Madrid Design Festival (MDF) returns in 2026 to transform the city into an international stage for contemporary design, running from February 5 to March 8, 2026. Under the banner Rediseñar el mundo (Redesign the World), MDF26 reaffirms its mission as a platform that uses design to transform our surroundings, spark new ideas, and offer alternative ways of living together. This year introduces a new axis: FORMA Design Fair, Spain’s first design-of-collection fair, enriching Madrid’s design ecosystem with professional dialogue and opportunities.
Central exhibition program: André Ricard, the Mediterranean, and Guatemala: The Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa will again host the festival’s main exhibition program, presenting three major shows open from February 5 to May 3, 2026. André Ricard. Diseño en uso offers a retrospective spanning more than six decades of the renowned industrial designer’s career, highlighting his emblematic pieces and his visionary approach to project thinking. Manifiesto Mediterráneo, curated by Mariona Rubio and produced in partnership with Cosentino, provides a collective look at the cultural, material, and environmental legacy of the Mediterranean through the work of more than thirty designers. Arte textil en Guatemala: diseño e identidad, the edition’s guest country, presents its first exhibition dedicated to contemporary textile design in Spain, expressing memory, identity, and worldview.
Fiesta Design remains a cornerstone of MDF26, an open, public-facing space where design is experienced directly through installations, workshops, and demonstrations for all audiences. From February 12 to 22, the Institución Libre de Enseñanza brings together projects that showcase the breadth of contemporary design and its capacity to connect creativity, research, and daily life. Participants include major brands and institutions such as Amazon (with Kavita Parmar), Castilla-La Mancha (directed by Tomás Alía), Guatemala (edition’s guest country), Signus with Gianluca Pugliese, Finsa (with Enorme Studio and Alex Fenollar), Clinica Studio, Víctor García, the IED Madrid, and schools like CEU Universities, IE University, and UDIT, among others.
Madrid Design PRO and MDF Awards 2026. The professional days of the festival return with four days of conferences, talks, roundtables, workshops, and meetings with designers from around the world. The program addresses the pivotal topics shaping design today, reinforcing MDF as a space for conversation, reflection, and knowledge transmission. February 18–21, 2026 will feature influential voices such as Patricia Urquiola, Luca Nichetto, Emma van der Leest, Marc Morro, Christien Meindertsma, Héctor Serrano, Loumi Le Floc’h, Benjamín Iborra (Mesura), Liza Enebeis (Studio Dumbar), Alba de la Fuente, and more. Ticket packages are available at reduced prices on MDF’s website. MDF Awards will honor notable talents and trajectories this year: Konstantin Grcic, Rossana Orlandi, and Juli Capella.
Madrid Diseña stands as the festival’s broad urban axis, transforming the city into an active territory where design is lived, experienced, and shared from multiple perspectives. Supported by the City of Madrid, this axis connects nearly 300 spaces through exhibitions, presentations, installations, routes, workshops, open studios, showrooms, and designer encounters. Its clear mission is to strengthen Madrid’s design ecosystem, bolster its productive and creative fabric, and ignite urban economies linked to innovation and cultural industries.
As the festival’s strategic bloc, Diseñoesfera fosters collaboration among institutions, companies, and designers, acting as a bridge between creative talent and the agents driving urban innovation. It includes three core initiatives: Design à Trois, a day of meetings between companies, designers, and students to spark synergies and joint projects; Viveros, an exhibition conceived as a space for observation and conversation, produced with Tetuán Crea and Norte Joven; and Rediseña Madrid Industrial, a call to rethink and reactivate Madrid’s industrial parks as more accessible, connected, and sustainable environments.
The MINI Design Prize sits at the heart of MDF’s programming, a platform to imagine new ways of inhabitating the city. Across six editions, it has showcased projects reimagining mobility, public space, and urban sustainability, establishing itself as an observatory of applied innovation. To date, the prize has featured 353 professional candidacies, 312 proposals from new talents, and participation from 91 universities and design schools. For 2026, 62 professional candidacies and 58 new-talent submissions have been recorded; the winner will be announced on February 19 during the festival’s official ceremony.
In its second year, MDF dedicates an entire axis to wool as a strategic material for understanding design, territory, and sustainability. Under the Alianza por la Lana umbrella, the festival brings installations, talks, research, and projects exploring wool from multiple dimensions, illustrating how this material engages with memory, future, materials, education, circularity, and landscape.
Madrid Design Festival 2026 continues to position Madrid as a premier hub for critical, collaborative, and inclusive design. With FORMA Design Fair expanding the marketplace and professional dialogue, MDF26 promises to amplify the value of design as a catalyst for cultural, economic, and social transformation—inviting audiences, businesses, and creators to rethink how we live, work, and coexist.
Photo credits: Madrid Design Festival 2026
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