Designblok Prague 2025: Where Courage Meets Design

Described by Wallpaper last year as “the world’s most playful design festival,” Designblok Prague returns for its 27th edition, taking place from October 8–12, 2025, with a new guiding theme: Courage. More than just a slogan, it’s a curatorial engine — the courage to merge craft and technology, to amplify female voices, and to turn design into a social tool. As festival director Jana Zielinski notes, “Courage also means connecting disciplines, placing design in a broader social context, and recognizing the growing role of women who are shaping today’s creative scene".


Courtesy of Designblok2025

Designblok becomes a platform for experimentation and intuition. Opening with Professionals’ Day on October 7 at Nová Spirála, the festival activates Prague’s key cultural spaces, from the Křižík Pavilions and the Royal Summer Palace of Queen Anne to the Museum of Decorative Arts and Rudolfinum Gallery, transforming them into crossroads of installations, talks, and creative visions. The main exhibition, Courage: Between Unity and Diversity. Women in Architecture, Design and Applied Arts, curated by Michaela Kádnerová, features twenty Czech and international designers — including Eva Eisler, Lucie Koldová, Liběna Rochová, Zuzana Lednická, Šárka Radová, and Lenka Míková — exploring what it means to emerge in creative fields still marked by gender imbalance.

Symbolically, women’s voices stand alongside international icons. Patricia Urquiola will receive the Designblok Lifetime Achievement Award and present her Insula collection for Kettal with Konsepti, while Erwan Bouroullec unveils the Mynt chair for Vitra, a study in organic form and everyday poetry. As a speaker at Designblok Talks, Bouroullec joins Snøhetta, Winy Maas, and other leading designers in a program co-organized with Dezeen.


Courtesy of Designblok2025

Among the curated shows, High Craft, in collaboration with Vogue CS, highlights Czech artisans merging traditional skills with sustainable innovation. The Royal Summer Palace celebrates gestures of heritage and experimentation, while at Rudolfinum, the Loggia hosts Mary McCartney – Striking by PLAYCE, a photographic journey through emotion and portraiture. Parallelly, Czech artist Kateřina Vincourová presents Skin Care, a meditation on the body and its surface.

Designblok also reinforces its educational and community role. School Today showcases the visions of Central European design schools, while Designblok for Kids offers interactive installations, workshops, and playful spaces for young visitors. Beyond the main venues, the festival expands across the city, from galleries to independent showrooms, engaging over 200 exhibitors and reaffirming its mission as a cultural bridge between Central Europe and the global design scene.


Courtesy of Designblok2025