London Design Festival 2021 Preview

The Victoria & Albert Museum is the festival’s official HQ, home of eye-catching installations. This year’s Landmark Project is by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto and production studio Tin Drum, who are taking over the grandly classical Raphael Court to create a series of features that will change based on the movement of the people weaving around them, viewed via headsets. The area radiating out around the museum is where you’ll find independent galleries and big brands: Cromwell Place, which opened last October, is hosting local gallery SEEDS, which has its sights set on a mood of positivity with its show, Joy. From fluffy furniture by Guatemala-based Agnes Studio to Elodie Blanchard’s slim vertical sculptures made from multicoloured fabric scraps, the show will make you smile thanks to the objects’ colour, unconventional shapes, tactile finishes and general feelgood attitude.

The stripped-back Palladian grandeur of 14 Cavendish Square plays host to some deeply contrasting pieces of furniture at this year’s London Design Festival: Sebastian Wrong’s Wrong Shop is presenting brightly painted antique cabinets that are the work of Dutch artists Gijs Frieling and Job Wouters, aka FreelingWaters, with words, names and poetry incorporated within their highly patterned surfaces. It’s part of a collective of brands exhibiting at this central London space under the umbrella Design House, including Sebastian Cox, 1882 Ltd, Tiipoi and contemporary craft gallery Ruup & Form. Look out for Isokon Plus’ newest piece, a cantilevered lounge chair in engineered plywood designed by Jasper Morrison.

Design London – rebranded from its previous identity as 100% Design – is making its debut at Greenwich Peninsula’s Magazine London venue (on from 22-25 September). Exhibitor highlights include a Danish Pavilion featuring 11 brands curated by the Danish Embassy such as Warm Nordic and Embacco; freshly launched products from international names such as Artemide; and British-Finnish company &New, showing its recyclable furniture made from waste plastic. The talks programme features Mark Eley and Wakako Kishimoto of Eley Kishimoto, fashion designer Kitty Joseph and Yinka Ilori (who also designed the auditorium), among many others. Outside of the show, the capital’s new official Design District will be open for a wander, with its smorgasbord of distinctive buildings by several different architects: refuel at the SelgasCano-designed Design District Canteen, a yellow-framed transparent structure housing six restaurants and a bar.

Head east for one of the festival’s largest design districts, full of independent showrooms and galleries. Floorstory is previewing its new exuberant new collection by Henry Holland (including an evening talk with the designer on 21 September), while Doshi Levien has curated a space at Hay to showcase its latest collections for the Danish brand. SCP explores human-centric design and the crossover between work and home with All Our Working Lives, which features new commissions including two tables from Matthew Hilton, Ilse Crawford and Oscar Peña’s wood-framed armchair and terracotta vases by Reiko Kaneko. Head to Dray Walk Gallery for Tactile Baltics, a showcase of designers from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, with a particular emphasis on their strong connections with nature.

Sitting on the South Bank, architect Henning Larsen’s contemporary pavilion will make an intriguing focal point on the river. As well as acting as a promotional vehicle for Velux’s rooflights, which are integrated into the structure and will provide ever-changing daylight and sky views, the space will host a sound experience designed by AKQA and composed by Kasper Bjørke, inspired by the elements. It’s all powered by Bang & Olufsen, which is also showcasing its Beosound Level portable speaker at The Cube. The speaker is the first Cradle to Cradle Certified speaker in the consumer electronics sector, awarded for its design for longevity and ease of disassembly – an important stepping stone on the way to improving sustainability in the industry.