
ExperimentaDesign is the international Biennale devoted to the culture of design, architecture and creativity.
ExperimentaDesign positions itself as a forward-looking organization, analyzing and fostering modern culture, with a keen eye for reflection and experimentation.
ExperimentaDesign promotes the creation of laboratories, in collaboration with parties working internationally in order to develop strategic synergies between cultural agents from a great variety of creative fields.
ExperimentaDesign programs possibilities, challenges participants, crosses paths, questions, experiments, as much as it creates presentations and exhibitions.
ExperimentaDesign reflects on aesthetics, ethics, social cohesion, industry, sustainability and economy as much as it focuses on design and related disciplines.
ExperimentaDesign is about people and ideas, more than about products and markets. The programme is designed to provide insight and incentives, both to specialized and professional audiences and to a wider public less familiar with the intimate discourses of design.
The first four editions of ExperimentaDesign took place in Lisboa. In 1999 the Biennale explored disciplinary intersections in and around design. In 2001, a series of events critically explored the notion of Modus Operandi – the designer as cultural agent. In 2003, the Lisboa Biennale was themed Beyond Consumption, and surveyed design culture from the point of view of those who use, consume and experience it. The theme of experimentadesign 2005 completed a cycle: The Medium is the Matter focused on the media and materials designers use to bridge the gap between creator and receiver.
Now, ExperimentaDesign has entered a new stage, expanding the reach of its international cultural biennale to two European capitals, Lisbon and Amsterdam, with events in both cities in alternating years.