Barcelona Design Week Celebrates Its Eighteenth Year
In its coming-of-age edition, this design-focused event introduces a new Sustainable Development Goal in addition to the seventeen announced by the United Nations in 2015.
Design and creativity have been the main protagonists of Barcelona Design Week since its first edition in 2006. This event includes everything from exhibitions showcasing the best designs in art, architecture, interior design, and visual communication ('The Best Designs of the Year') to events inviting young people to design homes of the future, lectures, open-house sessions, and discussions on the ever-approaching artificial intelligence. Mark your calendar for October 16th to 28th.
The Disseny Hub Barcelona (DHUB; in the image) will be the centre of the proposals, but Barcelona Design Week also features activities in many associated venues, ranging from the Roca Barcelona Gallery to The Social Hub Barcelona in Poblenou, and even Casa Seat, among many others.
For the first time, this event considers design as a fundamental element in building a future suitable for humans. In this regard, it launched an initiative aimed at promoting a Sustainable Development Goal that complements the ones set by the United Nations. There were originally seventeen objectives, to which Barcelona Design Week now proposes to add one more – number eighteen, precisely – inviting us to design a future tailored to humans. This proposal for the eighteenth Sustainable Development Goal gives rise to this year's slogan for Barcelona Design Week: 'Design for Human Future.' Among the proposals related to this initiative is an installation in the Jardines de la Reina Victoria (at Gran Vía, 632, on October 16th) that illustrates the role of design in life and its transformative power.
On October 24th, at The Social Hub Barcelona in Poblenou, you can attend the session 'No Planet B. Design for a Better World,' where design experts will speak about a love story: the one creators have with the planet we all inhabit. And, if you want to reflect while viewing an artistic creation, visit DHUB on October 16th to see 'Hanging By a Thread.' It's a work by Violeta Martín and Lluís La Hoz, with the collaboration of Marta Ayala, representing an abstract figure made of beer bottles and recycled materials. The structure hangs inside a three-dimensional cubic structure and aims to create a moment of reflection on the pollution we are victims of.
Among the main activities of Barcelona Design Week, there are exhibitions that not only discuss the FAD Design Awards for this year but also feature a series of photographs by Cristina García Rodera ('Young People Eager to Move to a Better Future') that you can see at Palau Robert, showing the lives and homes of young people who will also design the homes they need. Exhibitions about the role of women in design from 1900 to the present ('We Are Here!') are also part of the week dedicated to design- organized by the Barcelona Centre de Disseny and promoted by the Barcelona City Council, in collaboration with FAD Foment de les Arts i el Disseny and the Design Museum.
In addition, there will be roundtable discussions, talks, and presentations. Pay attention to one of the star topics of this edition, artificial intelligence, which is already being applied in various fields and poses a challenge for creators. On October 17th, at the Roca Gallery, there will be two roundtable discussions as part of the activity 'AI Visions: Artificial Intelligence Under Debate,' which questions the pros and cons of this technology applied to design and architecture.
Barcelona Design Week's main proposals are complemented by 'Diseño en Diagonal' (October 24th and 25th), a circuit of associated venues, showrooms, stores, and unique spaces along Avinguda Diagonal, and by the many activities organized within the OFF Barcelona Design Week, bringing together proposals from associations and entities related to the world of design.
If you don't want to miss the many offerings of Barcelona Design Week, particularly focusing on sustainable design and artificial intelligence, check out the complete program on this event's website and choose the activities you don't want to miss.