Studio Visit / Where projects, creativity and culture meet.

Design studios, galleries, artists' ateliers and hotels become the protagonists of a journey dedicated to art, architecture and design. Exhibitions, site-specific installations and contents created specifically for the occasion enrich the program of the eighth edition.

Accademia di Como Aldo Galli. On the occasion of the Lake Como Design Festival, Accademia di Como opens its Conservation and Restoration workshops, inviting the public to observe students working on real cultural heritage objects. It is an opportunity to discover up close a process that often remains unseen, where research, expertise, and craftsmanship accompany works of art through time. The workshop thus becomes a space for dialogue between memory, design, and new generations.

Accademia di Como Aldo Galli
Restoration Laboratory
Como, via Petrarca 9
from 12 to 20 September 2026
10 AM -1 PM, 2 PM-7 PM

Archivio Cattaneo. Founded at the wish of Cesare Cattaneo’s (1912–1943) heirs, the archive is located in the Rental House in Cernobbio (1938–39), universally recognized as the masterpiece of the Como-born architect. The materials preserved in the archive – sketches, working papers, architectural models, and personal documents – have been collected, inventoried, and catalogued to make his rich cultural legacy accessible to scholars and visitors alike. Within this rationalist masterpiece, a small museum hosts numerous models, both original and reconstructed, offering the public a scaled visual representation of his remarkable design genius.

Archivio Cattaneo
Cernobbio, via Regina 41
16 September 2026 / 3-5 PM
17 September 2026 / 11 AM-3 PM

Archivio Giuliano Collina. The studio of Como-based artist Giuliano Collina, who recently passed away, will exceptionally open its doors to the public. Beginning his career within the language of Pop Art, Collina developed a deeply personal artistic expression, culminating in works of extraordinary stylistic and conceptual synthesis. The Associazione Archivio Giuliano Collina, together with the Archivio Parisi, pays tribute to his legacy alongside that of Ico Parisi through an exhibition of early 1970s collages made from fragments of advertising posters. These works not only testify to the relationship between the two artists, but also reaffirm Collina's Pop Art roots while foreshadowing the increasingly existential direction of his artistic practice, expressed through the sense of estrangement generated by the juxtaposition of otherwise unrelated images.

Archivio Giuliano Collina
Como, via Don Brusadelli 28
16, 17, 18 September 2026 / 3-6 PM
19 September 2026 / 11 AM-7 PM

Since 1994, Arte&Arte APS has been dedicated to the promotion of contemporary art. Its flagship initiative is Miniartextil, an exhibition of contemporary textile art, held since 1991 in Como and in several other European cities. Over the years, Arte&Arte has built a rich collection of artworks, a unique record of the evolution of contemporary textile art over the past three decades. This collection is displayed in the association’s studio, which also houses works by fiber artist Mimmo Totaro, president of the association and its co-founder together with Nazzarena Bortolaso.

Arte&Arte Miniartextil
Como, via Pannilani 23
from 12 to 20 September 2026
9-12 AM, 2-6 PM
by appointment only
mimmototaro@gmail.com
T. +39 335 6127157
T. +39 328 6299568

Event: 18 September / 6 PM
Cocktail and introduction to Miniartextil
Upon reservation
mimmototaro@gmail.com
T. +39 335 6127157
T. +39 328 6299568

Founded in Como in 2007 by Draga Obradovic and Aurel K. Basedow, Draga & Aurel is a multidisciplinary studio working across art and collectible design. Material experimentation lies at the core of their practice: resin, concrete, plexiglass, glass, and metal are transformed through artisanal processes in which colour, light, and matter become expressive tools. Since 2019, this vision has taken shape in Transparency Matters, an ever-evolving collection. The design atelier, production workshop, and the artistic practice of Aurel K. Basedow foster an ongoing dialogue between art and design, research and craftsmanship.

