‘Rotterdam is a city of no-nonsense. In this city, we often say, “don’t talk, but act”, and this mentality perfectly reflects the innovative spirit of today’s designers,’ says Liv Vaisberg who, with Sarah Schulten, co-founded the Rotterdam Design Biennale, now in its inaugural year. The not-for-profit grassroots event sees hundreds of makers and designers exhibit their work in a series of disused buildings around the city, including Baanhof, a former electrical station and W70, a multi-storey office that served as the Shell HQ, located just a stone’s throw from the OMA offices in the business district.
The indefatigable Vaisberg, founder of Office for Art and Design and also behind Collectible Art Fair in Brussels, and art/design consultant Schulten have strong curatorial smarts and a drive to up the ante, and the creative capital of Rotterdam – an underdog city compared to the tourist magnet of Amsterdam, but one whose ongoing urban rethink earned it a Wallpaper* Design Award earlier in 2025.
‘We issued an open call for designers and received hundreds of applicants ranging from emerging to established designers,’ says Vaisberg of the inaugural Rotterdam Design Biennale, noting the many alumni of Design Academy Eindhoven who have set up studios in the city. The range of work, from around 200 studios, spans furniture, sculpture and hand-crafted work, including 3D-printed plaster vases by Jonas Woolf, serene resin lighting sculptures by Laurids Gallee and Studio Sabine Marcelis, and delightfully frivolous decorative objects by Barry Llewellyn.
(Image credit: Michele Margot)
Vaisberg explains the leaning was towards ‘sculptural elements’ rather than product design, and to experimental work that challenges the role of design and its interplay with diversity, social justice and ecology under the umbrella theme ‘What’s Real Is Unfamiliar’. Indeed, many of the makers work with waste, including rugged furniture made of steel scraps by Studio Larssen, and Adam Maryniak’s chair collection. This set designer utilises offcuts such as wood architrave and plywood in forms that span brutalist to throne-like.
