COMO.- Lake Como Design Festival, in collaboration with Associazione Villa del Grumello and Fondazione Antonio Ratti, presents the projects on display at Villa del Grumello and along the Chilometro della Conoscenza, the epicenter of the event which, now in its seventh edition, will take place from September 14 to 21 in the city of Como and around its lake.

Like the other sections of the festival, the one hosted at Villa del Grumello will follow the main theme of this year’s edition: Fragments. Fragmentation is everywhere: contemporary society is marked by conflicts and natural disasters that foster isolation and individualism. In this context, fragmentation can also become an act of resistance against conformity. Lake Como Design Festival proposes fragmentation as a chance for rebirth; whether natural or intentional, fragmentation becomes a regenerative act and is embraced as an opportunity for reconstruction and reconnection, memory and rediscovery.

Memory is at the heart of the exhibition that unfolds within the spaces of Villa del Grumello, along the Chilometro della Conoscenza, which for the second consecutive year serves as the epicenter of the festival. Titled Fragments of Memory, the exhibition offers an ideal exploration of archives and special projects that celebrate the heritage of renowned Italian designers and historic brands. In the park, the Contemporary Design Selection curated by Giovanna Massoni returns, laid out along a path that, like a widespread kunsthalle, connects historic villas and lakeside parks. Among the exhibitions in the city, Aldo Rossi. Architecture by Fragments, curated by Chiara Spangaro in collaboration with the Fondazione Aldo Rossi, will be hosted in the former church of San Pietro in Atrio. The exhibition offers an interpretation of the concept of the fragment in the theoretical and architectural work of the great architect. In conjunction with the exhibition, Lake Como Design Festival will host a special evening screening of the documentary film Aldo Rossi Design, directed by Francesca Molteni & Mattia Colombo and produced by Muse Factory of Projects in collaboration with the Fondazione Aldo Rossi. Ico Parisi is the focus of the first solo exhibition inaugurating the new headquarters of the Archivio Design Ico Parisi: a showcase of large-format paintings from the series Crolli edificanti – Tavole di provocazione, works never before exhibited in Como and created during the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, this edition once again features Studio Visit, a program that opens the doors of design studios, galleries, ateliers, and archives across the region. Also returning this year is the guided tour of the architecture of Rationalist Como.

FRAGMENTS OF MEMORY
Villa del Grumello, via per Cernobbio 11, Como

Fragments of Memory is the group exhibition hosted at Villa del Grumello as part of the Lake Como Design Festival 2025. In dialogue with this edition’s theme, Fragments, the exhibition offers a reflection on the fragment as a living trace — an element that contains stories, visions, and memories. The works on display — from the evocative ceramics of Enzo Cucchi, the dreamlike rugs inspired by Bruno Munari, the transformable furniture by Vico Magistretti, glass as an archive by WonderGlass, the warm yet rigorous materials of Claudia Moreira Salles, the images of Dayanita Singh, the dialogues between Mario Radice and Nanda Vigo, the textiles by DEDAR inspired by Anni Albers’ legacy, to the visual storytelling of Archivio Mantero and the curatorial selection of Eredi Marelli — offer visitors a journey through materials, forms, and languages that explore memory and rediscover its meanings. Each work is a speaking fragment, a bridge between past and present, a gesture that, through design, reassembles what once seemed lost. In this space suspended between history and contemporaneity, Fragments of Memory becomes an invitation to reconnect what was once separated, to reinterpret identity through multiplicity, and to discover, in the detail, the strength of vision.

