The Cork Museum of Catalonia is hosting a new temporary exhibition that highlights cork as a key material for the future.

This initiative has been organized within the framework of FUTURECORK, a transformative project aimed at promoting the bioeconomy in the cork sector, which has the support of the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.

The exhibition, which will be on until May 10, 2026, is a collaboration between the Museu del Suro de Catalunya and the Institut Català del Suro within the Futurecork project. It brings together educational projects and cutting-edge research lines that explore new uses for cork and its by-products, creating contemporary solutions in design, education and science.

Training and design: cork enters the classrooms

The Catalan Cork Institute Foundation has been providing training on the properties and possibilities of cork for years in various design centers and schools, and currently, with surprising results such as:

• To ELISAVA (Elisava, Faculty of Design and Engineering of Barcelona), students from the 2023-2024 academic year created products designed for the Muji brand. The prototypes were produced by artisan Lluís Llenas (Llenas NaturCork), who gave shape to the ideas using various craft techniques.
• At the University of Barcelona, within the Degree in Design, students from the 2023-24 academic year designed and manufactured toys in their own workshops, exploring the playful and creative capabilities of cork.

Innovation and research: new uses, new materials

The project also includes the participation of the research group INNANOMAT from the University of Cádiz, which is developing composite materials with cork for furniture, using both recycled corks and pelagic cork (not suitable for the manufacture of corks), within the framework of the FUTURECORK project.

At the same time, the Catalan Cork Institute Foundation is investigating applications of recycled cork granules in urban tree stands and cushioning surfaces for children's spaces, thus reinforcing the sector's commitment to the circular economy.