News 09/2026

Dear friends of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK,

With Rado and IKEA, VIENNA DESIGN WEEK has two long-standing General Partners that approach design from very different perspectives and develop projects in close collaboration with the festival team. One sets images in motion, the other organises everyday life. Both create space for new design positions and give designers the opportunity to realise their ideas as part of the festival.

More Than a Bag

Almost everyone knows FRAKTA. This year, the iconic blue IKEA bag became the starting point for a VIENNA DESIGN WEEK open call that completely rethinks this everyday object.

Under the title “FRAKTA – More Than a Bag”, designers were invited to transform the bag into a new system, piece of furniture, tool or spatial intervention for order and organisation in everyday life.

The response was huge: 113 projects were submitted.

A jury selected STAPLA by Lisa Stolz and Juan Vertiz (MOWO – Move With Wood), a modular system that transforms FRAKTA into flexible storage, furniture and spatial structures. Alongside the winning project, ten nominated concepts will be presented at the Festival Headquarters, showing just how many different ways a single product can be reimagined.

Architecture of Time

With RADO MOVING MATERIALS, Rado continues not only its long-standing collaboration with VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, but also its engagement with the motion design scene.

From March to August, six designers developed animations especially for the video wall at the Rado Boutique on Kärntner Straße, exploring this year’s theme Architecture of Time. The works look at rhythm, repetition and change, and ask how time can be made visible.

During VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, all six animations will be shown together – both at the Festival Headquarters and at the Rado Boutique Vienna. The RADO MOVING MATERIALS Award 2026 will also be presented, recognising one of the six positions.

The six positions for 2026 are:

– Maximilian Prag
– Alessa Wolfram
– Liza Borovskaya-Brodskaya
– Thomas Albdorf
– Diana Bobb
– Simon Hundsbichler & Jonas Nath

Between boutique, video wall and exhibition, emerging motion design becomes part of both the urban space and the festival programme.

And That’s Just the Beginning

With MissionAcoustic and Erste Bank, two more General Partners are part of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2026 with their own formats.

MissionAcoustic uses an installation at the Festival Headquarters to make it possible to hear and experience how acoustics transform spaces. Through Stadtarbeit and the Erste Bank Social Design Award, Erste Bank enables projects that bring design directly into public space and to the people.

More on both in our upcoming newsletters.