Lake Como Design Festival 2024

The Lake Como Design Festival is back, now in its sixth edition, bringing to the shores of one of the most famous lakes in the world a rich program of widespread exhibitions, site-specific installations and special projects that intertwine on the themes of contemporary design, industrial or independent, and artistic expressions, from 15 to 22 September 2024.



Guto Davies, 1282 Chair, ph. Huw Morris-Jones

Developed around the theme of lightness, this year the festival is even more present in the fabric of the city, occupying the spaces in the center of the Palazzo del Broletto and the church of San Pietro in Atrio, while on the lakefront the protagonists are Villa del Grumello and the other locations within the Chilometro della Conoscenza. Furthermore, in Villa Anna in Cernobbio and in Borgovico33 in the center of Como two special projects by the Grieder Contemporary gallery and in various locations in the city the site-specific installations created by the artist Valerio Eliogabalo Torrisi.


Dalmoto, Sister Moon

Inside the late Renaissance spaces of Villa Del Grumello, the festival hosts the exhibition Lightness in Progress, a selection of works, projects, objects and furnishings from different galleries, design studios and archives that aim to develop a path around the theme of lightness in its broadest sense. Among the projects exhibited: Impressions by Andrea Branzi curated by Clio Calvi Rudy Volpi; Eredi Marelli with a selection of works by Angelo Mangiarotti, Enrico Rava, Paolo Buffa; Calle dei Cavalli Gallery with CaraDavide, Francesco Maria Messina, Enrico Bianchettin and Matteo Pala; Dalmoto with the project Sister moon chair; Fine Art by Di Mano in Mano with a selection of crystals from the Spinzi collection by, among others, Pietro Chiesa, Laura Santillana, Renato Toso, Vinicio Vianello, Toni Zuccheri, in dialogue with the Flow collection, a series of unique pieces designed and made by Spinzi in Murano; Design Archive Ico Parisi with the project ‘Images for an Industry’, 1968-1970.

As in a widespread kunsthalle, the scenic greenhouses and other spectacular sites of the Chilometro della Conoscenza host nstead the projects of the Contemporary Design Selection, an exhibition dedicated to independent design curated for the second consecutive year by Giovanna Massoni. Furthermore, in the ancient dock of the villa, the audio/video installation Paesaggi d’acqua by Stefano Larotonda and Niccolò Nessi, with the narrative voice of Giuseppe Innocente. In the Serra del Grumello, inside the park, a temporary restaurant curated by the starred chef Samuel Carugati, created thanks to the partnership with FENIX®, Pedrali, Davide Groppi and Acqua Chiarella; the space is animated by a series of talks with the designers of the Contemporary Design Selection powered by ParolaProgetto and moderated by the journalist Paolo Ferrarini.


Chilometro della Conoscenza

In the city center, in the Palazzo del Broletto, is set the exhibition The Form of Lightness, a look at the theme of lightness expressed in over 100 years of design of a fundamental element of furniture: the chair. Here you can discover some of the most important works in the history of design of the last 100 years, signed by authors such as Mario Botta, Cini Boeri, Marcel Breuer, Paolo Buffa, Joe Colombo, Francesco Faccin, Eileen Gray, Piero Lissoni, Vico Magistretti, Alberto Meda, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Jasper Morrison, Verner Panton, Gio Ponti, Aldo Rossi, Giuseppe Terragni, for companies such as Alias, Bonacina, ClassiCon, Cools Collection, Fiam, Gebrüder Thonet Vienna, Kartell, Matteo Grassi, Porro, Tolix, UniFor, or from galleries such as Giustini Stagetti, Maniera, Rossana Orlandi and from archives such as Archivio Giuseppe Terragni, Eredi Marelli.

The thirteenth-century church of San Pietro in Atrio, instead, hosts Lightness on Paper, an exhibition project created to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Lithos, a Como-based publishing house specializing in prints and art books that presents new works created by some of the most well-known and appreciated Italian and international architects, designers and creatives - DWA Design Studio, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Valerio Gaeti, Francesco Faccin, Naessi Studio, Lucia Pescador, Franco Raggi, Mario Trimarchi. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue opened by a critical text by Maria Cristina Didero.

Among the special projects, a series of site-specific installations by the artist Valerio Eliogabalo Torrisi involves different city realities through works created specifically for the occasion, while the Swiss gallery Grieder Contemporary exhibits 33 works by the artist Jorinde Voigt in the Borgovico space and sets up the group exhibition Weight of Illumination in its new location in Villa Anna, Cernobbio.