Romanian Design Week 2025 to take place in Bucharest in May

The 13th edition of Romanian Design Week will take place in Bucharest between May 16 and 25, 2025, with the theme "Design Tomorrow Today."

According to the organizers, starting with the 2025 edition, the festival begins a transformation process, focusing on collaboration, sustainability, and a deeper connection with the city and its residents. The program highlights exhibitions created in collaboration with relevant local organizations, an extensive selection of international exhibitions, and a series of public space interventions designed to provide residents with new areas for interaction and dialogue.

The theme "Design Tomorrow Today" demonstrates design’s ability to address current challenges and create innovative solutions that influence both the present and the future of the city, the community, and Romania’s creative ecosystem.

In this context, sustainability is not only about environmental aspects but also about supporting projects and organizations that actively contribute to the long-term development of local design and the creative community in Romania.

In 2025, RDW will take a different approach to the festival’s well-established format, RDW Exhibitions. Instead of organizing an open call for projects, the festival will collaborate with relevant organizations from the creative industries to support and present design and architecture exhibitions.

The festival will work directly with key organizations and partners to create impactful exhibitions that reflect both international trends and the specifics of the local industry.

Within this format, various exhibitions will be included:

• RDW Design GO! represents the circuit of satellite events within the Romanian Design Week festival program, through which, year after year, projects and activities proposed by entrepreneurs and cultural entities transform the city into a stage for design. The public can choose their own routes through the city, (re)discovering neighborhoods, places, and ideas. Events will take place in various locations across the city, providing opportunities to experience design in an accessible context for everyone.
• RDW & the City, a completely new format, will introduce design installations placed in public spaces. These interventions will be set up in various locations throughout the city, contributing to the integration of design into daily life and offering the public a platform to directly interact with urban design elements.
• The Institute team, together with embassies, institutes, and cultural centers, is strengthening the RDW Design Flags format this year, creating an essential platform for promoting the most valuable international design projects. This format will become a meeting point between local and global design, serving as a source of inspiration and perspective expansion for all participants.