It’s easy to assume that Italy’s design world is made up of Milan – and Milan alone. The city is home to the likes of Dimore Studio, as well as shiny showrooms for big-hitter brands from Cassina to B&B Italia. It’s also where the buzz around Salone del Mobile (and its accompanying Milan Design Week) seems to dwarf everything else. I know because I’ve spent years reporting on it.
But breaking out of the must-visit itineraries and the trade-show circuit can be a good thing, as proved by a visit to the recently concluded Lake Como Design Festival. Now on its eighth edition, the event has highlighted talent and showcased what makes Como a special setting for design. Because, let’s face it, setting is important.
As you stomp around fairs where commercial deals are thrashed out under artificial lighting, you can forget that design is a celebration of beauty, function and craft. Just look at the success of the Alcova platform in Milan, which often sets its exhibitions inside intriguing, underused or semi-abandoned buildings that tell a story about the city’s past (and, for that matter, its present).
The Lake Como festival – which is, as its name suggests, a celebration of design rather than a B2B event – is also a reminder that there is much more to the city than its lidos and the amphibious tourist planes. One of the aces up the festival’s sleeve is its regular venue, the 15th-century Villa del Grumello. Alongside the sparkling light reflected from the lake that floods its rooms, the villa also has something particular to lakeside properties: a darsena, a cavernous cellar where water flows under the villa for boats to dock, protected from the elements. This year, Luciano Baldessari’s 1929 Luminator Barcellona – a twisting floor light designed for the Barcelona International Exposition to mimic the form of a dancer on stage – was displayed under moody red lighting with a balletic effect. It’s not something that could be achieved in a showroom or an airless trade-show setting.
Perhaps the most memorable segment of the festival relied on its surroundings. Arranged along a path inside the villa’s gardens – with more views of the lake poking through the trees – was an exhibition titled In Nature: Stories of Those Who Have Chosen Another Life. The work of journalist Paola Manfredi and photographer Selene Magnolia Gatti, which captured this year’s theme of the “Confine” (Border), was displayed at intervals as six large portraits. Accompanying texts explained the people in the photos, whose rural alpine lives are closely linked to nature. Was this strictly design? I’m not sure. Was it enhanced by the setting? Absolutely.
The design press can often get caught up on the latest chair, colourway or business deal but sometimes we forget to look around. Great design needs context, even if it might still be somewhat removed from our own daily lives (sadly I’m yet to acquire a lakeside pile or an Alcova-style former factory). Lake Como Design Festival is a reminder that our surroundings have the power to shape how we feel. If nothing else, it’s nice to get out of the trade halls and visit the lake on a balmy autumn day.
Ed Stocker is Monocle’s Milan-based Europe editor at large. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
