A selection of the most memorable works from the Italian design event
Ten Forms of Lightness at Lake Como Design Festival
A selection of the most memorable works from the Italian design event
The Lake Como Design Festival reaches its sixth edition this year with “lightness” as its theme. Held in multiple venues—historical places, beautiful villas and city parks—in different parts of the city of Como, the selection of objects includes classics and novelties, design and art, showcasing a panorama of experimentation. Among the hundreds of objects on display, we have selected the ten that, in our opinion, best express the lightness of contemporary design.
Lightness on paper
The Como-based publishing house Lithos celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. Throughout its history, Lithos has collaborated with icons including Ettore Sottsass, Andrea Branzi and Enzo Cucchi, producing prints, engravings, lithographs and artists’ books. For this edition of the Festival, Lorenzo Butti, artistic director and founder of the Lake Como Design Festival, invited a series of architects, designers and international artists to create an original work dedicated to lightness. The result is Lightness on Paper, 10 works by Mario Botta, Michele De Lucchi, Natalie du Pasquier, DWA Studio, Francesco Faccin, Naessi Studio, Valeri Gaeti, Lucia Pescador, Franco Raggi and Mario Trimarchi will be exhibited in the evocative deconsecrated church of San Pietro in Atrio.
Images courtesy of Lake Como Design Festival
8 days of Lightness by Erlands and Bai Bai
Do glass art and meditation have anything to do with design? Looking at the work of Erlands and Bai Bai, the answer is definitely yes. Erlands incorporates meditation into the design process to imagine objects and situations that do not yet exist. His work is then intertwined with that of Bai Bai, a glass artist who gives form to these visions. On display in Como are mysterious objects made of glass and metal that can be used to find physical balance during meditation, but also for exercise. Next to them are unique drawings on paper quick-drying glues instead of pigments.
Images courtesy of Lake Como Design Festival
Homage to Ico Parisi
The beautiful Villa del Grumello hosts the group exhibition “Lightness in progress” in a breathtaking room overlooking Lake Como, a tribute to designer Ico Parisi. A beautiful carpet inspired by the light reflections on the surfaces of the lake, an interplay of volumes and transparencies in a crystal and rosewood coffee table topped by the Luisa vase in Murano glass, and on the surrounding walls visitors discover some surprising, unpublished photographs taken by the architect between 1968 and 1970.
Image courtesy of Lake Como Design Festival
Close to the Edge by Mario Trimarchi
The rooms of Villa del Grumello also host contemporary artists including Mario Trimarchi. The Sicilian-born Milanese designer is known for his industrial design objects, but in this exhibition he surprises us with his mastery of drawing a series of unique research pieces. On the walls we find incredibly detailed and realistic pencil drawings of stones. On a central table we find glasses made of very thin glass resting on stone bases. In this way we find ourselves thinking about the boundaries between lightness and heaviness, between natural and artificial, between spontaneity and design.
Images by Paolo Ferrarini
Equilibrio Instabile by Jean-François D’Or
As in previous editions, one of the most interesting sections is certainly the Contemporary Design Selection, curated by Giovanna Massoni. With Equilibrio Instabile, Euology to Audacity, the Belgian designer Jean-François D’Or has literally reinvented Columbus’s egg. Inspired by a conversation with a neuroscientist, he set out to create an object capable of representing the concept of audacity. The result is 100 wooden cubes topped by a wooden egg that can stand still thanks to a magnetic support. A matter of millimeters, it’s easier to let it roll away than to keep it balanced.
Images courtesy of Lake Como Design Festival
Micare Obscuro by Dora Stanczel and Pietre Trovanti
Dora Stanczel is an artist who specializes in working with porcelain, while Pietre Trovanti is dedicated to working with reclaimed stone. Their meeting resulted in Micare Obscuro, where Limoges porcelain and black granite come together to create objects with a strong impact, where lightness and solidity become one.
Image courtesy of Lake Como Design Festival
Soft Silence by 9+1
Japanese craftsmanship is not afraid of technology. We can see this very clearly in Soft Silence, a site-specific installation in which 9+1 designers have created lamps made of washi paper (the lightest paper in the world) with a tiny LED inside. An innovative production system similar to 3D printing was developed for this project, in which the still liquid paste is arranged according to a set of data using a programmed plotter.
Images courtesy of Lake Como Design Festival
Onggi by Ye Sul E. Cho
Korean designer and researcher Ye Sul E. Cho has long worked with 3D-printed ceramics. At the Como Festival she presents a series of lightweight vases inspired by traditional forms. Starting with the objects given to newlyweds, vases with rounded shapes representing masculine and feminine forms. The lightness in this case is as much in the form as in the substance, since the designer decided to use as little ceramic as possible, pushing this technique to the limit.
Images by Paolo Ferrarini
Memento by Philippine Aprile Mandillon
Philippine Aprile Mandillon is an architect, and Memento is her first foray into design. Her studio is dedicated to the restoration of old buildings in France, so she brings familiarity of classical architecture. For this candle series she took architectural elements and extracted, reduced, cut, and mixed them, then transforming them into candles. Light and lightness work in harmony, making us feel the solidity and durability of architecture in a new way.
Image by Paolo Ferrarini
Night and Day by Hana Hillerová
A few years ago Czechoslovakian artist Hana Hillerová decided to move into a new studio house. In her view, light defines the true nature of a home, and she started looking for good lamps. Not satisfied with what she found, she decided to use her skills as a sculptor to make what was in her head, creating the glass lamps of the Night and Day series—objects that change radically and beautifully when turned on or off.
Images by Paolo Ferrarini
Open to the public until 22 September 2024. Further information and tickets are available at Lake Como Design Festival.