Lake Como Design Festival returns from September 15 to 22 with exhibitions, installations and events in new venues
Lake Como Design Festival chooses ‘Lightness’ as the title of its sixth edition. The theme of lightness will, in fact, guide visitors on an extensive journey, discovering site-specific exhibitions and installations in the city of Como and surrounding its lake from September 15 to 22.
With the call to action over, the Festival announces the names of the designers featured in the Contemporary Design Selection and presents the Chilometro della Conoscenza, a new venue overlooking the lake that will host a scattered exhibition this year.
In fact, the most significant innovation of this edition will be the opening of the Chilometro della Conoscenza (“Kilometer of Knowledge”) to the public, in collaboration with Associazione Villa del Grumello and Fondazione Antonio Ratti, which will host a new exhibition route. Located near the center of the city of Como, the Chilometro della Conoscenza brings together several historic villas overlooking the lake through 15 hectares of centuries-old parks. The exhibitions will take place in the park and in the prestigious Villa del Grumello, which will be hosting select galleries and international editors.
Contemporary Design Selection
The scenic greenhouses and other spectacular sites of the Chilometro della Conoscenza will host the projects of the Contemporary Design Selection, an exhibition dedicated to independent design curated by Giovanna Massoni for the second consecutive year.
The result is a series of objects in dialogue between traditional craftsmanship and technology, arcane forms and innovation, in search of a fertile and never nostalgic link between past and present, with a desire to rediscover local craft heritage freeing it from the weight of tradition, eliminating the superfluous and updating techniques and materials in the name of sustainability.
This concept is translated into three thematic clusters. The first imagines a reduction of weight, materials, processing and structures that determine the lightness of the object as well as a lower environmental impact.
A second cluster is dedicated to agile, transformable, foldable, transportable, multifunctional and adaptable objects.
The third is dedicated to light spaces: light is lightness par excellence when its function is not only to illuminate, but also to allow natural or built spaces to transcend the material dimension and generate visual epiphanies and emotions.
Alongside the new venue of the Chilometro della Conoscenza, the Festival will also animate the center of the city of Como, with a series of exhibitions at Palazzo del Broletto, San Pietro in Atrio and Spazio Natta, and with the projects and site-specific installations of the OFF path.
Lake Como Design Festival 2024: an international edition
The 2024 edition goes well beyond our national borders including participations from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Argentina, Canada, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, France, Belgium, Spain, Poland, Latvia, United Kingdom, in addition to Italy. The architects, artisans and designers who will show their idea of lightness come from these countries.
Villa del Grumello
On the lakefront of Como and within the Chilometro della Conoscenza, Villa del Grumello is hosting Lake Como Design Festival for the first time, offering itself as a stage for galleries, independent designers, artists, companies, editors.
Lake Como Design Festival is an annual event consisting in a series of events in the historic center of Como and around its lake: exhibitions, talks and events in historic, unusual or forgotten places establish an original dialogue between history, architecture, design and art.
