Lisbon, a city long admired for its architecture, culture, and enduring craft traditions, is beginning to reframe its relationship with contemporary design—and Lisbon Design Week is quietly becoming its most persuasive advocate. Now in its third edition, the initiative remains intimate, local, and refreshingly unpolished. But these qualities are not limitations—they’re its strength.

This year felt different. More confident, more considered. There was a sense not just of participation, but of presence. Designers weren’t simply showing their work; they were telling stories, staging atmospheres, shaping conversations. There was care in the curation, clarity in the messaging. The effort was visible—and rewarding.

Lisbon has its demands: the hills are steep, the heat at the end of May is thick, and navigating from one venue to another can feel like a pilgrimage. Yet that effort is met with reward—an unexpected installation in a tucked-away showroom, a moment of material poetry inside a converted warehouse, or a piece that quietly holds its own in a room of tiled echoes. The journey becomes part of the encounter.

The initiative, founded by Michèle Fajtmann and supported by a well-experienced board of Portugal-based creatives—deeply tied to the local scene, including Joana Astolfi and Aires Mateus—seems to have struck a quiet chord. Not only with the design community, but with an emerging audience seeking a more grounded, slower, and deeply contextual experience of design. The festival now stretches across the city’s varied terrain: design studios, galleries, private ateliers, showrooms, and cultural institutions all opening their doors in soft unison.

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SOBRE MESA

At the Aires Mateus Archive, a quietly ambitious exhibition explored the Iberian tradition of sobremesa—that lingering moment at the table after a meal has ended. Curated by MUT Design (Spain) and João Xará (Portugal), and forming part of Lisbon Design Week’s third edition, the show invites viewers into a shared cultural intermission—one shaped by conversation, presence, and the objects that quietly enrich both.

Though the term translates differently across borders—“dessert” in Portugal, post-meal reflection in Spain—the heart of sobremesa is the same: a pause that stretches time, where objects, talk, and atmosphere intermingle. The curators, in collaboration with creatives like Miguel Flor and Cláudio Oliveira, reimagine this moment through a multi-sensory installation. Around a contemporary table designed by Vincent Orts, both artisanal and mass-produced objects come together, blurring the lines between art, design, and daily ritual.

The result is a kind of living still life: reflective, generous, and grounded in the pleasures of shared time. Rather than showcase icons, the exhibition prioritizes new voices from Portugal and Spain. Sobremesa is, after all, a tradition of interpretation—and here, it becomes a quiet celebration of design as both cultural artifact and intimate companion.

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Branca the chairman

Marco Sousa Santos has long held a steady presence on both the Portuguese and international design scene. During the third edition of Lisbon Design Week, he opened the doors of his Branca showroom and studio for The Chairman—a quietly striking retrospective centered on the chair as both object and inquiry. The exhibition gently revisited a milestone in his career: a 2009 presentation during the Experimenta Design biennale, entirely dedicated to the typology. Here, years later, the story unfolded through early prototypes, first sketches, and chairs dating back to 1991, all the way to recent pieces. It was a vibrant yet reflective presentation—revealing the depth of thinking, experimentation, and refinement behind what might, at first glance, seem simple. A reminder that in the right hands, a single form can carry an entire design philosophy.

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LUSO

When you go to see Luso, the design collective, you know you’re stepping into a sensory experience. Now in its second year of existence, the collective once again delivered a carefully choreographed presentation—where setting, light, sound, and material are all in meaningful conversation.

This year’s exhibition took place in the atmospheric spaces of dark and hushed basment, lit only by the soft flicker of candlelight and carefully arranged spotlights. Ten designers and artisans gathered under one roof (AB + AC Architects, Further Ther, Joana Vilaça, João Xará, Macheia, Miguel Saboya, Nikolas Miranda, Sofia De-Francesco, Rosana Sousa, Violaine d’Harcourt, and Zoé Wolker)—not to compete for attention, but to reflect a shared sensibility: one grounded in material integrity, restraint, and a deep connection to the Portuguese landscape.