Atelier Draga&Aurel
Como, via Ferrari 7
from 14 to 18 September 2026
9 AM -1 PM / 2 PM - 6 PM
12, 13, 19, 20 September 2026
11 AM - 6 PM

For the eighth edition of Lake Como Design Festival, CASABIANCA, a contemporary house museum just a short walk from the lake, joins the festival route for the first time, opening its doors to La Casa di Cini Boeri, the film dedicated to one of the leading figures of Italian design. The screening finds its natural setting within an elegant domestic interior, where contemporary artworks engage in dialogue with a curated selection of vintage designer furniture and collectible design pieces, transforming the viewing into an immersive experience. Completing the installation are the re-editions of two of Cini Boeri's iconic lamps, produced by Codiceicona, in a tribute that weaves together design heritage and contemporary craftsmanship.

CASABIANCA
Como, Lungo Lario Trento 47
12-20 September 2026
screening times 10 -11, 14 -15, 17 -18
access limited to 15 people per screening

decordes.studio is the collaborative practice of Nicolas de Cordes and Katya Degrieck, a duo whose work explores the interplay between reality, form, and silence. Nicolas creates art that invites deep attention, encouraging a more intimate connection with the world around us, and for this show the borders between process and objects. Katya focuses on archetypal, geometric forms that feel rooted in our collective memory, stripping away ornamentation. Based in Dublin and Blevio, their practice serves as a thoughtful dialogue between perception and material. The visit is at their studio in a 19th-century house and home in Blevio.

decordes.studio
Blevio, Frazione Cazzanore 35*
13 September 2026 / 10 AM - 2 PM
14, 15 September 2026 / 9 AM - 1 PM

*Accessed on foot through the village
from n.1 Frazione Cazzanore;
please note there is no direct road access.

Galli Cavalcabò architecture studio is located at Via Milano No. 307. It consists of two buildings constructed in different phases of the 20th century: one from the 1930s in masonry that housed a distillery, and one built later in concrete used as a garage. The project preserves and reinterprets the original elements from different eras through a surgical intervention of subtraction: cutting the roof while keeping the structural elements of the beams exposed allowed for the creation of an internal courtyard that brings light and air into all spaces, and cutting the concrete barrels to give them a new function.

Galli Cavalcabò
Como, via Milano 307
from 14 to 19 September 2026
11 AM - 6 PM

Hilton Lake Como confirms its presence in the exhibition route of the Lake Como Design Festival by hosting Echoes of Mexico, a project by Coco Brun x Sten Studio. Set within the hotel's central courtyard, the collection of sculptural vessels in marble, travertine, and onyx creates a dialogue between the tactile quality of the works, their vibrant natural hues, and the clean lines of the building's contemporary architecture. Handcrafted in Mexico City, the pieces reinterpret pre-Columbian architecture through sculptural forms that explore memory, territory and materiality.

Hilton Lake Como
Como, via Borgo Vico 241
12-20 September 2026

For the first time, the Lake Como Design Festival extends its route to Lecco, welcoming among its new venues the Hotel Promessi Sposi, which hosts Bosco Sacro (Sacred Forest), a project dedicated to Laura Santamaria’s exploration of the boundary between the visible and the invisible, between the earthly dimension and a cosmic aspiration. Terracotta faces emerge from tree trunks used as natural plinths. Like silent, archetypal presences, the sculptures evoke artifacts from an imagined excavation: fragments of an archaeology in which earth, wood, and natural materials preserve traces of rituals, distant memories, and ancestral connections.

Hotel Promessi Sposi
Malgrate (Lecco), viale Italia 4
12-20 September 2026

Overlooking the first basin of Lake Como, pieds dans l’eau, Hotel Villa Flori hosts Taami, Matteo Ragni’s project dedicated to wellbeing and self-care, as part of the eighth edition of Lake Como Design Festival. Created to foster balance between body and mind, Taami reflects the festival’s theme, Border, as a space of connection between opposites: movement and meditation, tension and calm. The exhibition will be accompanied by special Pilates sessions, transforming the villa into a place of mindfulness, relaxation, and deep connection with oneself.

Hotel Villa Flori
Como, via per Cernobbio 12
12-20 September 2026

Event: 13 and 20 September / 10 AM
Pilates with TAAMI by Matteo Ragni
Approximately one hour
Registration required at
desk@lakecomodesignfestival.com

Make Your Abstract Real Woorkshop – Border is an intimate threshold: the passage between a private idea and its presence in the world. During the workshops, participants create a graphic composition that will be transformed into a wearable bandana. Through the Cromo-Collage technique, combining professional markers and archival textures, crossing the edges becomes an act of personal expression. Guided by experts, participants translate a visual intuition into a high-quality textile object, merging individual creativity with local craftsmanship. A distributed experience between the Studio de Le Carte di Betilla and the Print Lab of Tipografia Banfi.

