than a decade, from co-founding Tornasol Studio in 2017 to her Kauani textile lighting project and her new solo chapter with VASTO Gallery in 2026. The jury highlighted her ability to bring Spanish design to leading international platforms such as the Pompidou Center, Maison & Objet, Paris Design Week, FOG Design+Art, and the India Mahdavi Project Room, as well as her contribution to educating new generations of designers as Program Leader of the Master’s Degree in Product Design at the Madrid European Institute of Design. Llasera embodies a contemporary vision of design that connects innovation, material culture, and human sensitivity, a vision the jury considers both valuable and necessary for the future of the profession in Spain.