NO OTHER country combines glamour and edge quite like Spain. When it comes to design, Britain is grungy, France classic, Italy Baroque, Germany minimalist – and Spain a glorious mixture of all, spiced up with a generous dash of subversive attitude.

You already eat at Fino and Barrafina and wear Balenciaga, but feel there must be more to Spanish interiors than Zara Home. Next week, those in the know won’t have to travel to Madrid for the latest in Spanish style because Casa Decor, Spain’s most exciting and luxurious design show, is coming to London.

This is interior design, guerrilla-style. “We take a derelict building and work with designers and architects to give it new life. But just for one month. There’s no theme and you never know what’s going to happen,” says Kersti Urvois, a director of Casa Decor.

Now in its 15th year, it’s an eclectic showcase of Spanish style, in a sort of tapas format. Some products are for sale and most experts are for hire. Here are the decorators who do Spain’s grandest homes and the innovators who set the creative pace. It may not be for the budget shopper, but most of the profits go to local Aids charities. This year, as part of the London Design Festival, they are staging Casa Decor Loft, a taste of the creative chaos to come at next year’s full-blown Casa Decor London.

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Collected works

In his Sardinian home, fashion designer Antonio Marras likes to surround himself with more than a few of his favourite things

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“Finding a venue is tough,” admits Frances llopis, one half of the Casa Decor dynamic design duo. “This year we have secured a space in Covent Garden, much smaller than we’d normally have, to create a bar and loft-style living space. There is no running water or electricity so it’ll be the usual challenge to get it finished in time.”

SLAM, the energetic London-based architectural practice, is creating the living area and award-winning architects Wells Mackereth are coming up with a bar. “The strength of Casa Decor is the fact that it occupies and transforms an entire disused building with interventions from many different architects and designers,” says Amy Lam, a co-founder of SLAM.

“Any derelict buildings we use are usually bought shortly afterwards, kick-starting local regeneration,” says Urvois. There are a lot of “ifs” in Casa Decor, which is what makes it exciting. The most recent show, in Madrid, transformed the former offices of a major bank. When I visited , the night before opening, more than 700 people were hard at work drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and, apparently, enjoying themselves. There is urgency but no panic. It won’t open, I thought. But it did. “We always do it,” says llopis, bending down to adjust a piece of carpet. Nothing escapes her eye. Both women scan every detail, ensuring that the finish is perfect. The first room is filled with towering tectonic sculptures that change colour from within. They soar up into the stained glass atrium. The work of a major artist? “No, it’s a tile company,” says llopis. And on to the next room – a sexy loft in the trademark blue of Bombay Sapphire. The floor is littered with empty bejewelled bottles as if the party has only just stopped. The ceiling of another room, sponsored by Valentine, a paint company which supplies all the exhibitors, is festooned with clear plastic bubbles containing curious objects: a tricycle, a chair, a watering can.

“For the first Casa I couldn’t afford to do much so I made a restaurant from paper,” says the architect Teresa Sapey. It made her reputation. She hopes to do a ceramic façade for next year’s Casa: “London will be great – design there is too serious, we’re going to sex it up.”

Casa Decor Loftruns from Sunday to September 30, 11am-6pm, at Number One The Piazza, Covent Garden, London WC2. Entry is free. www.casadecoruk.com

Find out why Spain still reigns, and discover where you might invest, at: timesonline.co.uk/spanishproperty

STYLEWARS

WHAT’S HOT

Cool neutrals (watery greys rather than warm creams)

Lots of pictures of various sizes, in mismatched frames, covering one wall Modernist chairs, tables and lamps

WHAT’S NOT

Old Torremolinos tat

Swirly Seventies fabrics in brown, orange and purple

Smoked-glass coffee tables

Faded posters of matadors in clipframes

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