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

Part of Vienna Design Week 2026 (Abrir en una nueva pestaña)

Rendering of the MANIFESTO exhibition: the MissionAcoustic wall with the red Acoustic Tunnel behind it

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 — and MANIFESTO is its exhibition.

The Reveal

Floor plan of the 400 m² exhibition in the Festivalzentrale, with every zone labelled

Z0 The Acoustic Tunnel
A ten-metre walk in: 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 Chamber Room
Z6 Material World
24 curated material worlds, close enough to touch.
Z7 The Answer
Acoustics is not an afterthought.

Five Pavilions

5 manufacturer and designer pairs, each built into an 18 m² pavilion.

Prototypes

Experimental prototypes by students of die Angewandte, built with the pavilion brands.

Design Objects

Lights that absorb sound, surfaces that scatter it, and more: 8 objects from 5 countries, on podiums of their own.

Material World

24 curated material worlds with sustainable and innovative acoustic materials, close enough to touch.

Programme

Tours, talks and two evenings at SEVEN. See what is on and when.

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 · Acoustic Tunnel
Scenography: David Dorolti
Exhibition design: Sophie Luger and Tizian Glanzer
Organiser: MissionAcoustic, a brand of VRASQA GmbH — General Partner of VDW 2026
Partners: Vienna Design Week · die Angewandte, the University of Applied Arts Vienna (design and prototyping)
Press contact: David Roger Dorolti · david@missionacoustic.com · +43 664 137 67 49

Axonometric rendering of the whole exhibition

Visit

Ten days, two addresses. The exhibition at the Festivalzentrale by day, the MANIFESTO Bar at SEVEN by night.

The Festivalzentrale: the former Allianz tower on Hietzinger Kai

Day venue · 1130 Wien: Festivalzentrale; Hietzinger Kai 101, 1130 Wien; 25 Sept – 4 Oct, daily 11:00–19:00; Open in Google Maps

Inside SEVEN Concept Space in Kirchengasse

Night venue · 1070 Wien: SEVEN Concept Space; Kirchengasse 26, 1070 Wien; 30 Sept – 3 Oct, 19:00–22:30 · Sat until 24:00; Open in Google Maps