Promotion: Over 35,000 visitors gathered in cities across Germany's Frankfurt RheinMain region for Open – Design Week 2026, which spotlighted how design shapes everyday lives.
Taking place from 5 to 14 June, the design festival formed the flagship event for Frankfurt RheinMain's spell as this year's World Design Capital – a programme designated to a different city every two years.
Over the 10-day Open – Design Week, more than 200 events were held at over 150 locations across the Frankfurt RheinMain region.
In the cities of Frankfurt, Offenbach, Darmstadt and Wiesbaden, design studios and universities opened their doors to the public to give behind-the-scenes insight into their design processes.
Visitors also explored pioneering design at cultural venues, as well as attended talks, film screenings, architectural tours, workshops, conferences, city walks and community events.
Other popular destinations included Frankfurt's two-day Forward Festival conference and the UNESCO World Heritage Festival at Mathildenhöhe, which saw the opening of an exhibition celebrating 125 years since the first exhibition by the Darmstadt Artists' Colony.
The organisers aimed for the event to showcase local design heritage to residents and international guests, and emphasise the important role it plays in driving social, environmental and economic change.
"Open – Design Week exceeded all expectations and demonstrated the tremendous impact that can be achieved when we understand design as a collective endeavour that brings together business, culture, politics and civil society," said Open – Design Week staging director Kai Rosenstein.
"The overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants, combined with the outstanding quality of the individual programmes, clearly highlights the valuable contribution we have made together to the regional design landscape and beyond."
Building upon the success of Open – Design Week, the organisers hope to continue it as an annual event outside of this year's World Design Capital designation.
"We must not allow this momentum to fade," said World Design Capital managing director Carolina Romahn. "Our clear objective now is to build on the energy generated during the World Design Capital year and create a lasting legacy."
"We are already working on a design action plan for the region, which includes the continuation of Design Week," she continued.
"Together with political stakeholders as well as partners and sponsors from the business community, we are now seeking to establish the structural and financial foundations needed to make Open – Design Week a permanent annual fixture for the region from 2027 onwards – more connected, more visible and with even broader participation."
To learn more about the festival, visit its website.
Partnership content
This article was written for Open – Design Week as part of a partnership. Find out more about our partnership content here.