Seasonal Exhibition
IFDA Prototype Stories — When Ideas Become Furniture: Behind the Prototypes
DATE
2026/03/20(Fri) - 2026/09/27(Sun)
TIME
All of the day
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Seasonal Exhibition
DATE
2026/03/20(Fri) - 2026/09/27(Sun)
TIME
All of the day
IFDA (International Furniture Design Competition Asahikawa) is a unique international competition for wooden furniture design, inviting ideas from designers around the world and bringing them to life through prototyping by makers in the furniture-producing region of Asahikawa. Established in 1990 and held every three years as a triennial, the competition has been held twelve times to date, attracting a total of 10,084 entries from 79 countries and regions. More than 50 of these works have gone on to be commercialized as Asahikawa Furniture.
This exhibition focuses on the many prototypes created throughout the history of IFDA, tracing the process through which ideas gradually take physical form. Within this process lies a dense and dynamic period in which designers’ concepts intersect with the makers’ decisions, ingenuity, and the region’s distinctive skills and sensibilities. By engaging directly with materials, examining structure, and thinking through the act of making, ideas slowly acquire the contours of furniture.
The exhibition traces the conversations, judgments, and accumulated ingenuity shared between designers and makers behind the scenes of prototyping. Rather than separating design from making, IFDA has long fostered a relationship in which the two respond to one another and move forward together. This relationship is a core value that IFDA has consistently upheld, and it is also a strength cultivated by Asahikawa as a furniture-producing region.
Against this backdrop of relationships and processes, the call for entries for the next competition, IFDA 2027, will open during the exhibition period. Held at this pivotal moment, the exhibition seeks to share how the practice of prototyping has connected design and making within IFDA. We invite you to experience the rich processes and stories that come together when ideas become furniture.
Organizer: Asahikawa Furniture Industry Cooperative
