Discover the Can’t-Miss Highlights from This Year’s Lake Como Design Festival

Lake Como Design Festival, now in its eighth edition, weaves its way around both the city and the lake, presenting work in spectacular locations that include historic houses, designers’ studios, and chic hotels. Running from September 12–20, the event is a design celebration like no other. “It’s been a huge success, and now it’s growing geographically,” says Giovanna Massoni, a Brussels-based curator who oversees the Contemporary Design Selection. “This year we have three new locations in Lecco.” Just 40 minutes from Como by car, they include the lyrically named Hotel Promessi Sposi (it means “the betrothed”), where sculptor Laura Santamaria will show her totemic works of terracotta heads balanced on plinths of narrow tree trunks.

At Casabianca in Como, where the all-Italian art collection of the De Santis family is always on show and three stunning suites are available to guests, a film about the master designer Cini Boeri will be on offer. (The De Santis’s other hotels are Passalacqua and the Grand Hotel Tremezzo). Meanwhile, the studio where the formidable Ico Parisi once developed his designs is open to visitors. It was Parisi, incidentally, who encouraged Paolo and Antonella de Santis to start collecting art.

Should one fancy a trip to the sleepy village of Laglio, 20 minutes by car, the historic boatyard of Ernesto Riva—famed maker of yachts—is the place to see an exhibition dedicated to the future of sustainable sailing on Lake Como.

“For us, it’s important to combine the experimental and the commercial,” says Massoni. “We want to maintain the dialogue between the design industry and creators of one-off pieces, and take account of research and the importance of archives.” As a backdrop, Como could hardly be better. An officially designated UNESCO Creative City, it has a long history of fine textile production, particularly silk, as well as radical architecture. Don’t miss the chance to see Giuseppe Terragni’s pioneering Casa del Fascio, a school built in the rationalist style in 1932—or the opportunity to start your evening with a perfect negroni, served in the Covo bar at Casabianca.  

Below, discover the can’t-miss highlights from this year’s edition.

Villa Del Grumello

The elegant villa, just north of the city beside the lake, is the heart of the festival. Here, a number of projects explore the relationship between history and innovation, memories and archives. Among the many exhibits that fill the villa’s domestic spaces are carpets made as a collaboration between printmakers Edizioni Lithos and Jaipur Rugs, featuring designs by artist Lupo Borgonovo, who has looked to the nomadic peoples of Eurasia for inspiration. Drawings from the Carla Badiali Archive will be on show—the Como-born abstract artist worked frequently with Hubert de Givenchy and Pierre Balmain. While Etel, the Brazilian furniture company headed by Etel Carmona, is bringing iconic pieces by Lina Bo Bardi.

Parco Del Grumello

In the parkland around the villa, an exhibition of photography by Selene Magnolia Gatti provides an intriguing route through the landscape. Gatti worked as an emergency nurse and in places of humanitarian crisis before turning to photography. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she now focuses on social themes—migration, food production, the environment. Here she is looking at those who exist on the border of the city and the wilderness, following six people’s personal lives.

Villa Saporiti

This stunning 18th-century villa on the Lino Gelpi promenade is being used as an exhibition space for the very first time, including its grand elliptical salon. “It’s full of incredible decoration and frescoes, with each room a different color, so we’ve had to co-habit with its interiors,” says Giovanna Massoni. On display will be work from 60 designers, including 30-year-old ceramist Anna Merkulova, who celebrates imperfection in her practice. A duo from Rome, called Studio Pastina, who usually collaborate with upmarket Italian furniture companies, have taken the opportunity to go out on a limb, creating a huge anthropomorphic sculptural seat, upholstered in Prince of Wales check, which acknowledges Rome’s monumental buildings and Italy’s post-war design heritage.

Santa Caterina Church

This deconsecrated church in the city center, with crumbling walls and fragments of frescoes, is hosting work by Luca Monterastelli as well as CC Tapis hand-crafted carpets. Monterastelli is known for his abstract forms; in this case, monochrome artworks in concrete and metal.

Conservatorio Di Como

Como’s musical conservatory is housed in a 15th-century building that was once a hospital. During the festival, a sound work is presented through the Cosmos sound system. A unique audio system, it was developed in 2025 for immersive electronic music performances by the multi-disciplinary Como studio Ultrapresent with the sound engineer Alessandro Buggio, originally to recreate a 1970s work by Giusto Pio. Now it will offer a new work, created by the conservatory’s electronic music department, called Atto Puro (or Pure Act), in its organ room. 

Ico Parisi Design Archive

In his lifetime, the Como designer Ico Parisi, often with his wife Luisa, created iconic designs for Cassina and Fontana Arte. Now his archive is held in his former studio. Here, a new exhibition spotlights his collaborations with Giuliano Collina, from the 1960s until his death in 1996. Among their most famous pieces were ceramic objects including the Profile plate (1965) and the Apple basin (1971), which were produced by Zanoli & Sebbelin, an artistic ceramic manufacturer based near Vicenza. The plates now fetch in the region of $2,000 at auction.