“Design, Feito À Mão”
Lisbon Design Week 2026
A collective exhibition that explores the intersection between craftsmanship, innovation, and design
“Design, Feito À Mão” explores the relationship between craftsmanship and contemporary design, questioning the long-standing divide between thinking and making that emerged with industrialisation.
About the event
Lisbon Design Week is an annual cultural event held in Lisbon. This festival focuses on contemporary design and craftsmanship of the highest quality, celebrating the talent of the local creative community. It takes place every year in May, alongside the ARCO Lisboa art fair. Our mission is to create a unifying event that supports the cultural avant-garde, reveals new local and emerging creative talent, and boosts the city’s energy and economy by promoting excellence in design.
About the exhibition
Bringing together artisans, designers and makers the exhibition highlights practices where the hand remains central to the creative process, combining material knowledge, experimentation, and authorship.
Taking the jar as its starting point, one of the oldest objects produced by human cultures, the exhibition invites participants to reinterpret this archetypal form.
Traditionally associated with gestures of containing, preserving, and offering, the vessel becomes a simple yet powerful structure through which makers explore material, technique, and imagination.
Partnerships and designers
The exhibition, curated by André Matos, Vasco Águas and Astrid Suzano, reveals how craft continues to shape contemporary design. With supporting partners Barreiros & Barreiros and Élitis.
The designers and artisans involved in this exhibition are:
Alzira Antunes (Stone Masonry) | Ana Rita de Arruda (Textile) | André Panóias (Pastoral Art from Alentejo) | Baptiste da Silva (Cork working) | Daniel Alonso (Ceramics) | João Francisco (Tinsmithing) | Jürgen Cramer (Tinsmithing) | Lia Raquel Marques (Ceramics) | Mariana Filipe (Ceramics) | Samuel Reis (Glassmaking) | Stéphanie Branco (Leatherworking) | Tânia Grazinas Mendes (Basketry) | Vasco Fragoso Mendes (Woodworking) | Ysaline Ophoff (Basketry)
Fabric Kaila
Partnership with Élitis
About the location
Arquivo Aires Mateus is a space that is devoted to exhibitions and special events. It has been for the third year, generously offered by Manuel Aires Mateus to host Lisbon Design Week exhibition.
Manuel Aires Mateus is an internationally acclaimed Portuguese architect. Central to his design philosophy is the exploration of volumes, the creation of visual interplay among different shapes, and meticulous consideration of voids and empty spaces. Notable achievements include representing Portugal at the Venice Biennale in 2010, numerous awards and various exhibitions. Manuel is also an esteemed educator, sharing his expertise at several international universities in Europe and the USA.
27 — 31 May
10:00 — 19:00
Wednesday: Open until 23:00
Sunday: Open until 18:00
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