A furniture fiesta at Feria Hábitat Valencia 2022

Leaves are turning, children are freshly shod for their return to school, and a new season of design fairs has begun. For some, the post-pandemic return to in-person interactions over the latest furniture designs has been tentative, measured, even consciously scaled back. But there’s one European city that’s quietly climbing the premier league of furniture festivals. 

Valencia’s Feria Hábitat, Spain’s 54-year-old platform for celebrating and promoting its national design industry, is growing by 10-15% this edition, if predictions bear out. It may not have the meterage of Milan or the population of Paris, but Feria Hábitat is the only European fair to have expanded its show space – and the projected numbers and provenances of its visitors – since pre-Covid times. 

Awarded the honour of World Design City 2022 back in 2019, the upward trajectory of Valencia’s design scene was perhaps set before the pestilent virus was even named. ‘Spain is culturally a very powerful country. Our creativity is infinite and in recent decades the industry has made a clear commitment to design,’ says Daniel Marco, director of Feria Hábitat. ‘Today, “Made in Spain” design is synonymous with strength and character and we have large leading companies in the sector. It is no coincidence that Valencia has been chosen as the World Design Capital for 2022.’

Under the directorship of Marco, who joined the team five years ago, the flagship fair is indeed flourishing. In 2017, 404 stands covered 40,000 square metres and drew 23,000 visitors. This year, Espacio Cocina and Home Textile Premium by TEXTILHOGAR, previously separate events to promote kitchen and textile design, will come into the fold. Accordingly, meterage is rising to 90,000 and exhibitor count is at 600, 20% of which will be foreign companies, while 33,000 visitors are expected from over 70 countries. ‘Feria Hábitat Valencia has positioned itself as a benchmark in Europe, recovering the prestige granted by its more than 50 years of history,’ says Marco. ‘We are profitable for the exhibitor, prestigious for the visitor and a gateway to exports for the Spanish interiors industry. We have also opened up to new business channels such as contract.’

Hábitat will take place between 20-23 September, against a backdrop of city-wide celebrations to mark the World Design City accolade, such as the scattered events of Valencia Disseny Week and Open House, and a Jaime Hayon retrospective exhibition. The main fair will be familiar in format with brands such as Gandiablasco, Alexandra, Sancal, Expormim, Vondom, and Punt showing in the exhibitions halls of the Feria València, supported by a daily programme of talks on everything from how to succeed in Middle Eastern markets, to the relationship between ceramics and design, featuring luminaries such as Tomás Alía, Pascua Ortega and Monica Armani. International doyens of the drawing board Philippe Starck and Patricia Urquiola will also be in town for Andreu World’s presentations of their recent work.

Level 3 will also host an exhibition of the works of Vicent Martínez. Entitled ‘Vicent Martínez, a continuous present. The memory, the recent and the unpublished,’ the show will explore the iconic work of the Valencian designer, who is also the joint founder of Punt Mobles and authored the brand’s famous Literatura shelving system. 

The floor will also see the return of the annual Nude exhibition, a platform designed to act as a bridge between emerging talent and established industry. This year it will showcase the work of eleven design studios and graduate work from seven national design schools and Mexico’s Universidad Anáhuac, curated by a jury of high-profile industry figures. Among those selected – for criteria that included ‘sensitivity to craftsmanship’ – are designers from Madrid, Barcelona, Alicante, Valencia but also Lithuania and Angola. In its 20th year, Nude will also celebrate its anniversary and the many careers launched from its platform – Mut Design, CuldeSac, and Héctor Serrano among them – with a retrospective of notable exhibits from over the years at Centre del Carmen Cultura Contemporània in the city.

Feria Hábitat and its host town is unquestionably serious about the business of design. But it knows how to have fun too. Hábitat Off will bring the party to proceedings every evening, with events planned at the recently erected Agora pavilion in Plaza del Ayuntamiento. When it comes to persuading the creative crowd to make the trip, València has many cards to play. Arresting architecture, September sun, a fantastic food scene, and centuries of practice at bringing the fiesta to the streets.

© Architonic

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