Berlin Design Week 2026 – 10th Edition

Berlin as an Open Design City

Unlike major fashion or design fairs held in closed halls, the Berlin Design Week is a decentralized city event. Studios open their doors, galleries present curated special exhibitions, and universities like UDK Berlin and FH Potsdam showcase student work. Those equipped with a festival pass and city map discover Berlin in ways usually hidden from daily life: workshops in courtyards, material labs, crafting spaces, collectives.

Hub Macherei – M60

The festival center in 2026 is M60 at Macherei Kreuzberg on Hallesches Ufer. Here, the opening, talks, and curated exhibitions are concentrated. The 'Design in Wartime' exhibition by Ukrainian-Austrian students, the retrospective of Swedish designer Monica Förster, and lectures on circular design (Max Marwede, Fraunhofer IZM) and material innovation form the program's backbone.

Berlin Design Night and Design Pool

Two program points stand out: The Berlin Design Night on May 28th, 2026, brings together around 30 studios and galleries for an open studio event simultaneously – a long evening celebrating Berlin's open design doors. The Design Pool @ PLATTE.BERLIN on May 30th and 31st is a fair-market platform for emerging designers and manufacturers. Alongside these are workshops, talks, student exhibitions, and curated tours.

Berlin – The Design City

In the last two decades, Berlin has developed a specific design identity: not the high-gloss image of Milan, nor the corporate elegance of Stockholm, but a mix of subculture aesthetics, material experiments, social responsibility, and sheer pragmatism. The Design Week is the annual inventory of this self-understanding – and often the only occasion for the wider public to glimpse behind the scenes of the Berlin design scene.