The exhibition opens with a group of works by Enzo Cucchi. At the center of the room— presented by Galleria ZERO...—sculptures that reinterpret the fountains of Rome, transforming them into fragments of an imaginary city emerging as an inner vision, engage in dialogue with a series of wall-mounted works created in collaboration with Lithos Edizioni. Archivio Mantero, an international reference point for textile culture, presents UNANNO, a display that narrates the first year of the project’s public activity as a new creative engine. The result is a reflection on time and memory as design material, constantly regenerating. With the Vico Collection, Campeggi reintroduces a selection of transformable objects born from the historic collaboration between Claudio Campeggi and Vico Magistretti: a collection that conveys design as a dynamic and adaptive gesture — an invitation to conceive function as a living form. DEDAR presents Weaving Anni Albers, a project developed in collaboration with the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation: five jacquard fabrics inspired by the visionary legacy of the German artist, reinterpreted with contemporary sensibility to transform thread into a living language between art, material, and memory. At the heart of the Villa, Etel dedicates a retrospective to Brazilian designer Claudia Moreira Salles, a prominent figure of warm, material, and sensitive modernism. The exhibition traces a path that interweaves formal rigor and poetic use of natural materials, in dialogue with historic works by Etel — guardian of Brazil’s modernist tradition.

The narrative continues with Eredi Marelli, presenting a new selection of iconic Italian design — from Paolo Buffa to Aldo Rossi — the result of ongoing research and rediscovery. Amini pays tribute to Bruno Munari with a series of carpets inspired by his celebrated Macchine Inutili (Useless Machines), translating the master’s visual freedom into textile surfaces that become maps of imagination and invention. The rooms of Villa del Grumello also host an exhibition on Mario Radice and Nanda Vigo, curated by Roberta Lietti, inspired by the deep friendship and mutual admiration between the two — beautifully expressed by Radice in a letter to his dear friend. Radice’s paintings interact with two of Vigo’s Cronotopi — ‘diaphragms’ made of industrial glass sheets — generating fragmented and uncertain shifts depending on the light’s intensity and angle. The exhibition Fragments of Memory also includes a photographic show by Indian-born artist Dayanita Singh. Known for her Spontaneous Books — books and book-objects — Singh presents Como Box for Lake Como Design Festival: an unbound book composed of 30 offset-printed images on individual cards, held inside a wooden structure. The journey concludes at the villa’s darsena with WonderGlass, showcasing a collection of glass works that explore transparency as a metaphor for memory: fragments of ancient techniques and contemporary visions merge into objects that are both material and narrative. In each project, the fragment becomes the origin of a new connection — a spark capable of bridging eras, stories, and people.

ALDO ROSSI. ARCHITECTURE BY FRAGMENTS
curated by Chiara Spangaro in collaboration with Aldo Rossi Foundation
Ex Chiesa di San Pietro in Atrio, via Odescalchi, Como

Aldo Rossi. Architecture by Fragments, curated by Chiara Spangaro in collaboration with Aldo Rossi Foundation, explores the theme of the fragment in the theoretical and architectural work of Aldo Rossi (Milan, 1931– 1997), concept that runs through his practice from the 1960s onward. The exhibition features a selection of architectural drawings, photographs, texts and documents in which Rossi engaged with the idea of the fragment, from the design of Segrate’s Town Hall Square with its Monumento ai Partigiani (Monument to the Partisans), to the film Ornamento e delitto (Ornament and Crime), conceived with Gianni Braghieri and Franco Raggi and the reconstruction of the block between Schützenstrasse and Charlottenstrasse in Berlin, begun in 1992.

In the heart of the city of Como, the former church of San Pietro in Atrio once again becomes an exhibition space for the seventh edition of the festival, becoming a welcoming environment open to dialogue. Here, the exhibition moves away from the formalities of a traditional display and embraces a more intimate setup, welcoming and encouraging visitors to move freely through the space and across different eras, where they can explore and delve deeper into the theme of the fragment in Aldo Rossi’s work.

ALDO ROSSI. THE FILM
directed by Francesca Molteni & Mattia Colombo
Camera di Commercio di Como-Lecco, Via Giuseppe Parini 16, Como
Sunday, September 14, at 7:30 PM. Free admission
with mandatory reservation. Subject to availability.

