From February 1st, the Madrid Design Festival 2021 has started, with a program where the exhibitions and activities are presented in a hybrid form, online and physically at the Cultural Center de la Villa Fernán Gómez, which hosts the event already in its fourth edition in its 4 cultural spaces.

Director Álvaro Matías inaugurated the exhibition on Zoom platform, maintaining the hybrid phygital form, and presenting the program full of events: 183 planned activities, 512 designers, the participation of 72 institutions from the world of design, art, and culture, with the participation of important specialists and professionals in the sector.

Four are the exhibitions open until march 14th, one per space, at the Cultural Center of the Villa Fernán Gómez, and they all speak a language that is very close to everyone: the home time lived under Pandemic attack and experienced in the various lockdowns.

- “Connected” is a project born from an experiment developed during the lockdown between AHEC, Benchmark Furniture, and the London Design Museum. Important international designers were involved in each, presenting a table with chairs for domestic use, adaptable according to their most private household needs during the home-staying. The project has been an act of trust also for the designers themselves, who had to entrust the production without being able to physically follow the steps but only by monitoring the progress of the work digitally.

- “Emergency! Designs against COVID-19", produced by the Barcelona Design Museum and curated by Teresa Bastardes and Rossend Casanova, presents a selection of 55 initiatives that, from the world of design, have given a rapid response to the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic

- "Valencia Pavilion. The future is design", is an exhibition with the aim to projecting the future and the avant-garde of Valencian design. Designed by MUT Design and curated by Estudio Savage, it celebrates the designation of Valencia as the World Capital of Design 2022, expanding five categories, which relate to this approach to circular economy, contemporary craftsmanship, design focused on the transformative economy, border between art and design and technology. All the five topics will then be presented through 5 episodes, which tell and document the responsibility of thinking about the future starting from the origins.

- "The Madrid Design Portrait" exhibition offers a complete overview of the fabric of design in the capital through the work of 15 studios and designers who develop their work in Madrid: Lucas Muñoz, Miguel Leiro, Mayice, Izaskun Chinchilla, Moneo Brock, Patricia Bustos, Federico Antelo, Tornasol, Estudio Báltico, Andrea Santamarina, Mariano, Mad Lab, Kike Keller, Álvaro Catalán de Ocón and Enorme Studio.

And again, Madrid Design Festival is much more and the focus on sustainability is even more accentuated in the video promoted by Ikea Redesigning Tomorrow a documentary directed by the filmmaker Pedro Aguilera, that brings together great world thinkers to investigate and reflect on a way to rethink the world starting from multidisciplinary approaches.

FINSA, a manufacturer of chipboard panels, has promoted workshops for professionals, of which the next events dated February 18, dedicated to 3D processing, and a workshop for professionals from February 23 to 25.

Furthermore, there are many showrooms to be discovered in the three dedicated spaces Alvic, Aretha, and Gancedo, which return in this edition as MDF Showrooms.

There is no shortage of schools and awards: on January 19, the MINI Design Award Jury will meet to evaluate the projects presented by the expert committee and design schools. With this award, MINI seeks to reward the creative attitude of those who want to change cities by putting their talent at the disposal of design to question, innovate and transform our lives, in short, improve urban life. The jury is made up of Carlos Martínez, Miriam Roure, Rafael Aranda, Alicia Asín, and Asunción Ruiz.

ICON is the official media of the event, the main sponsor together with MINI.