Our lives have changed dramatically over these last years. The thing that may have changed the most is work, which has been increasingly de-localized and almost de-materialized. The division – in furnishing type as well as style – between the home and work environment, once quite stark, is now an ever thinner line. This shift has only just gotten underway.
Within this context of huge change, the 2022 edition Orgatec will take place from October 25 to 29 in Cologne. This major international exhibition, organized by Koelnmesse focused on world of workspaces and contract furnishing, covers 120,000 square meters of exhibition space with more than 600 exhibitors. Its tagline is eloquent: New Visions of Work. In addition to furniture, the trade fair’s long-time focus, also on display are technologies, ideas and tools capable of making work ever-more efficient and free from norms, obligations, and habits that seem increasingly archaic now.
This workshop of ideas is a place to see and discuss products and concepts designed to respond to the great changes underway, to which recent events have given an extra powerful push forward. These changes are leading to a new conception of spaces, equipment, environments, and furnishings where we can perform our increasingly demanding, mobile, and smart jobs. This is a world in constant flux.
Orgatec 2022 gives visitors an excellent vantage point on this world, with a multifaceted organization on several floors. It plumbs deep to explore materials, technology and style as well as sociological dynamics. Its strength is in its variety, which is why it has organized a full calendar of events including conferences (on the themes New Work – New Mindset, Office Design and People in Spaces, the latter organized by the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP), meetings open to the trade fair’s public with prominent figures in the industry and exhibitions. There are also special tours of the exhibition halls, designed for and led by architects, meant to foster the exchange of ideas between professionals.
One key dimension of the event is meeting, which is now finally in person again after the break forced by the pandemic. This makes the fair an excellent opportunity for networking and matchmaking, the chance to meet the right partner, essential for doing business. Thomas Rosolia, managing director of Koelnmesse Italy, remarked that “these will be the two key concepts at Orgatec 2022, an opportunity for the worlds of design, manufacturing, trade, and contract furnishing to meet again in person finally, after the long, forced break, and find thousands of new, concrete answers, solutions, and inspirations.”
Photo from Orgatec 2018, © Koelnmesse
