Header: Courtesy of VDW / Christoph Wimmer, Studio Sirene
Marking its 20th anniversary, Vienna Design Week returns from September 24 to October 4, 2026. Led by festival director Gabriel Roland alongside returning founding board members Tulga Beyerle, Lilli Hollein, and Thomas Geisler, the 2026 edition transforms Austria’s capital into an open-air showcase. Expect around 50,000 visitors, 200 events, and 50 locations spread across the city, with most venues offering free admission. From an iconic 1970s office tower headquarters to experimental social design on the streets, here is your essential guide to the key highlights and locations at this year’s festival.
Festival Headquarters: Harry Glück’s 1970s landmark
This year’s festival hub settles into the former Allianz insurance company headquarters at Hietzinger Kai 101 in the 13th district. Designed by architect Harry Glück and built between 1974 and 1976, the nine-story geometric tower is provided courtesy of Kollitsch Invest. Visitors can explore a multi-level layout filled with design exhibitions and temporary installations set inside upper-floor former office spaces, the original staff canteen with its garden terrace, a quick registration office, and a basement area housing a former kindergarten alongside a bowling alley.
Passionswege: Pairing tradition with experimental design
The festival’s signature format, Passionswege (Paths of Passion), pairs international designers with historic Viennese workshops to create site-specific installations, free from commercial constraints.
In the first of three new commissions, Rotterdam-based studio GROOVIDO collaborates with Blumen Weisz, a historic cemetery nursery opposite the Hietzing Cemetery—the final resting place of Otto Wagner, Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, and Hans Hollein. Titled “Illusion of Forever,” the project spotlights traditional Viennese funeral wreaths by contrasting fading flora with the permanent, reusable metal frame structure typically hidden beneath.
Meanwhile, Luxembourgish designer Christophe de la Fontaine pairs with historic court jewellers AEKöchert for “Uniform.” Moving away from traditional gender divisions, the collection borrows structural forms from industrial mechanisms—such as gears, chain belts, and drive shafts—to produce unisex high jewellery based on formal technical precision.
The third pairing features visual artist Anna Paul alongside Floridsdorf rope maker Haanl, a family business established in Erdberg in 1889. For “Ropes,” Paul uses thick, short lengths of custom cordage to strip the material of its standard utility of tying, lifting, or securing. Displayed in the festival headquarters lobby, these oversized textile forms become tactile, sculptural seating objects.
To mark the two-decade milestone, five historic Viennese institutions are also opening their archives for the Passionswege Perspectives showcase. Visitors can explore past collaborations and historic retrospective pieces at Wiener Silber Manufactur, Rudolf Scheer & Söhne, LOBMEYR, Wäscheflott, and the Mühlbauer hat manufactory.
Stadtarbeit: Social design interventions
Supported by Erste Bank’s Vermehrt Schönes! program and Caritas Vienna, the Stadtarbeit (Urban Work) format features three jury-selected public projects exploring the theme of celebration and collective joy, with each entry competing for the Erste Bank Social Design Prize.
In “Attention, gate opens automatically!”, designer Leon Theodor uses mobile design objects to bring rolling party tables out of private Hietzing parking garages and onto public streets, lowering social barriers between neighbours. Taking a different approach to gathering, Saliva Collective’s “Dark Times” project draws on the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, European harvest traditions, and Indian Diwali to host nighttime moonwalks, listening sessions, craft workshops, and a communal dinner. Finally, the collective Your Club Is Not My Club joins artist Michaela Rotsch to present “A Glass of Waves.” Set inside Rotsch’s walk-in glass cube, Syntopian Gobotag, this mobile, multisensory sound installation brings accessible music experiences to public parks and markets, creating a shared space for deaf and electronic music communities.
Educational debuts and special formats
The wider 2026 festival program stretches across numerous curated disciplines. Luxembourg takes centre stage as this year’s official guest nation in the GAST format. The Debut program features fresh project work from two German institutions, Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design and Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, alongside the Regenerative Design Lab from the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
In the FOKUS format, Swiss stylist and exhibition maker Connie Hüsser curates “The Essence of Lightness,” an exhibition highlighting lightweight design objects from emerging talents. Regional sustainability comes to the fore in Urban Food & Design, where a collaboration with the Vienna Business Agency builds on Biofabrique Vienna research to display workwear and installations created with bioregional pigments known as Vienna Colors.
Younger visitors can experience TECH TALES, an interactive children’s exhibition co-funded by the European Union and the Austrian Ministry of Arts and Culture that uses contemporary fairy tales to explore new design perspectives. Returning audience favourites include the local design showcase Design Everyday and targeted networking sessions hosted alongside EIT – Culture and Creativity. Wrapping up the event’s public profile is a bold visual identity developed by Studio Sirene under the theme “20 Years – 20 Patterns.”
Dates, hours, and visitor details
- Festival Dates: Friday, 25 September – Sunday, 4 October 2026
- Press Tour: Thursday, 24 September 2026 (Starts at HQ, moves to Blumen Weisz, finishes at AEKöchert and city centre locations)
- Admission: Free for the majority of venues and public programs
- Festival Headquarters Location: Hietzinger Kai 101, 1130 Vienna (Next to Unter-St.-Veit U-Bahn station)
- Blumen Weisz Location: Maxingstraße 70, 1130 Vienna (Opposite Hietzing Cemetery)
- AEKöchert Jewelers Location: Neuer Markt 15, 1010 Vienna
- Rado Boutique Location (Pre-festival presentations): Kärntner Straße 18, 1010 Vienna
For more information, check out the official website as well as their Instagram and Facebook.
