Helsinki Design Week Birthday Celebrations Start Today
The Nordic region’s largest design and architecture festival, Helsinki Design Week, kicks off today with its 20th anniversary theme: Celebration. The programme includes more than one hundred events, most of which are free of charge. Programme Director Anni Korkman shares her personal highlights from the extensive festival programme.
Main venue: Suomitalo – open throughout the festival 5–14 September from 12 noon onwards, tickets €15/7.50.
On the fourth floor, the exhibition and symposium HAPPINESS ask whether happiness can be designed. Curated by Anniina Koivu, the international main exhibition explores this familiar theme from a design perspective.
“The main exhibition celebrates Helsinki Design Week’s anniversary by investigating what actually triggers the feeling of happiness in our bodies and brains. It also considers whether happiness could be designed or planned – it presents examples from the design field, offers immersive experiences, and critically reflects on perspectives from the science of happiness,” Koivu explains. Inspired by the exhibition, an international symposium will be held on Thursday 11 September in collaboration with the City of Helsinki, featuring, among others, happiness researcher Jennifer de Paola and Superflex co-founder Bjørnstjerne Christiansen. Suomitalo will also host a series of spatial installations, a wine bar, Reaktor’s workshop space, and Kuurna’s pop-up restaurant (10–13 September), in collaboration with Finnish Design Shop. Table reservations for the restaurant can be made here.
PechaKucha Night at the Old Church, 12 September, 7–9 pm, tickets €20/10
Next door to Suomitalo, the Old Church sets the stage for a surprising evening as the Japanese architect-developed format PechaKucha Night is featured in the HDW programme. Ten inspiring speakers have been invited, each presenting 20 images, shown for exactly 20 seconds each. Every talk lasts precisely six minutes and forty seconds. The line-up includes Irene Suosalo, Anna Brotkin, Sanna Mander, Marko Ahtisaari, Ari Heinilä, Björk Hijoort, and Mika Johnson.
Cable Factory classics: Design Market and HDW Children’s Design Week, 6–7 September, 11 am–6 pm, free entry
The festival begins at the Cable Factory, where once again the Merikaapeli Hall will be filled with vendors of quality furniture, interior products, and clothing from Finland and nearby regions. The accompanying programme features Marga’s birthday treats café, ARTEFAKTI – Aalto University students’ degree show, and the collective Skidit’s birthday cake installation Skiddo Party!, where the whole family is welcome to dance and get creative.
Compaion events: launches, legal design, fashion shows and multidisciplinary research projects
This year’s HDW programme again features more than a hundred events. I am especially excited about Designs for a Cooler Planet – recently awarded the Helsinki Design Award – at Aalto University’s campus, the 10 Days of Summer outdoor furniture launch at the Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden, the launch party for the new Sälä Magazine, Marimekko’s Field of Flowers talks event, and Helsinki Playground’s Made in Japan exhibition in Siltasaari. I’m also looking forward to discovering what top designer Hanna Anonen presents in her Doodle gallery exhibition and to the spectacle Stefan Lindfors is preparing for his Post Bar showroom.
Helsinki Design Week 5–14 September 2025. Find the full programme here.