“Beyond the Known”: CUPRA’s project at Design Week

At Milan Design Week 2026, CUPRA - Main Partner of Fuorisalone - presents Beyond the Known, a project that marks a further step in the brand’s evolution, increasingly oriented towards a dimension that goes beyond automotive. In just over seven years, CUPRA has built a clear trajectory: seven models launched and more than one million vehicles sold globally. A rapid evolution, accompanied by the definition of a recognizable language in which design, performance and expressiveness coexist. It is within this context that Beyond the Known takes shape, where design is not understood as a formal result, but as a process. At the center is material, understood as the origin and driving force of research. Through the use of parametric design, algorithmic processes and a dialogue with artificial intelligence, CUPRA works on new relationships between surfaces, form and perception, opening up expressive possibilities that extend beyond the product.

The project unfolds across the city through a route that involves different spaces, starting from the CUPRA Garage Milano, in Corso Como 1, where the brand presents its design language, between performance, material and identity. Here, the protagonist is CUPRA Raval, which brings the CUPRA DNA into electric mobility with a bold and distinctive character. The narrative continues in Piazza XXV Aprile, where the theme Be the Project - the guiding concept of Fuorisalone 2026 - is interpreted as an open practice and process, rather than a finished result. Here CUPRA further develops the concept of Beyond the Known, exploring parametric design and digital innovation through an approach in which material guides form. In this context, Colour & Trim - the work on colors, materials and finishes - becomes one of the central elements, translating the brand’s values into distinctive surfaces and details. Material experimentation, supported by algorithmic processes and a dialogue with artificial intelligence, opens up new expressive possibilities, generating new aesthetics and design perspectives. The public is thus invited to enter the process, following a narrative that connects material, technology and interaction, where design takes shape as a progressive experience.


©CUPRA

Completing the route, the presence at Garibaldi Gallery with the CUPRA Experience introduces a further level of interpretation, closer to the language of art. With Own the Wheel, the brand’s first art exhibition, seven European artists reinterpret the steering wheel as a symbol of control and awareness, opening a reflection on the relationship between the individual, technology and choice. Alongside this, the collaboration with Raffles Milano© brings a more experimental and generational dimension into the project. Students, involved in an intensive work developed from a brand brief, propose scenarios ranging from product to extra-automotive contexts, further expanding the field of research. The exhibition spaces are also enriched by a CUPRA Lounge created with Gandia Blasco, a Spanish company specialized in outdoor furniture, conceived as an immersive environment consistent with the brand’s aesthetic language.

More than a single intervention, Beyond the Known presents the image of a brand that uses Design Week as a field of experimentation to make a method visible: a design approach built through material, technology and relationships, opening scenarios that go beyond the boundaries of automotive itself.