Hella Jongerius’s Vitra retrospective listens to the stories of things

More than 400 works chart Hella Jongerius’s evolving design practice in Whispering Things, a retrospective at the Vitra Design Museum. Spanning furniture, textiles, ceramics, sketches, prototypes and film, the exhibition considers how objects carry traces of their making and invite more attentive forms of use and care.

From Droog to Jongeriuslab

The presentation follows Jongerius from her early experiments with the Dutch collective Droog Design in the 1990s to collaborations with Maharam, IKEA, Nike, Camper, Vitra and KLM. Rather than focusing only on finished products, it also shows samples, correspondence and prototypes, making visible the negotiation between authorship, industry and material integrity.

Four gallery chapters organise the retrospective. “Dirty Hands” looks at early work and the relationship between craft and industry. “Business Class” examines commercial collaborations, while “Feeling Eye” brings together colour studies, woven experiments and a large installation of approximately 300 Coloured Vases.

Colour, touch and more-than-human life

The final chapter, “Cosmic Mind”, turns to coexistence and nonhuman life through works including Frog Table, Angry Animals and Space Amulets. Across the galleries, Jongerius’s layered compositions and imperfect surfaces give material research an expressive presence. The exhibition draws on her archive, held by the museum since 2024, to reveal a process grounded in observation and continual testing.

After its presentation in Weil am Rhein, the retrospective is scheduled to travel to the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg from 16 October 2026 to 30 May 2027.

Project Credits

Exhibition: Hella Jongerius: Whispering Things
Designer: Hella Jongerius / Jongeriuslab
Curators: Glenn Adamson and Marcella Hanika
Venue: Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
Dates: 14 March–6 September 2026