Make Your Abstract Real
Le Carte di Betilla,
Como, via Regina Teodolinda 17
12, 19 September 2026 / 10 - 12.30 AM, 3 - 5.30 PM
13, 20 September 2026 / 10 - 12 .30 AM
16, 17 September 2026 / 6.30 - 9 PM

Workshop info and reservations:
makeyourabstractreal.com
makeyourabstractreal@gmail.com

In April 2025, Materia 2.0 inaugurated, in the heart of Milan, what the press has described as Italy’s most comprehensive encyclopedia of materials for architecture. On the occasion of the Lake Como Design Festival, Materia 2.0 exceptionally opens the doors to the place where this vision first took shape. Located within Parco Sant’Elia, the Como materials library preserves more than a decade of research, experimentation, and design culture. It is here that a cross-disciplinary body of knowledge has been developed, bringing together materials, furniture, and lighting while creating meaningful connections between industry and craftsmanship. A unique opportunity to visit the laboratory where Materia 2.0’s bespoke approach to design was born.

Materia 2.0
Como, parco Sant'Elia
14-19 September 2026 / 9 AM - 6 PM

Branding and communication studio sited in the historic Palazzo Pantera, overlooking Como Cathedral, Memesi unfolds across two opposite yet complementary spaces: one dedicated to design, the other to encounter. These spaces become the stage for Both & And, an exhibition that places Janine Sîrbovan's paintings in dialogue with the tension between the two areas. The painted bodies become architecture, architecture becomes psychological state. Figures fragment, duplicate, dissolve, tracing the invisible structures that define how we inhabit ourselves and relate to others.

Memesi
Como, via Rodari 9
14 -18 September 2026 / 5-8 PM
13, 19, 20 September 2026 / 10 AM-1 PM, 2 -6 PM

The studio Harry Miesbauer Yacht Design, founded in 2007, will open its doors. Harry Miesbauer is internationally recognised for his work in sailing yacht design, ranging from fast cruisers to pure racing yachts. Have a “sneak-in” and immerse yourself in the beauty, creativity, and lightness of yacht design in its purest form. A selection of models and materials from their most significant projects will also be on display.

Event – 16 September 6.30 PM – con(senza)fine, roundtable discussion between three designers from different disciplines: Oscar Buratti (architect and furniture designer), Alberto Simeone (yacht designer), and Harry Miesbauer (yacht designer); moderated by Eugenio Ruocco (Deputy Editor of Il Giornale della Vela). Limited participation, registration required info@hmyd.it

Harry Miesbauer Yacht Design
Como, via Volta 43
from 13 to 15 September 2026
11 AM –1 PM, 3 PM – 7 PM
16 September 2026
11 AM-1 PM
from 17to 20 September 2026
11 AM-1 PM, 3-7 PM

Fabrizio Musa. Artist Fabrizio Musaʼs atelier in Como was once the home and studio of Giuseppe Terragni. The atelier will be open to visitors during the seventh edition of the Lake Como Design Festival. Since his artistic debut in the second half of the 1990s, Fabrizio Musa has blended more traditional painting techniques with new technologies.

Fabrizio Musa
Como, via Indipendenza 55, angolo Piazzolo Terragni
from 16 to 20 September 2026 / 3-7 PM
or by appointment:
T. +39 347 5235233
info@fabriziomusa.com

Every object is made by crossing boundaries. Nosetta and Clerici Tessuto meet at the points where their roles touch: Clerici's historical archive is the starting point, the bag the destination. In between lies the work — of those who know how to read an archive, translate it into fabric, and create. For the Lake Como Design Festival 2026 we chose to make this process visible at the Nosetta Store in Como: a path that moves through archive, weaving, design and production. Each step demonstrates that a boundary does not divide. It generates relation. A fabric drawn from the Clerici archive, a bag made by Nosetta, a space that tells every crossing.

