Lake Como Design Festival 2025

Details

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.

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 name. These exhibitions, talks and events take place in historical, unknown and almost forgotten 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 extraordinary point of view on the community and setting of Lake Como.

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.

Fragments of Memory
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.

Contemporary Design Selection
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, Architecture by Fragments 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 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.