Prize Designs for Modern Furniture + Lighting 2025
The Global Design Awards for New Furniture + Lighting
New Chairs, Seating, Tables, Desks, Wall and Ceiling Partitions, Fabrics/Textiles, Wall and Floorcovering, Urban Furniture, and Indoor and Outdoor Lighting
Deadline for Submissions:
March 15th, 2025
In 1949, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) organized the “Prize Designs for Modern Furniture” to encourage the best of contemporary design by exhibiting the most notable examples in the furniture industry thereby stimulating production by manufacturers for the mass-produced market.
Seven decades later, Global Design News and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design are relaunching this historic event.
Curated by Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., Prize Designs for Modern Furniture opened in 1950 at MoMA in New York.
The idea of the competition was to draw the attention of technicians and designers from all over the world to produce new and fresh ideas leading to the manufacture and wide distribution of a new type of furniture for today’s new homes.
Athens, Greece
The Program 2025
For 2025, Prize Designs for Modern Furniture + Lighting presents a unique opportunity to present new furniture, lighting, and materials to the world’s architects, corporate end-users, furniture specifiers, and the general public.
The new, reformatted program showcases the best and the most outstanding new examples of furniture and lighting created by some of the most renowned international designers and architects and produced and marketed by the best and most innovative manufacturers worldwide.
Thanks to its global reach and highly reputable jury, the winners of the annual Global Design News Prize Designs can be considered as the definitive list of the world’s best furniture, lighting, and fabric/textile products.
Winner’s Pack 2025
• Winning submissions receive the Prize Design Award Certificates and Prize Design Award Trophy
• Winning Prize Designs are given a signet (digital) for product communications
• Exclusive coverage in the online platform Global Design News
• Global Design News Newsletter of all awarded winners
• Coverage on the Global Design News social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn)
• Winning designs are entered into the Permanent Design Collection of The Chicago Athenaeum
• Book publication of all award winners in “New Modern Furniture + Lighting“
• Exhibition of awarded products at Contemporary Space Athens as well as the possibility of traveling inside Europe
• Winning designers and manufacturers may use the Prize Design Logo for marketing, merchandising, and promotional use through an exclusive license with Metropolitan Arts Press Ltd
Evaluation Criteria and Judging
The awarded products are selected by a jury organized by Global Design News and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design. The jury deliberately uses subjective and aesthetic criteria in its selection. First and foremost, Global Design News and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design see the award-winning products as having an influence on design development in the present or near future.
The 2024 Jury
To be announced
Publications, Exhibitions, Official Ceremony
CATALOGUE: “New Modern Furniture + Lighting”
Winning entries for The Prize Designs for Modern Furniture + Lighting published by Global Design News and Metropolitan Arts Press Ltd.
EXHIBITION EUROPE
The European Centre/ Contemporary Space Athens, Greece
GALA & FORMAL PRESENTATION
Athens, Greece
Award Categories
The two major categories and the corresponding subcategories are as follows:
Furniture
| 1. Seating | 8. Tables |
| 2. Chairs | 9. Wall and Ceiling Partitions |
| 3. Office Chairs | 10. Built-in-Furniture |
| 4. Office/Home Desks | 11. Fabric/ Textile |
| 5. Office Pods | 12. Floor and Wallcovering |
| 6. Storage | 13. Urban Furniture |
| 7. Closets |
Lighting
| 1. Table Lighting | 4. Floor Lighting |
| 2. Ceiling Lighting | 5. Outdoor Lighting |
| 3. Wall Lighting |
How to apply
Please fill out postal or online applications, noting the following:
• One submission must be completed for each project.
• Images should be in high-resolution (300 dpi, 1920×1080, up to 6Mb each), and of .jpg / .jpeg / .png format.
• Project descriptions should not exceed 500 words.
• For online applications, after completing the registration and submission process for your project a form summary of your application will be sent to your email.
• For postal applications, images and project descriptions of each project can be sent either through WeTransfer or Dropbox (or any other similar platform) along with a fully completed form at contact@globaldesignnews.com.
• Entry Fee: €295 per submitted project. After we receive the filled-out form and check all materials an invoice will be sent to your email.
• Please provide the bank transfer receipt with your payment together with all other materials of your application.
If you need any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.
IMPORTANT: The information provided here MUST be accurate as it will form the basis for any future publication as well as the web presentation that will become part of the exhibition.
If you are entering this information on behalf of the designer OR manufacturer, the information must be correct.
Please take time to ensure that this is the case, as changes/corrections in the submitted information may incur costs, should any changes be needed during the publication process.
Application form 2025
![Prize Designs for Modern Furniture International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design]. New York- Museum of Modern Art, 1950. TCA Archives.](http://globaldesignnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/GDN_Prizedesignforfurniture-2022-1.jpg)
New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1950. The Chicago Athenaeum Archives.
Subscriptions
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Contact Us
For more information contact the Global Design News team at contact@globaldesignnews.com
Prize Designs for Modern Furniture + Lighting® is a registered trademark of Metropolitan Arts Press Ltd.
copyright © 2025 all rights reserved.
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