Luso, founded by Studio THER—Natasza Grzeskiewicz and Tomás Fernandes, a Lisbon-based design practice—strives to challenge and push Portuguese design onto the international scene. And they know what they’re doing. Keep an eye on them. Luso has quietly become a platform for meaningful ideas, a showcase of collaboration, and a meeting point for emerging talent. It reflects the breadth of Portugal’s creative landscape—diverse, deeply rooted, and visually compelling.

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Gabriel Tan × Gen Taniguchi at Molteni&C Lisbon

A cultural bond between Japan and Singapore, unfolding in Lisbon, may sound exotic—but it feels entirely natural. A quiet dialogue, effortlessly composed. At its very core, washi paper has a way of softening space—turning light into something that feels almost weightless.

At Lisbon Design Week, the Molteni&C Flagship Store hosted the exhibition, a collaboration between designer Gabriel Tan and Japanese washi master Gen Taniguchi, offered a quiet reflection on form, light, and craft.

Tan’s minimal lighting objects — created with handmade paper from Taniguchi’s centuries-old Nao Washi mill — were paired with sculptural paper works that transformed the showroom into a place of calm presence. Obelisk and lantern-like forms glowed with warmth, diffusing light like breath.

Each element was carefully composed. Tan’s restrained approach allowed space for the textures to speak — pressed paper, soft upholstery, brushed wood. The result felt like a design haiku: understated, precise, and deeply atmospheric.

Rooted in tradition yet undeniably contemporary, the installation offered more than illumination. It created a moment of stillness — a sculptural meditation on the quiet power of materials.

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Gameiro — Synesthesia.

This time, Gameiro chose to present something intangible: a newly composed home scent. The entrance to their studio was transformed into a kind of still life—an antique scene showcasing the rich ingredients that bring the fragrance to life. Created by the studio itself, in the very space where they work every day.

“As architects and designers, we’re moving away from touch and texture, forgetting that both touch and smell have always been essential—and instrumental—to everything we plan, design, and create.”

The installation plays—both nominally and literally—with the idea of what we experience as a second skin, and with what “breathes” from every designed and built object. Each one becomes a library of memories, a sensory archive of what we carry with us.

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Thilburg

Thilburg is a freshly launched interior decoration brand—entirely rooted in Portuguese craft, yet unmistakably shaped by a Belgian sensibility. Behind the ultra-austere, dark, minimal objects is the vision of Klaas Van Tilburgh: a designer who understands that restraint can be rich, and that simplicity, when done right, speaks volumes.

With strict creative guidelines and a near-monastic approach to color, Thilburg lets form and material take center stage. Each piece is designed and handmade in Portugal, using local materials and time-honored techniques.

Thilburg celebrates Portugal’s artisanal legacy through a contemporary lens, combining timeless design with classic artistry. The result: objects of quiet power, marked by quality, clarity, and understated elegance.

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Maison Intègre

Tucked into a compact, beautifully lit space, Maison Intègre’s presentation felt like stepping into a quiet, sculptural dialogue. The gallery — modest in size — offered an ideal backdrop for a simple yet tactile and richly textured display. Objects were arranged with restraint along the walls, elegantly styled to allow each piece to be fully contemplated.

Rooted in the artisanal traditions of Burkina Faso, Maison Intègre brings a bold, architectural spirit to furniture, objects, and accessories. On show: a selection of cast aluminum lighting designed by Marion Mailaender, and a richly woven, earth-toned tapestry created in collaboration with Bogoké Collectif — a meeting point where craft and contemporary design converge with ease.

Among these centerpiece works, a few “wax landscapes” quietly drew attention — experimental bronze reliefs born from a studio accident, where spilled wax cooled into unexpected topographies and was later cast into metal. Fragile and raw in feel, these pieces offered a poetic reminder that beauty often emerges where control ends.

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Made in Situ

The Xisto Collection was thoughtfully presented at Made In Situ, the Lisbon gallery founded by Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance. Known for his poetic approach to design, Noé believes deeply in the power of storytelling—crafting narratives that reshape how we relate to objects.

