(Above: “Patricia Urquiola. Meta-Morphosa” at the Centre for Innovation and Design at Grand-Hornu in Belgium. Photo by Caroline Dethier, courtesy of CID)

Three renowned women artists and designers have big exhibits this year. We’re talking two comprehensive retrospectives, and one in-depth survey that uncovers their creative process, their research and experimentation, and their unique approaches to designing spaces. Patricia Urquiola, Hella Jongerius, and Es Devlin will open their creative process to the masses through exhibitions that draw upon their personal histories and explorations of their craft, design, and world-building. Join us as we celebrate these design giants and their work this Women’s History Month — and throughout the year.

“Patricia Urquiola. Meta-Morphosa”
CID — Centre for Innovation and Design at Grand-Hornu in Belgium
December 14, 2025 – April 26, 2026

“Meta-Morphosa” is a survey of the last five years of Spanish designer and architect Patricia Urquiola’s research, exploring transformation as a design principle. She set up her own firm in 2001, and has emerged as one of the most influential designers of the early 21st century, collaborating with clients like Haworth, Max Mara, Cassina, Andreu World, Louis Vuitton, and others on furniture, objects, accessories, textiles, and ceramics. This survey of work asks, what is our relationship to change?

Urquiola’s world is a colorful realm where you’ll encounter fantastical creatures, cryptids and marine life, and ambiguous hybrid forms alongside functional furniture, weavings, studies, and decorative objects. Culminating in an impressive tapestry inspired by a biblical tale of transformation and discovery, the exhibit takes you on a curated journey through what is, and what is to come. Flexible and fluid, her experimentations in form and materiality reveal themselves as a fluid ecosystem that flows from state to state. Metamorphosis can be traced through her use of natural and recycled materials — wool, plastic, marble, and glass — and her interest in product lifecycle and regeneration. She invites you to ask, “what can this product become next, and what was it before?” This exhibit is part of the Europalia España edition of the international biennial art and design festival, and will be on view through April 26, 2026.

“Hella Jongerius: Whispering Things”
Vitra Design Museum, Rhein, Germany
March 14 – September 6, 2026

Dutch designer and artist Hella Jongerius’s work transcends trends, breaks with convention, and offers a critical look at what it means to be a designer and an artist in the modern age. She founded the Jongeriuslab studio in 1993, and began her enduring collaboration with Vitra in 2004, designing furniture and doing research for the Vitra Color & Material Library. This exhibition — her first retrospective — pulls from her extensive archive of work that was acquired by the institution in 2024, and offers a glimpse into the balance between intuitive design and rigorous systems that her work maintains. Renowned for her groundbreaking textiles, furniture and object design, monumental weavings, ceramic sculpture, and color experimentations, this exhibit traces her career from its early experimental works to her current meditations on sustainability and lifecycles.

Composed of 400 works alongside archival documents, images, and film — spanning furniture, lighting, 3D weavings, textiles, ceramics, and prototypes — the retrospective is split into four “chapters” presented in four galleries. “Dirty Hands” looks at her early work with the Dutch avant garde collective Droog Design in the 1990s; “Business Class” celebrates her long-standing collaborations with IKEA, Nike, Camper, Maharam, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and of course Vitra — and includes a look at the full process of designing commercial products through prototypes, samples, and correspondence; “Feeling Eye” focuses on her color and tactile investigations, including ceramic and textile installations, samples, and studies. The final chapter, “Cosmic Mind,” reflects the concept behind the name of the exhibit — an “integrated environment in which the whispering voices of things resonate on a broader, cosmological level”; in this space, the gallery confronts the agency of non-humans through ceramic sculpture and 3D weavings.

“Es Devlin”
The Design Museum in London
September 18, 2026 – April 11, 2027

Es Devlin, the renowned experiential designer, gets her first UK museum show celebrating her 30-year sculptural, installation, and set design practice. As the museum describes, her “understanding of the audience as a temporary society,” is the driving concept behind Devlin’s work, whether it’s an installation at the Tate Modern or Serpentine Gallery, big stadium tours for the likes of Beyonce or U2, the 2012 London Olympics, Super Bowl half-time shows, or theater and opera stage design for the National Theatre and the Metropolitan Opera. She is a Tony- and Olivier-award winning designer, with her sets and sculptures touring globally.

Devlin worked closely with the museum to curate rare maquettes, sketches, annotated texts, and process materials to provide visitors with a peek into her process. Not only will the exhibit highlight some of her best-known work, but the artist has also designed new, large-scale work for the exhibit — including projection-mapped sculptures and kinetic installations. This sure-to-be-showstopper exhibition will provide a glimpse into how Devlin approaches her work, and her emphasis on nurturing temporary community through experiential design.

Read IIDA’s profiles of Patricia Urquiola and Es Devlin