9 Highlights From Madrid Design Festival 2026

Now in its ninth year, the Madrid Design Festival filled various venues in Spain’s capital with a wide variety of proposals from the country’s creatives—established, emerging, and also relatively unknown. ‘Redesign the world,’ the slogan of Madrid Design Festival 2026, may sound lofty, but many of the exhibits, installations, and proposals reminded us that life-enhancing solutions are often hidden in the everyday. Craft and heritage skills were predominant, as was glassware, much of it blown in the Royal Glassworks Factory in Segovia. In response to a cluttered and uncertain world, sustainability, circularity, respect for the past, and an apprehension towards AI were underlying narratives.

Must-See Moments From Madrid Design Festival 2026

Design in Use by André Ricard

André Ricard, the 96-year-old maestro of Spanish industrial design, was honored in “Design in Use,” the festival’s main show. With work spanning over six decades, his contribution to the country’s domestic landscape, from iconic lamps, common kitchen appliances and desk chairs, is immeasurable. Mostly, he is remembered for designing the torch for the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona—an event that marked the birth of a more modern, international Spain.

Mediterranean Manifesto by Various Artists

Innovation, cultural diversity, and connection to nature are all part of the timeless Mediterranean mystique. These values were beautifully expressed in ‘Mediterranean Manifesto’, a group show of creators from across the Arc. Crafted objects were clustered into the functions of an ancestral homestead—cooking, eating, communal and solo activities such as sewing and reading—lending the show an anthropological layer.

Love Catcher by Jaime Hayon

Jaime Hayon can always be counted on for a design festival showstopper. Love Catcher, his first large format sculpture to be exhibited in Spain, is part of his new ‘Soft Bronze’ series—inflatable pieces that explore the contrast between monumental and soft, the permanent and the ephemeral. Placed on the grassy lawns of the luxury Hotel Villa Magna, it invites us to reach out for love as an essential force of nature.

Crafted Garden by Loewe

Loewe, Spain’s most premium fashion brand, put the focus on its line of fragrances and scented candles along with its long legacy of craftsmanship. Inspired by a Renaissance garden and ancient botanical books, visitors travelled through a sensorial, modular landscape of ultrathin, pleated paper walls created by Molo Design in a journey scented with the firm’s divine new range of perfumes.

Forest Bathing by Finsa

Real, live outdoor foliage was used in Forest Bathing, an installation from the wood experts Finsa in collaboration with Enorme Studio and landscape designer Alex Fenollar. In a glass-enclosed room adjacent to the patio of the fair’s main venue, an intimate connection with the natural world was created with local vegetation, where visitors could slow down, reflect and spend a moment reading Theroux’s classic ode to nature, Life in the Woods.

Relevo Generacional by Kavita Parmar

A talented designer, cultural savant and mind behind the beautiful Xtant fair of heritage textiles held every year in Mallorca, Kavita Parmar always approaches design through a distinct lens. Her show at the festival was the result of research into forgotten ancestral crafts, from exvotos made of bread to the Basque makilas (ceremonial walking canes), with the intention of triggering shared memories through a contemporary gaze.

Siesta de Pastora Cabaña (Cabin for a shepherdess) by PAISAnaJE

Again this year, the festival promoted the Alliance for Wool initiative that aims to revitalize Spain’s sagging wool production through design and creativity. This delightful proposal from the PAISAnaJE artist collective is the result of dialogue with shepherds, climate change experts and maintenance staff of the Casa del Campo—Madrid’s largest park and home to the country’s only urban sheep herd.

Tyre Lounge by Gianluca Pugliese x Signus

Tyres transformed into a refuge of serenity? In a world where complete calm has become a rare commodity, designer Gianluca Pugliese invites us to step into a ‘circle of silence’ that is partly constructed of an object that makes the most noise. The installation for Signus was inspired by the geometry of headphones, with acoustic PET panels providing protection and sound absorption.

DOMUS NOVA by Manera + SANTA Living

In the magnificent patio of the Museu San Isidrio, over 40 art and collectible craft pieces by Manera Magazine and SANTA Living formed a poetic juxtaposition with the building’s Renaissance columns and statuary. The show asked us to view the objects, from pottery to furniture, weaving and glass blowing, as archeological objects of the future.