In the wake of this year’s Stockholm Design Week being cancelled, designers and brands have taken matters into their own hands with an alternative programme of events across the city. Here are 10 highlights you won’t want to miss.
Among the flurry of things on show across the city this week between 3 and 7 February is a pop-up listening lounge, a collection of prison furniture prototypes and a multi-brand exhibition in an old canon factory.
The grassroots programme was designed to fill the hole left by the Stockholm Furniture Fair and its associated design week, which were postponed until 2027 and will now run in a biennial format.
“Even though there is no proper Stockholm Design Week and people, including myself, have been so confused and negative, I must say I’m really impressed,” Nordiska Galleriet’s Hanna Nova Beatrice told Dezeen.
“There are so many activations and it’s really brand-led,” she added. “They’ve gone out of their way more than they usually do, because there’s no fair.”
Stockholm Furniture Fair cancels 2026 event and announces 2027 relaunch as biennial
The week-long event is rather confusingly branded, with more than 100 studios and manufacturers exhibiting under the umbrella of Stockholm Design Days, while emerging and independent designers are largely showing as part of Stockholm Creative Edition after the festival was moved forward from its usual time in May.
But we’ve weeded through the whole programme and broken down 10 of the most interesting things you’ll want to see below.
Echo exhibition at Kanonverkstaden
Echo is a new exhibition platform for Swedish design, which will debut in an old cannon factory on Skeppsholmen island this week before travelling to Copenhagen for 3 Days of Design.
Geared first and foremost at architects and buyers, the show will see a selection of established brands including ASKO and Bang & Olufsen rub shoulders with younger designers like Fredrik Paulsen of JOY Objects and Desiré Apelgren, who is presenting an asymmetrical, metal take on the classic Swedish stick back chair (above).
“With the Stockholm Furniture Fair on hold, we just have to do something,” said Karin Sköldberg, co-founder of Echo and PR agency Trendgruppen. “We do have to take care of our design history; it’s an essential part of our culture and not the least a sustainability feat to still have manufacturing in Sweden.”
In the Context of Sigurd Lewerentz at FAB Grönlandet
As part of Stockholm Creative Edition, design lovers will have the rare opportunity to enter Sweden’s former National Insurance Institute – an icon of early Swedish modernism designed by Sigurd Lewerentz (above).
Inside, buzzy local furniture company Contem and ceramicist Ingrid Unsöld are showcasing site-specific projects made using materials partly sourced from the heritage-listed building, which now serves as an office and museum.
Work from Sweden’s most promising young designers will be on show at Stockholm’s ArkDes museum as part of an exhibition showing the winners of the annual Ung Svensk Form competition.
Standout projects include Christmas trees turned into furniture by Rickard Torstenfelt, Alma Duran’s blobby neon lights and a series of tables from Svenskt Tenn Design Scholarship laureate Love Persson that reflect on the experience of losing a parent (above).
In response to the looming expansion of Sweden’s prison system, industrial design students from Stockholm’s Konstfack school have created a series of prototype furniture to investigate how these penitentiary spaces can be designed with empathy.
The resulting pieces, on show at Etage1, were created in collaboration with furniture maker Nola and the Swedish Prison and Probation Service, which facilitated a visit for the students to one of the country’s largest prisons as part of the project.
The Listening Lounge by Exakt MFG and Superlab
Svensk Form’s library is turning into a listening lounge this week courtesy of design studio Superlab and furniture brand Exakt MFG, which is making its debut as part of Stockholm Design Days.
Envisioned as a kind of public living room informed by Japanese listening bars, the space will be furnished using the company’s first-ever collection, made entirely in-house to maintain full control over materials, processes and quality.
Stockholm Creative Edition at Industricentralen
Stockholm Creative Edition is taking over the city’s 1937 Industricentralen building to host its main exhibition, with a spotlight on emerging designers including Nils Askhagen, Interesting Times Gang and Matsson Marnell.
“In our own exhibition, we want to offer insights into how the designers of the future think,” explained founders Ulrika Kjellström Attar and Philippe Attar. “It is more exploratory, more risk-taking, and shows new ways of relating to material, function and form.”
Visitors will be fed via a pop-up bakery from Håkan Johansson Frost – Sweden’s only world-champion baker.
In Södermalm, or “SoFo”, leading Swedish and European design brands will be opening their showrooms and studios between 3 and 5 February, culminating in a joint party on the final night.
Under the title Beyond Design in SoFo, the event will see longtime locals like Hem and Vitra joined by Danish exports Hay, &tradition, Fritz Hansen and Gubi, which are popping up at locations across the district.
Also taking part are local firms Note Design Studio and Färg & Blanche with its Extreme Stitching Lab, where visitors will be able to see Sweden’s most powerful long-arm cylinder sewing machine in action.
NK Interior CEO Kadi Harjak has curated an exhibition at the Nordiska Kompaniet department store that reflects on contemporary Swedish design across materials, disciplines and generations.
Under the theme Stay Curious, the show will take over the building’s Light Court and its display windows along Hamngatan with work from Mimmi Blomquist, Nick Ross, Gustav Winsth and more.
Seven nordic design brands – including HAHA studio, String Furniture and Sweden’s oldest furnituremaker Gemla – are presenting curated exhibitions under one roof as part of a group show at The Building.
Also on show will be works in glass, textiles, lighting and furniture from independent designers including Emilie Palle Holm and Simon Skinner, who was last year named as one of Dezeen’s names to watch.
Process, Material, Craft at Moderna Dansteatern
Three of Stockholm’s leading design schools are joining forces for an exhibition at the Moderna Dansteatern theatre, spotlighting standout student work around the theme of process, material and craft.
Konstfack’s presentation Clay City will feature work made using locally sourced earth from Årsta, while Malmstens and Beckmans (above) will showcase furniture created by their graduates in collaboration with established Swedish design companies like Källemo, Nola and Stolab.
Stockholm Design Days and Stockholm Creative Edition are taking place at various locations across the Swedish capital this week. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.