Welcome to munich creative business week (mcbw), the unique design event in Germany that puts creativity and innovation at the center of attention. Every year, we transform public spaces into inspiring installations that bring together designers, companies and creative minds.
They comprise a variety of formats, that are planned and realised every year for mcbw. Each event refers to the current annual theme and illuminates it from its very own perspective.
For the mcbw, the architecture collective of Studio Carraldo is setting up two interactive pavilions on the south lawn of the Alte Pinakothek—open, experimental, and interactive. A mcbw public space installation!
Studio Carraldo's Cappella del Suono is a space that can be experienced both acoustically and visually. Sound bars of varying lengths, like wind chimes, create a delicate acoustic structure and produce an ever-changing interplay of light and shadow. The pavilion can be understood as a space of permeability—open enough to remain part of the landscape, yet clearly defined as an architectural location.
show moreThe pavilion reacts to the presence of people and allows them to become part of the structure. Architecture is not understood here as a static object, but as an individual experience.
In cooperation with Studio Carraldo, empowered by bayern design. With the kind support of Bayerischen Staatsgemäldesammlung and of Kunstareal München.
On display on the south lawn to May 17, 2026!
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In Studio Carraldo's 2nd pavilion, the playfulness becomes immediately apparent: the installation invites visitors to enjoy a delightful sense of disorientation in a walk-through maze. Fun guaranteed!
DELULU (derived from “delusional”) describes a retreat into wishful thinking when reality becomes too complex. The term originates in youth slang used by a generation growing up amid multiple crises and profound anxiety about the future-shaped by climate change, social insecurity, and digital overload.
show moreRather than resigning, this generation turns escapism into a playful survival strategy, where imagination and humor become forms of self-empowerment. Global crises can produce a sense of overwhelm; philosopher Timothy Morton describes them as “hyperobjects”—phenomena so vast and distributed that they exceed our capacity to fully perceive them.
The installation Delulu translates this condition into a walkable labyrinth: a continuously shifting spatial experience in which disorientation becomes a creative moment. Visitors navigate between isolation and encounter, between stillness and movement.
Delulu is conceived as an experimental space, a playground of possibilities, that reflects on our role as designers. The installation asks how we can take responsibility while still designing courageously amid uncertainty, change, and illusion.
In cooperation with Studio Carraldo, empowered by bayern design. With the kind support of Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlung and of Kunstareal München.
On display on the spot until May 17, 2026!
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What happens when design suddenly becomes soft? When an object appears in the urban landscape that piques curiosity, invites you to come closer—and maybe even to play?
At the heart of Rindermarkt, an installation is taking shape for the munich creative business week that is simultaneously a work of art, a landmark, and an invitation: a large-scale inflatable. Soft, colorful, and impossible to miss, it creates a striking visual presence in the urban landscape and ensures the mcbw's presence is visible from afar.
show moreInflatables have a long tradition in art and design. Since the 1960s, artists and architects have experimented with inflatable structures as an alternative to weighty monumental architecture. Light, mobile, and temporary, they take over spaces, shift perspectives, and invite interaction. Their rounded forms make a playful and accessible impression; they lower barriers and open up new possibilities for engaging with design.
The mcbw inflatable also follows this idea. No mere eye-catcher, it is an experience. At its location on Rindermarkt, it invites visitors to stop, walk around it, touch it, and perceive the public space in a new way. Here, design is not just viewed but physically experienced.
A second, smaller inflatable floats in the Ruffinihaus, or more precisely at the ceiling of the Ruffini-Laden. It serves as a visible reference to the installation’s origin and connects the two locations.
Photos and selfies in front of the colorful object are expressly encouraged!
#designconnects
We celebrate diversity—and not just when it comes to potatoes. Come by, explore, get involved, meet new people.
This year, the mcbw pop-up exhibition container in the city center will be in the hands of students from IU International University. The starting point is a familiar symbol of the Viktualienmarkt: the potato. Versatile, locally established, and once itself a “migrant,” it becomes the narrator of stories about origin, identity, and diversity.
show moreIn the container, these stories are collected, shared, and carried into the urban space in a tactile, visual, and interactive way. With humor and confidence, the students translate their observations into portraits, sound, materials, and space. The result is a sensory, interactive experience and a plea for a cityscape beyond “monoculture.”
A special highlight is the sound installation “Fremd ist der Fremde nur in der Fremde” (A foreigner is only foreign in a foreign land), which can be heard close to the fountain figures of Karl Valentin and Liesl Karlstadt—a subtle dialogue between place, history, and the present. “stories around” is being realized by an interdisciplinary team of students from the Media Design and Product Design programs at IU International University.
Initiative and creative direction: Prof. Anders Herwig, Prof. Bettina Otto, and Prof. Miriam Irle.
We would like to thank “Der Pschorr” and the bayern design team for the location and their kind support.
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A space full of light, movement, and coexistence, where individual moments merge into a quietly vibrating collective light space.
Light Up combines multiple nodes into an interconnected field of experience, made up of short autonomous modules that respond to proximity, movement, and cooperation and feed their light signals upward into a shared structure.
show moreVisitors encounter poetic micro-interactions (e.g., luminous origami elements that react to proximity and distance), cooperative forms of play (e.g., solving puzzles together) with temporal and spatial coordination, as well as systemic changes of perspective in which unusual aspects are made audible by plant materials and sensors. This creates an interplay between solo exploration and visitor interaction; the sum of several contributions is subtly reflected in the floating light space above.
Developed by students of Design for Digital Futures (M.A.)—DFDF at the Faculty of Design at Nuremberg Tech (TH Nürnberg), an international interdisciplinary program.
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"Turning Point" tree installation on the lawn of Alte Pinakothek
AR experience "Arabidopsis Symphony" at Rindermarkt
"Feierabendziegel" at the Propylaea on Königsplatz
Curated city walk through Haidhausen
Kaleidoscope light and glass installation at Propylaea on Königsplatz
"Disruptive Dunes" on the lawn of Alte Pinakothek
Swing installation "Moving Horizons" on the lawn of Alte Pinakothek
Curated city walk through the Old Town, Hackenviertel and Glockenbach District
Interactive installation "Voices Unleashed" at ZIRKA Space
Curated city walk through the Glockenbach district
"DIS CONNECTED" video installation at HFF Munich