Coinciding with the exhibition dedicated to Aldo Rossi, the seventh edition of Lake Como Design Festival will host a special evening screening of the documentary film Aldo Rossi Design, directed by Francesca Molteni and Mattia Colombo, and produced by Muse Factory of Projects in collaboration with the Aldo Rossi Foundation. Rare archival footage and materials, never-before-seen testimonies, family photos and albums — combined with the writings of the great architect — compose the first video narrative entirely devoted to Rossi’s work in design.

It is June 16, 1990, Palazzo Grassi in Venice. Guests arrive, welcomed by Gianni Agnelli and his wife Marella, alongside Jay and Cindy Pritzker. “Architecture, like all art, is universal — like science, like intelligence,” says Agnelli. Aldo Rossi is, in fact, the first Italian architect to be awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The film explores a world of beloved objects that, starting in 1979, met industrial and artisanal production — from furniture to products created with Alessi, Artemide, Designtex, Bruno Longoni Atelier d’Arredamento, Molteni&C|UniFor, Richard-Ginori, Rosenthal, and Up&Up (now UpGroup). It reflects on Rossi’s legacy in the history of design — the connection between drawing, object, and architecture; his relationship with industry, technical experts, and the factories of design — through invaluable testimonies from Morris Adjmi, Alberto Alessi, Ludovica Barassi, Alberto Ferlenga, Antonia Jannone, Daniel Libeskind, Bruno Longoni, Giorgio Pogliani, Paolo Portoghesi, Fausto Rossi, and Chiara Spangaro.

ARCHIVIO DESIGN ICO PARISI
Archivio Design Ico Parisi, via Diaz 11, Como

On the occasion of Lake Como Design Festival 2025, the non-profit association Archivio Design Ico Parisi is pleased to announce the opening of its new headquarters at Via Diaz 11 in Como and to present an exhibition of paintings created by Ico Parisi between the late 1970s and early 1980s. These large-format paintings are part of the series Crolli edificanti – Tavole di provocazione, works never exhibited before in Como. They are composed by the aggregation of various painted panels, evoking a disorienting idea of fragmented imagery. This is an integral part of the artist’s design research, where subjects such as televisions, appliances, cars and more become, for Parisi, paradoxical ‘signals’ of the disintegration of dwelling.

The spaces on Via Diaz, originally designed by architect Marco Balzarotti and recently renovated with full respect for the original design, will finally be open to the public — for study, research and direct consultation. Visitors will have access to a rich archive of materials, photographs and documents, partly acquired through inheritance and partly collected over the years. The venue will also offer the opportunity to experience artworks, design pieces and architectural works on display, along with an extensive library.

The Association was legally established in June 2016 with the aim of enhancing, protecting, disseminating and promoting the knowledge and study of the work of Ico Parisi (Palermo 1916 – Como 1996). Over the years, it has worked closely with public and private institutions, universities, students and professors, as well as experts in architecture and design, encouraging the widest possible dissemination of the cultural heritage linked to Ico Parisi and his wife Luisa.

CONTEMPORARY DESIGN SELECTION
curated by Giovanna Massoni

The Contemporary Design Selection of this year is a collective investigation into the evocative power of the fragment. The 2025 open call invited designers, artisans, architects, and artists to explore three design perspectives: fragility – the aesthetics of breaking and transformation, the value of the ephemeral and the mutable; the regenerative act – recomposition and recovery, transforming waste into new objects filled with meaning; and memory – as an archive of fragments, a vehicle for stories, techniques, and past or forgotten cultures.

Focusing on one of these themes or embracing the poetics of the fragment in its complexity, the participants currently confirmed come from Italy, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Individuals or collectives, both young and older, direct witnesses of war scenarios marked by unacceptable inhumanity or spokespersons for urgent social and environmental issues, their design work is always, in one way or another, an act of resistance.

The exhibition brings works exploring fragmentation not as loss, but as a creative foundation. Each piece becomes a reflection on time, identity, and the scars – personal, socio-political, environmental – that mark people, materials, and territories. Through different paths and practices, they tell how what is broken, forgotten, or marginalized can generate new life and new meanings.

The fragment is what remains and what (re)generates.

