Over 25,000 people visited the Romanian Design Week exhibition in the first week of the festival

The largest multidisciplinary festival dedicated to local creative industries, Romanian Design Week, a project of The Institute, presented by UniCredit Bank, with the support of the Capital City Hall, through ARCUB – the Cultural Center of the Municipality of Bucharest, transforms Bucharest in the month of May into the Capital of Romanian design. In the first week after the launch of Romanian Design Week, over 25,000 people visited the exhibition in Piața Amzei, made by the City Hall of Sector 1, together with The Institute. Another 50 events took place throughout Bucharest during this period. The festival continues across the city until Sunday, May 28.

Within the RDW Exhibiton in Amzei Square, project carried out by the City Hall of Sector 1, together with The Institute, the general public admired 162 projects from 6 different specializations: from architecture to interior design, graphic design, product design, illustration and fashion. The projects presented in the RDW Exhibition are selected by both renowned Romanian curators and international specialists, from a total of over 400 works entered in the initial call for projects. The design of the exhibition is signed by Attila Kim Architects. For the first time this year, a series of works have also been selected that will be presented as good practices – exclusively online.

Also in Piata Amzei, Young Design powered by Diploma proposes the perspective of the new generation of Romanian artists, architects and designers, in a multidisciplinary exhibition. The exhibition is complemented by other formats, including RDW Social – the relaxation and socializing program within the festival, RDW Market – the design gallery in Piața Amzei, where Romanian design can be discovered and purchased by visitors and Creative Corner – multifunctional space that hosts both an info point dedicated to the edition of the RDW festival and the Circular Catalysts exhibition, the result of collaboration between designers, artists and craftsmen from Romania and Great Britain, carried out by the British Council Romania, in partnership with the Romanian Cultural Institute. Arrangement of exhibitions Young Design powered by Diploma, RDW Market and Creative Corner is signed by BAZA. In the Creative Corner space, as of Monday, May 15, it was also launched UniCredit LABa strategic initiative of UniCredit Bank, in collaboration with The Institute, which carried out an intensive education program through presentations and mentoring sessions supported by a series of well-known local entrepreneurs from the creative industries and carried out over three days, for 10 business concerned with the sustainable development of their business.

Also in the frame Romanian Design Week, the public discovered the immersive installation “Echoes of Presence”, in which the presence of visitors influences the environment and the perception of others, through a series of sensors that trigger effects in all 3 available spaces. The installation created by Alina Rizescu, Bogdan Ștefănescu, Alin Tatu and Denis Flueraru was chosen following a RDW x IQOS contest, by public vote.

The Amzei Market experience is completed by the RDW Design Go format!, which offers over 100 events throughout Bucharest. They are organized around 4 Design Districts from the city: Cotroceni, Dorobanti-Floreasca, Ioanid-Icoanei and Cartierul Creativ and more than half of them took place in the first week of the festival. In this sense, Romanian Design Week proposes the largest program of satellite events of all the editions so far, developed around important neighborhoods and historical areas of Bucharest and includes a diverse program of discussions, exhibitions, workshops and open workshops, intended both for the general design consumer public and for professionals.

„I see a lot of potential in the RDW Design GO format! – which implies that other actors, design and architecture studios or other representatives of the creative communities develop their own initiatives under the RDW umbrella and invite the general public to step on their threshold. I would like to “lose control” of this format, let the city take it over, so that more and more spaces, organizations, studios or people look to the RDW period to present their latest projects, to diversify their audience , to (re)meet collaborators, partners or clients and to show the general public places that until then were foreign to them.”, Andrei Gavrila BorțunCEO The Institute.

An original RDW format within the festival is also Night of Architecture Studioswhich invites the general public on Thursday, May 25, for one evening, to cross the threshold of over 17 architecture studios in Bucharest that open their offices and workspaces to colleagues, friends and the RDW community, in an initiative to present the more recent projects, but also organizing social meetings. The offices that open their doors to the public this year are: ADNBA, 441 Design Powerhouse & Studio ae, Nod Makerspace, Pure-Mess, Studio InSign, Ordinul Arhitectilor din România, Corvin Cristian Studio, Plusminus Arhitectura, AIM Studio, Zeppelin, Inedit Works, Metapolis, Monocrom, Citrus, Workroom Architecture, MiSo Architects , Architecture Factory, Picktwo Studio, X Architecture & Engineering Consult, Lemon Interior Design, HB Design, Casa AIA, Order of Romanian Architects, Bucharest branch, Graphein and Quadratum Architecture.

As an important part of the festival program, this year there were debates around the creative industries, within RDW Talks. The most creative minds from Romania and beyond – names like Eliza Yokina, Corvin Cristian, Lucian Broscățean, Radu Manelici, Dragoș Motică, Nils Bader, Diego Calderon, Dario Franchini and others – are part of a series of recurring interviews hosted online , alongside the team behind the 11th edition of RDW.

At the same time, DMV was part of the official circuit Night of Museums Saturday, May 13, when the exhibition in Piața Amzei was visited in extended hours, until midnight, by over 3,500 Bucharest residents.

Romanian Design Week it can be visited from Monday to Friday between 12:00 and 22:00, and on weekends between 10:00 and 22:00. Access is free and is based on a prior reservation online or directly at the entrance.

A project of The Institute

Presented by UniCredit Bank
Partners: IQOS Romania, Cemacon, Kozel, Electrolux, Globalworth, Urban Monkey, FRUFRU, Jidvei
Cultural project financed by the Ministry of Culture
Powered by: Bucharest City Hall, through ARCUB – the Cultural Center of the City of Bucharest
Supported by: District 1 City Hall
Cultural partners: Romanian Cultural Institute, British Council
Strategic media partners: PRO TV, Rock FM, Hotnews, Euromedia, YOOH
Media partners: Radio Romania Cultural, Igloo, Zeppelin Magazine, Designist, Molecule F, Modernism, Lovedeco, B365.ro, aiciastat.ro, feeder.ro, munteanurecomandă.ro, Atelier Magazine, IQads, Days and Nights, Glamour, The Woman, Inspirationist, Contemporary Lynx, World Architecture Community
Communication partner: Black Rhino Radio
Creative team: Radu Manelici, Claudia Draghia, Sebastian Pren
Monitoring partner: MediaTrust

The Institute promotes the creative industries in Romania, aiming to contribute to the modernization of Romania. The Institute has been initiating and organizing events for over 25 years and has built a community that brings together entrepreneurs, professionals and the public of the creative industries in Romania. Through everything it does, it contributes to building a strong infrastructure for the development of creative entrepreneurship in the country, increases and diversifies the audience of workshops, designers, small businesses, agencies and manufactures, promotes entrepreneurs and creative professionals nationally and internationally. He is the founder of Romanian Design Week, the DIPLOMA festival, the Civil Society Gala, Internetics, Cartierul Creativ, combinat.ro and initiator of ASAP Romania.

UniCredit Bank is part of UniCredit, a simple and successful pan-European commercial bank with an integrated system of Corporate and Investment banking services, offering its client base a unique Western, Central and Eastern European network. The group is present in Romania through: UniCredit Bank, UniCredit Consumer Financing, UniCredit Leasing Corporation, UniCredit Insurance Broker, UniCredit Leasing Fleet Management and UniCredit Services.