Forma follows function as Madrid’s first collectable design fair makes its debut

Madrid has many things going for it – clement weather, inspiring museums and patatas bravas on every restaurant menu. Despite being home to studios such as Jorge Penadés and Alvaro Catalan de Ocon, the Spanish capital has never been an essential stop on the design industry’s annual circuit. But with the city’s first collectable design fair having just wrapped up, is that about to change?

On the opening day of Forma Design Fair Madrid, founder Álvaro Matías declared that his aim was “to create the most beautiful design shop that you could see in Spain.” It’s an ambition that he delivered on at the Matadero Madrid cultural centre, where booths were occupied by a mix of independent designers, group shows and galleries. Highlights included Arturo Álvarez’s sculptural lighting designs, which use wire to create playful, mesmeric shadows, and La Ebanistería, where a crowd “oohed” and “aahed” when a series of wall-mounted black boxes were opened one by one. The sculpture revealed itself to be one giant cabinet and, in doing so, a piece that blurred the boundaries between art and design.

Forma artistic directors Antonio Jesús Luna and Emerio Arena are well known on the international design scene as the co-editors of Room Diseño magazine. It’s a position that helped them to attract a mix of international participants, from French firm Maison Parisienne to Colombia’s Tu Taller Design. 

As Luna and Arena walked me through the fair, they stressed how many of the designers on show apply traditional Spanish craft techniques to contemporary designs. It chimes with a broader, global shift towards work dubbed “collectable”, which celebrates artisanship and limited-edition works. At the booth of Guadalix-de-la-Sierra-based Van den Heede you could see the ethos reflected in sleek, handmade wooden tables and chairs. So too at Alfombras Peña’s booth, a benchmark demonstration of traditional weaving techniques used to create large, elegant rugs. In a similar vein, material specialist Cosentino presented a table, lamp and counter made from natural stone and minerals (pictured above) while Barcelona-based Joshua Linacisoro showcased a collection of lighting forged from the Basque landscape (pictured below, right).The message was that Spain has been doing this type of work for a long time – it just might not have been calling it collectable design.

Indeed, Forma is a shiny new ending to the almost-decade-old Madrid Design Festival, which takes place over a month and draws in headline acts such as Spanish fashion house Loewe. The festival is more experiential, with talks, open showrooms, workshops, exhibitions and pop-up shops. This year Manera magazine joined up with Spanish furniture and lifestyle brands The Maisie and Santa Living to stage an exhibition at the Museo San Isidro. The institution is home to Roman mosaics and terracotta artefacts that tell the long history of Madrid. The contemporary designs – chairs, vases and a giant lamp on spidery legs that swayed and wobbled – were exhibited in the museum’s courtyard. There, brought alive by bright natural light and hidden among mythic sculptures of Hercules and Prometheus, the objects began to tell a new story about the evolution of craft and humanity. These are more than just pieces that you’d quite like in your living room.

Madrid’s entry into the design-fair space is overdue but unsurprising – the designers have been here quietly creating the scene for years. As Matías told me, they have stuck around in the city because they feel like it’s on the brink of something. “This is about to begin,” he says. Watch this space.

Sophie Monaghan-Coombs is Monocle’s associate editor of culture. For more on Spanish design, read our report on the evolution of brands such as Zara Home and Kave.