One stand has a marble floor and sides with inlaid lights. josele

Marbella fair fuses art and design, along with the latest in smart home technology and depth-changing swimming pools

All the latest ideas in interior design with a focus on sustainability can be seen at the Design & Art event, which continues until 13 November

Joaquina Dueñas

MARBELLA.

Tuesday, 8 November 2022, 13:17

A swimming pool which changes depth, rugs with 200,000 knots per square metre and the latest in smart home technology. These are just a few of the fascinating items on display at the Marbella Design & Art fair at the Adolfo Suárez Palacio de Ferias y Congresos, which will continue until Sunday 13 November.

This year more than 40 interior designers and 150 companies are taking part in the exhibition and founder and director Alejandro Zaia explained at the opening that the aim is for people to see how art and design can fuse and work in any home.

The focus this year is on the use of sustainable and recyclable materials and sustainable methods of production. “There is a stand made totally out of very strong bamboo which is completely unlike any image we have ever had of bamboo,” Zaia said as an example. There is also an emphasis on craft rather than kitsch, he stressed.

Technology that seems like magic

Every part of the congress centre is being used for this fair, including the access ramp and the terrace, where there is a swimming pool on display whose depth can be adjusted by raising or lowering the base.

Technology applied to design can seem like magic, and art and interior design can transport visitors to this fair to other worlds, like a 70 m2 stand whose floor and sides are made of marble with inlaid lights and the office created Leonelas Rivas which evokes the Angel Falls in Venezuela with suspended shelving, waves on the ceiling and a table on different levels, like the natural pools.

Also very striking are the rugs made by Thibault Van Renne, with Indian and Nepalese hand-crafted materials and 200,000 knots per square metre.

And something else not to be missed at this Design and Art Fair is the exhibition called La Mirada Feminina, which is curated by Ana Araujo and defined as “a celebration of the aesthetics of fascination in contemporary art based on different languages”.