MANIFESTO · Acoustic Design Exhibition · Vienna Design Week, 20th edition
Edition No 1
Acoustics is not an afterthought.
Is sound the missing dimension of great design?
- Press preview
- Thu 24 Sept 2026
- Open to the public
- 25 Sept to 4 Oct, 11:00–19:00
- Festivalzentrale
- Hietzinger Kai 101, 1130 Wien
- Presented by
- MissionAcoustic — General Partner, VDW 2026
I · Opening essay
The Thesis
You have never seen a room’s acoustics. You have only ever suffered them, or failed to notice them, which is the same design failure wearing a better suit. The restaurant where nobody finishes a sentence. The office where the open plan turned out to mean open to everything. The school hall where a third of the children stop listening by eleven o’clock, and are called inattentive for it.
Every other invisible service in a building has a discipline attached to it. Light has lighting design. Air has ventilation engineering. Sound has a subcontractor and a delivery date that falls after the photographs are taken. Seven in ten acoustic products are installed once a project is already finished — bolted onto a completed room, apologising for it.
Acoustics is not an afterthought. It is a design discipline that has been waiting for its festival.
II · Eight zones, one direction
The Reveal
“From the perfect sound of the Listening Room to its opposite in the Echo Room. Seeing, and hearing, the invisible.”
-
Z0
The Acoustic Tunnel
You hear the building before you see the work.
- Z1 The Question Is sound the missing dimension of great design?
-
Z2
Five Pavilions
Manufacturer and designer, paired and built.
-
Z3
Emerging
Studios under two years old, on the runway.
-
Z4
The Listening Room
What a room sounds like when it is designed.
- Z5 The Echo Room The same room, untreated. The opposite.
-
Z6
Material World
Up to 25 materials, close enough to touch.
- Z7 The Answer Acoustics is not an afterthought.
III · Manufacturer and designer, paired
Five Pavilions
Five pavilions of 18 m² each, co-developed with die Angewandte. Each one pairs an acoustic brand with an emerging design team: a sample wall, a presentation table, hanging baffles and a prototype.
Marlene Iman Ortner
Printed acoustic modules: CEWE’s photo surfaces on sound-absorbing panels, arranged as a wall that can be re-hung.
18 m²
Ēchos
oido
Anna Sudy · Leonie Felger · Anna Antoni
Ēchos: a felt prototype that plays with Oido’s seven edge profiles. Cut, not printed.
Intellectual property, usage and design rights sit in a separate agreement between the manufacturer and die Angewandte and its students. MissionAcoustic is not a party to it.
Also from die Angewandte
Prototypes built alongside the five pavilions, guided by architect Sophie Luger.
- 01 Terra-Pore Abhishek Blesson Manuel Alex Sahayam
- 02 Eave Eldine Heep
- 03 The Better Half Mintong Lu
- 04 Verband Sophie Grell
Emerging designers & brands
Objects
Nine sound-absorbing objects with a unique idea, on podiums, hanging or on the floor, curated alongside the pavilions.
Places are assigned on curatorial review after 10 September. Nine objects; the list is published here on 15 September.
Sound-absorbing samples & composition
Material World
Up to 25 sustainable and innovative acoustic materials — recycled PET, hemp and lime, mycelium, wood wool, cork, sheep wool, acoustic plaster, moss and more — one wall and one table each, close enough to touch.
Places are assigned on curatorial review after 10 September. Up to twenty-five materials; the list is published here on 15 September.
IV · Day and night
Two Addresses
-
Day venue · 1130 Wien Festivalzentrale Hietzinger Kai 101, 1130 Wien The former Allianz tower by Harry Glück. Contains the Listening Room, the Echo Room and the Acoustic Tunnel. Open daily 11:00 to 19:00. Open in Google Maps -
Night venue · 1070 Wien SEVEN Concept Space Kirchengasse 26, 1070 Wien The city-centre address for the evening programme, hosted by Felix Ehrenfried. MANIFESTO Bar 19:00–22:30, on Tue 29 Sept and Sat 3 Oct until 24:00. Open in Google Maps
V · Key dates
Programme
| Date | What | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Thu 24 Sept | Press tour · VIP cocktail and speeches · official opening | 9:00 · 17:00 · 20:00, invited |
| Fri 25 Sept | Festival opens to the public | 11:00 to 19:00 |
| Daily, 25 Sept – 4 Oct | Exhibition tour · Workshop THE STAGE on the MA Planner | 14:00 · 15:00 |
| Sat 26 Sept | Spotlight · Signature panel talk · The Reveal, student prototypes (RSVP) | 17:00 · 18:30 · 19:00 |
| Mon 28 Sept | VDW Talk Area, panel talks | 15:00 to 19:00 |
| Tue 29 Sept | Professional Breakfast · MaterialWorld session · A&D afterwork at SEVEN (RSVP) | 8:30 · 12:00 · 18:00 |
| Wed 30 Sept – Sat 3 Oct | MANIFESTO Sessions | 17:00 to 18:30 |
| Sat 3 Oct | The Reveal · Popchop event · MANIFESTO Bar | 15:30 · tba · until 24:00 |
| Sun 4 Oct | Finissage | 17:00 to 19:00 |
VI · Release, boilerplate, fact sheet
For the Press
MissionAcoustic stages MANIFESTO, the Acoustic Design Exhibition, inside Vienna Design Week 2026, the festival’s 20th edition, as General Partner. Ten days in which acoustics stops being the subcontractor and becomes the subject.
- What
- MANIFESTO — Acoustic Design Exhibition, Edition No 1, inside Vienna Design Week 2026
- When
- Press preview Thu 24 Sept 2026 · Public 25 Sept to 4 Oct, daily 11:00–19:00
- Day venue
- Festivalzentrale, Hietzinger Kai 101, 1130 Wien — the former Allianz tower by Harry Glück
- Night venue
- SEVEN Concept Space, Kirchengasse 26, 1070 Wien — hosted by Felix Ehrenfried
- Rooms
- Listening Room · Echo Room · Acoustic Tunnel
- Organiser
- MissionAcoustic, a brand of VRASQA GmbH — General Partner of VDW 2026
- Partners
- Vienna Design Week · die Angewandte (design and prototyping)
- Press contact
- David Roger Dorolti · david@missionacoustic.com · +43 664 137 67 49
It starts in Vienna; it does not end here.
Keep the moodboards you collect in the pavilions, and plan a room with what you saw.