With Xisto, his seventh collection under the Made In Situ banner, Duchaufour-Lawrance explores the relationship between schist stone and its surrounding ecosystems. The work continues his material-driven dialogue with Portuguese artisans, rooted in place and process. The exhibition space balances raw, industrial textures with warm, deliberate lighting, creating a grounded, contemplative atmosphere that allows the pieces to quietly resonate.

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Oficina Marques: Arcádia, Rua Luz Soriano

At their vibrant gallery-studio in Lisbon’s Bairro Alto, Gezo Marques and José Aparício unveiled Arcádia — a quietly striking installation created in collaboration with Viúva Lamego and Spacegram.

From the street, the structure appeared almost like a minimalist shell — a plain white form discreetly occupying the space. But stepping around it revealed a hidden entryway into a tiled interior, lined in soft, shifting shades of green.

Inspired by natural forms, Arcádia employed Viúva Lamego’s traditional relief tiles to craft a contemplative architectural experience — one that felt both ancient and contemporary. The gallery itself, raw and austere, held only this minimal yet spatially complex cubic structure. It was a welcome change: calm, clear, and quietly immersive — a moment of stillness much needed in the week’s whirlwind of visual noise.

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Alberto Sánchez at Moldo Studio

Alberto Sánchez recently presented two small collections of objects at Moldo Studio, a new creative space in Lisbon that doubles as a gallery. The clean, minimal setting gave room for the pieces — playful, precise, and deeply rooted in craft — to quietly command attention.

Known primarily for his work with Valencia-based MUT Design, Sánchez used this intimate exhibition to explore two very different directions, both tied to traditional techniques and made in collaboration with local artisans.

The first series, Hidden Secrets, was created with ceramicists from S. Bernardo, a Portuguese company known for its large-scale ceramic production. Working with the simple forms of the circle and square, Sánchez designed sculptural containers meant to hold and conceal. These pieces are more than functional — they act like quiet companions, inviting a personal relationship with the user. The handmade quality of the ceramics adds warmth, grounding the objects in Portuguese craft while giving them a distinctly contemporary feel.

The second collection, Facetas, turns to glass — specifically, a reinterpretation of the 19th-century Tiffany technique of joining colored pieces using copper and tin solder. With the guidance of artisan Fernando Silva, Sánchez explored stained glass as a medium for sculpture. The result is a group of geometric, luminous objects that sit somewhere between light fixture and art piece. Though precise in construction, the pieces maintain a sense of spontaneity, almost like sketches made in glass.

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De La Espada’s Ensemble collection

And now for the dessert — De La Espada’s Ensemble collection, shown during Lisbon by Design, just a week before the city’s main design week began. Presented in the elegant 19th-century Palacete Gomes Freire, the show brought together different shades of creativity, and De La Espada’s installation stood out for its sensitivity and quiet radicality.

Known for their precise craftsmanship, De La Espada took a step into a more poetic, freer direction. In collaboration with French designer Sam Baron and De La Espada Atelier, they created a limited series of seating objects — six in total — that reflected the idea of “shared memories of sitting.” From tall, sculptural stools with exaggerated backrests in solid timber, to soft, organic bench forms upholstered in fabrics that evoked forest textures, the collection blurred the line between function and narrative.

Baron’s process began with words, not forms — thinking about what it means to sit, to wait, to feel safe. The result was a set of objects that feel more like quiet companions than furniture, each with its own voice, but designed to be in conversation with one another. Nature was both inspiration and material: wood, stone, ceramic, textile — all used with sensitivity and restraint.

This collection marks a new chapter for De La Espada — one rooted in their deep material knowledge but open to more conceptual, expressive directions. It’s a thoughtful move, and one that stayed with visitors long after they left the palace halls. We hope it’s just the beginning.

Lisbon Design Week is still finding its shape—but what’s unfolding feels rooted and real, becoming a gentle proposition for Portuguese design itself: considered, evolving, and entirely its own.