DATES: 24 - 28 September 2025
OPENING OF THE FESTIVAL: 23 September 2025 at 18:00
LOCATION: Svoradov Boarding School, Svoradova 13, 811 03 Old Town
Bratislava will once again become the centre of contemporary design! The largest international design festival in Slovakia, Bratislava Design Week 2025, will take place from 24 to 28 September. This year we are celebrating our 16th edition and the main festival headquarters can be found in the Svoradov Boarding House. Other festival venues will be spread across the Old Town - specific locations will be announced soon on our social media and on the website www.badw.sk.
TRANSFORMATIONS AS A COMMON LINE
This year's Bratislava Design Week brings international guest Parentesi Cinema, a new exhibition format at the Grand Hotel Bratislava, a special Pecha Kucha Night event, a selection of open callo free of charge and the debut of the social design platform at the VŠVU.The festival combines the transformations of space, scene and society into one experience: the Bratislava Design Week 2025 is not just an exhibition of design, but a manifesto of the search for new forms of coexistence and creation.
The festival will take place in the premises of the boarding school on Svoradova Street, which is opening up to the city under new management and undergoing its own transformation. It is here that the festival develops its theme of transformation this year - the transformation of space, the art scene and the very thinking about design.
"We want to show how design responds to social challenges - the climate crisis, digitalisation and new forms of collaboration are themes that resonate throughout the programme," says festival director Ľubica Hustá.
MAIN GUEST: PARENTESI CINEMA
The main guest of Bratislava Design Week 2025 is Parentesi Cinema - an international platform for moving image created by designers, architects and artists. Parentesi Cinema works with spatial installations and film formats that go beyond the traditional understanding of cinema and allow even an idea without an object to find its way to the audience.
Their presentation in Bratislava will present a new way for design to think about image, space and narrative at a time when production may not always be possible, but ideas should not remain unspoken.
NEW FORMAT: GRAND HOTEL BRATISLAVA
The Grand Hotel Bratislava exhibition will bring contemporary Slovak designers to the hotel part of the dormitory on Svoradova Street. This part of the building, opened in the 1920s and rebuilt after the revolution, carries a specific atmosphere of post-revolutionary taste. Here, designers will present their work in confrontation with the historical accretions of the space, creating a unique dialogue between the past and the present.
PECHA KUCHA NIGHT IN THE GYM
One of the highlights of the festival will be Pecha Kucha Night in the dorm gym. The dynamic format of the 20×20 presentations meets the atmosphere of a space remembered by generations of students. The combination of Bratislava Design Week and Pecha Kucha Night is an event that will connect two established lines of the Bratislava cultural scene.
EDITION MAJSTERS: Juraj Marth: It is not indifferent what stories we tell
Curator Viera Kleinová, departmental collaboration Dagmar Marthová
Many of the works of the ceramist, sculptor and designer Juraj Marth (1939 - 2019) are no longer seen in public space today. Although he was one of those (along with Imrich Vanek and Jozef Sušienko) who made a strong ceramic mark on the city from the late 1960s onwards.
Since his student days at the UMPRUM in Prague, he has been creating works that, within the limits of the planned economy, were created as original works in his studio in Bratislava. After 1989 he tried self-production of limited designer editions of table ceramics and devoted himself to the design of domestic fireplaces.
He put most of his energy into monumental sculptural works for architecture - he realized about 60 of them all over Slovakia. Many of them did not survive reconstruction or destruction of architectural environments. In Bratislava, for example, there were monumental reliefs at the M. R. Štefánik Airport, the Istropolis Trade Union House or the Danube Hotel.
His stories have transformed spa, recreational, hospital and school buildings - from the well-known monumental reliefs in the television in Mlynska dolina to hidden works such as the relief in a nursery in Bratislava's Ružinov.
OPEN CALL AT NO CHARGE
This year, the festival has announced a no-fee open call in response to the complicated situation in the culture. Dozens of authors have signed up to present their projects in the former Club S - a legendary space of the Bratislava music scene. The festival thus revives a place that for years lived only in memories.
NEW SOCIAL DESIGN PLATFORM
A new social design platform debuts at the College of Fine Arts, disrupting the traditional café concept in its first outing. In collaboration with Man in Peril and Goriffee Roastery, a space is being created where coffee drinking is combined with reflection on coexistence, social responsibility and quality of life.
PARALLEL AREA
The festival will also include the Parallel Area programme, which will expand the design map to include the Čin Čin gallery, the KVETENA flower shop, the Konsepti shop, the Závodný space, the Studený showroom, the Brot bookshop, the Kompot shop, the Old Town Library, the Swäg café and the Kút museum shop in the Museum of the City of Bratislava MMB.
Detailed programme coming soon on www.bratislavadesignweek.sk
We look forward to seeing you at the biggest contemporary design event in Slovakia!
Main partner: The festival was supported by the Fund for the Support of Arts from public funds
The strategic partner is Bratislava, the capital of the Slovak Republic.
The project was supported by the Slovak Savings Bank Foundation
Partners: Austrian Cultural Forum, Czech Centre, Svoradov Boarding School
The festival is held under the auspices of Matej Vagač, the mayor of the Bratislava - Old Town district.
The face of this year's visual are the winners of the BADW AWARDS 2024: Adam Kukuc, Klára Valušková and Sylvia Ciulis
authors of the visual: @studioschmetterling / Ivan Galdík, Zuzana Didová
Photo: @jmteringa / Jakub Michal Teringa
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