"Depressed furniture" and Madagascan totem stools among highlights from Design Biennale Rotterdam

As the inaugural Design Biennale Rotterdam takes over the Netherlands' second city, Dezeen has rounded up 10 standout projects from the 10-day event.

Organised by cultural strategist Sarah Schulten and Collectible founder Liv Vaisberg, the biennale hopes to help establish a design identity and community for Rotterdam, which counts Richard Hutten and Sabine Marcelis among its locals alongside architecture office OMA.

Work from more than 200 designers is being showcased across several exhibitions as part of the event, with an emphasis on experimental and speculative design.

Read on for Dezeen's selection of 10 things not to miss from Design Biennale Rotterdam 2025.

Cairn by Laurids Gallée

Austrian-born, Rotterdam-based designer Laurids Gallée is presenting a solo show of six new works. Gallée is known for his work in resin – a popular material among Rotterdam's designers due to the presence of local manufacturers.

At the biennale, he is showing a series of oversized, sculptural lights, the largest of which is almost three metres tall. The translucent pieces are sculpted from a larger block of resin rather than moulded, before being sanded, grinded and polished.

Gallée is also one of five "hosts" of the biennale – prominent locally-based designers chosen as ambassadors for Rotterdam's design scene.

Interstices exhibition at Huidenclub

At the Huidenclub, an arts and design venue in a repurposed industrial building, the Interstices exhibition displays projects by designers of mixed backgrounds, interrogating how objects can be vehicles for storytelling and challenge reductive views of non-Western cultures.

The pieces on show are physical manifestations of the designers exploring their own heritage. Examples include oak stools by Brussels-based French-Madagascan designer Kalo Rakoto that were influenced by traditional Madagascan totems (pictured left).

Nearby is a tapestry by Malaysian artist Marcos Kueh (pictured right) and a 3D-printed version of Heavenly Beauty – a 10th-century sculpture from the Khajuraho temples of Madhya Pradesh, India – by Turkish ceramicist Funda Baysal and Indian artist Ritvik Khushu.

Chairs of Virtue by Adam Maryniak

The biennale's main exhibition is being held at W70 – an office building that formerly served as the headquarters for an insurance company.

Vaisberg said the extensive space had the feeling of being "abandoned", with office equipment left in situ. This was embraced in the staging of the venue's four design shows, with installations occupying meeting rooms and phone booths.

Eight chairs from Polish-British designer Adam Maryniak's Chairs of Virtue series are on display as part of the main show. The project sees Maryniak construct chairs from low-value materials as a means of casting them in a different light.

Examples at the biennale include a knock-off of Philippe Starck's famous Ghost chair, which Maryniak found broken on the street and repaired using a wooden scaffold, and what the designer calls the "Landlord's Special" – an uncomfortable seat made entirely of cheap skirting sprayed white.

3D-printed vases by Jonas Wolff

Also in the biennale's main exhibition, a collection of vases by German-born, London-based designer Jonas Wolff are displayed alongside an old office chair in a cramped meeting room.

Wolff's work explores the tension between the old and the new in the digital age. Made of 3D-printed, digitally painted powder plaster, the vases are an eerie reinterpretation of traditional blue-and-white porcelain.

Molten Memories by Sarah Roseman

One of the smaller shows at W70, Embellished Edges: New Perspectives on Ornament in Design is a consideration of the role of artistry and decoration in contemporary design.

Curated by Barry Llewellyn, an Irish designer based in Rotterdam, it seeks to demonstrate how ornamentation can be reclaimed in the 21st century "not just as an expression of beauty, but as a vessel for transporting ideas relevant to our time".

Among the pieces featured is Molten Memories, a patchwork textile floor piece by Rotterdam-based Canadian Sarah Roseman. Produced from a range of discarded domestic materials, it resembles a cartoonish landscape intended to recall memories of being a toddler, playfully exploring the home.

Traditional-Rug-1.JPEG by Jonas Hejduk

This Is Us is an exhibition specifically showing work by Rotterdam-based designers, its name taken from the slogan of local football team Feyenoord.

Several of the pieces on show take an uncanny form such as French-born designer Jonas Hejduk's Traditional-Rug-1.JPEG – a wool rug that looks like a blurry photograph of a wool rug.

Suspended above Hejduk's project is Up Quark, a cast aluminium and 3D-printed resin lamp created by French designers Théophile Blandet and Dezeen Award-winner Audrey Large.

Space Between Lines by Boris Acket

Audiovisual artist Boris Acket is presenting a subtle installation at Rotterdam's Kunsthal art venue.

Acket has punctuated the sharp edges of Rem Koolhaas' building with a duo of gauzy curtains. One running the length of a ramp outdoors flaps in the wind, while another running in parallel inside the building is fluttered by fans.

Depressed Furniture by Isabella Gros

German designer Isabella Gros is exhibiting an aluminium lighting collection meant to exemplify the emotions associated with depression. Each of her five pieces represents a different feeling.

A cuboid one alludes to feeling caged, while a floor lamp with a thin, wobbly neck references weakness. There's also a spidery light that represents isolation, a co-dependent lamp that has to lean against a wall and one with a crumpled stand that reflects the feeling of being a burden.

Gros's collection is part of an exhibition exploring materiality, technology and production in design at the warehouse-like Katoenhuis.

Parabolic Intersects by Zelt

Also at the Katoenhuis, Dutch textile studio Zelt is presenting a giant installation consisting of two parachute-like funnels hung from the six-metre ceiling.

The installation is displayed alongside a model of a similar giant textile artwork, as well as a film depicting its construction.

S tati ca by Frederik Molenschot

Interior architect Robert van Oosterom curated A Promise of Happiness, an exhibition in the former electricity substation now called Baanhof.

As well as pieces by Large and glass sculptures by French-Lebanese designer Najla El Zein, the exhibition features a large installation by self-described "landscape sculptor" Frederik Molenschot.

Called S tati ca, it takes the form of an aluminium maquette of a city constructed from towers of modular blocks. Emerging from the blocks are hundreds of human figures like blades of grass, in what Molenschot says is an invitation to think about the relationship between people, cities and nature.

Design Biennale Rotterdam 2025 takes place at venues across Rotterdam from 20 February to 2 March. For more events, exhibitions and talks in architecture and design visit Dezeen Events Guide.

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