Agglomerati x Sho Ota present Surfaced, a modular installation that recomposes salvaged travertine into a tactile and incomplete landscape, where each piece retains its own identity. Gensuke Kishi uses recycled natural stone, juxtaposing it with the fugacity of a flower to recall the preciousness of finite resources. Georg Foster with Fractions burns waste wood, enhancing its knots and imperfections, and joins them into essential forms through minimal joints. The architecture studio LAST Stefano Larotonda explores the theme of the fragment as a generative unit of space, where furniture modules and rooms, recombined, creates ever new configurations. The modules are made by Giussani Falegnameria. Monostudio advocates a slow and primitive approach to design. Their investigation into the recycling of urban wood and its disposal results in furniture pieces that celebrate trees felled by increasingly frequent storms. Omniaworks x Payam Askari transform fragments of discarded marble into objects that transcend simple recycling: a poetic recovery that looks to the future. PLASMA-f x Frigerio Marmi using only waste buckets and slabs, transforms waste into an aesthetic proposal. A gesture of reconciliation between what is consumed and what remains. Vacuum Atelier composes a shelving unit in which the joining of fragments becomes an aesthetic act and not just a technical one: the joint is the real protagonist, a symbol of connection. Verstrepen. studio uses schist to create seats with a layered surface, inviting us to observe the time sedimented in the material.

The fragment is memory and ritual.

Ludovica Corti creates artefacts suspended between nature and artifice, objects that retain traces of what has been and what is fading away. Marta Abbott, fascinated by the layered forms of an extremely rare coral fossil, reproduces its complexity with stoneware and the columbine technique, inviting us to reflect on nature as a repository of fragments of time, place, history and knowledge. Ryoko Nakamura x Triptych fuses Japanese fan art and lighting design, creating lamps as fragments of culture and memory. Thomas Serruys activates a dialogue between past and present, uniting fragments of matter and memory: his cut steel seat rests on suction cup legs that evoke the idea of recovery. The galvanisation preserves and unifies the whole, fusing different elements into a single body. Tommaso Spinzi has created a furniture collection that reinterprets Roman ruins in a contemporary and playful way. Bright colours pay homage to the 1970s and the Space Age, with cylinders and circular shapes evoking ancient columns. ZPSTUDIO rediscovers the Etruscan bucchero technique, firing clay dipped in charcoal to create ceremonial forms that seem to re-emerge from a common past.

Hybrid materials and assemblages of nature and culture.

Inspired by fading traditions, Anshika Mangla fuses the craft practice of woven bamboo with contemporary lighting. Nuvó Studio interweaves sacred Mexican symbols and Italian design tradition, transforming cultural fragments into essential and archetypal luminous sculptures. Studio Lilium creates hand-pleated paper lampshades, enriched with cocoa bean residues, which give off an earthy perfume and colour. Super Rat reveals the hidden texture of Trachycarpus fortunei bark, transformed into a lampshade treated with persimmon tannin that reveals new textures when lit. Tokio. takes inspiration from origami for Totem, a modular lamp that transforms and layers, celebrating the act of folding as a daily ritual.

The fragment that unveils and reveals.

Tobie Chevallier's lamps are characterised by lampshades created with cyanotype- dyed batik fabrics, revealing the creative potential hidden in the fragmentation of matter. Marijke De Cock creates reflective fragments, reminiscent of random cut-outs, to support subtle glass beads as jewel-like creations. Rather than mirroring, the surfaces interact with light, enhancing the work's connection to its space. Selma Wallbom experiments with röllakan fabrics that fragment our perception of the landscape, inviting us to dwell on hidden details. studio högl borowski creates functional sculptures in resin and wood, revealing knots, nuances, densities and traces of life that become sensory matter.