Nosetta + Clerici Tessuto
Como, via Vitani 19
12-20 September 2026 / 10 AM-7 PM

Sopraognidove Artlab was born from Davide Romanò's need for a place that could speak his own language, while shielding him from reality and becoming a creative refuge. It is at once a studio, an exhibition space, and a home. Conceived and curated in every detail, every element stems from a personal vision, with the aim of embedding a code of his artistic expression into the space itself. Dreamlike canvases inhabited by stars, moons, and oneiric figures evoke an imaginary world of symbols and memory. A place where the soul finds a home before the body does.

Davide Romanò
Como, via Miani 1
12 September 2026 / 3-8 PM
13 September 2026 / 5-8 PM
14, 15, 16 September 2026 / 6.30-9 PM
18 September 2026 / 5-9 PM
19, 20 September 2026 / 3-8 PM

Booking recommended:
T. +39 3939256597
davide@davideromano.it

Event: 17 September 18.30
MY BORDER,
curated by critic Luca Cantone D’Amore
Free admission

1948, attended the Polytechnic University of Milan and collaborated for many years with architectural firms. In his Como studio, in addition to organizing and setting up exhibitions, he works in the fields of graphic design, painting, and sculpture. He has created environmental installations in open-air spaces, featuring large-scale structures made with materials related to “Textil Art”. In 1991, together with Nazzarena Bortolaso, he founded the artistic exhibition Miniartextil.

VR. A. - Vito Ruscio Architetto
Como, via Rezzonico 23
12-20 September 2026 / 10 AM-7 PM

Event: 15 September, 6-10 PM
Cocktail open to the public

The architecture firm Ceresa Grandis Architetti explores the fragment — in its positive sense — as a part of a whole. The connection with the vast natural and man-made landscape that shapes the territory in which we live remains central. The public is invited to interpret these fragments as individual territorial units, through the work of artist Colombo, the studio, and the photographs of Andrea Ceriani — offering reinterpretations of fragments of collective memory, the genius loci, and the resilience of natural landscapes.

Studio Laura Santamaria
Como, via Grilloni 29
12, 13, 19, 20 September 2026 / 10 AM-8 PM
14, 16, 17, 18 September 2026 / 3-8 PM

By appointment:
studiolaurasantamaria@gmail.com
laurasantamaria.it

Spazio4 Architecture work.shop is an architecture firm where boundaries are not separations but a condition of living. They are the threshold where space interacts with those who cross it, where interior and exterior, memory and transformation, matter and light intertwine. Each project arises from a process of listening, discussion, and research, challenging solutions and certainties until a shared balance is found. Architecture thus becomes a place where boundaries transform into possibilities and living into experiences.

Spazio4
Como, via Lambertenghi 4
12 September 2026
9.30-12.30 AM, 2.30-6.30 PM
14-19 September 2026
9.30-12.30 AM, 2.30-6.30 PM

Storehouse Como opens its doors to host Dracula, a Switzerland-based studio. A new creative connection crossing borders, born from a shared passion for mid-century design, collectible objects, and their stories. Two visions come together in a curated selection of vintage and collectible design pieces challenging the fleeting nature of trends and celebrating the timelessness of objects. Set within a brutalist space that blurs the line between storage and living environment, the exhibition invites visitors to embark on a journey through time, where design becomes a language of permanence, revealing the enduring value of craft and the immortality of objects.

The Storehouse of Immortal objects
Como, via Napoleona 84
12, 13 September 2026 / 10 AM-6 PM
14-18 September 2026 / 10.30 AM-5.30 PM
by appointment: IG @storehousecomo
19 September 2026 / 10 AM-6 PM

Event: 13 September 2-8 PM
Storehouse Opening
free admission

uau studio, founded by Gianluca Santosuosso, operates at the intersection of architecture and experiential design. Its name echoes the Italian pronunciation of “wow” and reflects a design approach that aims to generate surprise. Through every project, the studio explores the boundary between natural and human space, creating environments that resonate with people and their surroundings. Lucia embodies this vision: a floating suite that dissolves the separation between land and water, inviting guests to experience Lake Como from within. Inspired by Manzoni’s historic batél, it transforms water from a physical boundary into a space of connection, reimagining the boundary as a place of encounter and new ways of living.

uau studio
Como, via dei Mille 5
12-19 September 2026 / 2-6 PM
Book your visit:
lcdf2026@uau-studio.com