These are the participants confirmed to date: Abreham (ETH/IT), Adélie Ducasse (FR), Agglomerati (IM) × Sho Ota (JP/NL), Anshika Mangla (IND/IT), Atelier Serruys (BE), Atelier WA=MA + MatterForms (UK), Aula (NO), Bas Pattyn (BE), Ben Kicic x Veragouth e Xilema (USA/CH), Eleonora Todde (IT), FlatFlat (USA), Gensuke Kishi (JP/FR), Georg Foster (CH), Giulia Paradell (ES/IT), Jaipur Rugs (IND), Justyna K Szymanska (PL/UK), Labanto - Francesca Brinatti (IT), LAST Stefano Larotonda (IT/ CH), Lucie Gholam (FR-LB), Ludovica Corti (IT), Lyuda Skrynnykova (UA), Marie- Amélie Poisson (FR), Marijke De Cock (BE), Marta Abbott (CZ-US/IT), Materica (IT), Miltgen (LUX/FR), Monostudio Associati (IT), Nuvó Studio (MEX), Omniaworks x Payam Askari (IT/FR-IR/FR), PLASMA-f x Frigerio Marmi e Graniti (IT), Rugsandrugs (UA), Ryoko Nakamura × Triptych (JP/USA), Selma Wallbom (SE), Sierra Kanistanaux (USA), Spinzi (IT), studio högl borowski (AT), Studio Lilium (IT), Studio Zero (IT), Studio Zing (IL), Super Rat (JP), Susanna Costantini - Antonio Barone (IT), Thomas Kurer (CH), Tobie Chevallier (FR), Tokio. (SI), Vacuum Atelier (IT), Verstrepen.studio (BE), Yentele (FR), Yunju Jung (KR), ZPSTUDIO (IT).

Curator of Contemporary Design Selection – Giovanna Massoni (born in Milan, lives and works in Brussels) is an independent curator and consultant working in the field of design and visual arts. Since 2005 she has collaborated regularly with institutions for the promotion of Belgian and international design. Constantly searching for collaborative methodologies and innovative forms that can valorize and communicate the cultural and social value of design, she strongly supports this practice for its ability to facilitate openness, interconnections and interdisciplinary collaboration, today indispensable for the construction of a new ecosystem of values and objects.

Curator of Aldo Rossi. Architecture by Fragments – Chiara Spangaro, is an art historian and indepen- dent curator in the fields of contemporary art, architecture and design. She is the Scientific Director of Aldo Rossi Foundation and curatorial consultant for Giovanni Gastel Archive. In collaboration with Germano Celant, she curated the Art and Architecture Department at Triennale Milano from 2009 to 2012. She has served as associate curator for exhibitions and publications including Arts & Foods (2015), Christo and Je- anne- Claude. Water Projects (2016), Post Zang Tumb Tuuum. Art Life Politics: Italy 1918–1943 (2018), and Richard Artschwager (2019). In 2017 she curated Aldo Rossi e Milano and Melissa McGill: The Campi, in 2018 Gio Ponti. Archi-designer In 2019 Melissa McGill. Red Regatta and Vera Rossi. Crepe. The following year she collaborated on Aldo Rossi. The Architect and the City, curated by Alberto Ferlenga and produced by MAXXI. She has been associate curator of Corpus Domini, curated by Francesca Alfano Miglietti. In 2022, she curated Aldo Rossi. Design 1960–1997. In 2024 she worked in Venice as Project Manager for the exhibition William Kentridge. Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and curated the solo show Hernán Pitto- Bellocchio The True Administration of Nature (Spring Break Art Show 2024) in New York.

Lake Como Design Festival is a themed annual event that offers exhibitions, reflections and studies approached through a series of events in the historic centre of the city of Como and around the lake that bears its names. These exhibitions, talks and events take place in historical, unknown and almost forgot- ten places in the Como area and in the city itself. The festival mission is to establish an original dialogue between history, architecture, design and art. Lake Como Design Festival was conceived and promoted by Wonderlake Como, a collection of ideas and people that take up an extra ordinary point of view on the community and setting of Lake Como. Wonderlake Como carries out publishing projects and organises cultural events with the aim of promoting, in Italy and worldwide, a modern and integrated image of an area that has always been possessed of a strong identity.