Lake Como Design Festival Returns for Its Eighth Edition

From 12 to 20 September 2026, the Lake Como Design Festival returns for its eighth edition. This year’s theme, Boundary, explores the idea of the boundary as a space for connection and transformation, while the festival expands its reach for the first time to include Lecco. The programme unfolds across historic landmarks and new venues. Villa del Grumello hosts Future in the Past, an exhibition exploring the relationship between memory and design, while the Contemporary Design Selection moves to Villa Saporiti for the first time. A new exhibition itinerary, developed in collaboration with local educational institutions, will also extend across Como and Lecco. Following our conversation with Giovanna Massoni and Francesca Prandelli about the theme Boundary and the Contemporary Design Selection, we spoke with Lorenzo Butti, founder and artistic director of the festival, about the broader vision behind this edition and its main new developments.



What led you to choose Boundary as this year’s theme? Why did it feel particularly relevant to explore it through design today?
Every year, we choose a contemporary theme that inspires us, and this year more than ever we felt it was important to address the idea of boundaries. Not simply as lines dividing territories, ideas, states of mind or levels of consciousness, but also as meeting points: spaces that define us while creating connections. Boundaries can be places of tension and transformation, of contact and exchange. Reflecting on this subject today is not only about understanding where “the other” begins or ends, but also about gaining a clearer sense of who we are and where we want to go.

For the first time, the festival is expanding beyond Como to include Lecco. What does this development represent, particularly with an eye to the future?
This expansion is a very important step for us. Our aim is to turn the festival into a broader, more widespread experience across the Lake Como area, creating a network between different institutions and communities. We believe this approach is essential to developing a strong cultural ecosystem throughout the region. It can also make an important contribution to experiential tourism, which is becoming increasingly relevant as a way of addressing the challenges of overtourism. Lake Como is already a world-renowned destination, particularly for its hospitality. What we want to highlight is the important role this area has played - and continues to play - as a vibrant centre for artistic and architectural experimentation and for the creation of contemporary design.

This year, the festival is also involving higher education institutions in Como and Lecco. What can emerge from the dialogue between a cultural event, academic research and a new generation of designers?
Our collaborations with the University of Insubria, Politecnico di Milano’s Lecco Campus, the Como Conservatory, Aldo Galli Academy of Fine Arts in Como, Istituto Europeo di Design and Central Saint Martins in London are intended to create a direct dialogue between different cultures and generations. We want to encourage exchange and discussion, while involving students in the cultural activities organised by Wonderlake Como ETS throughout the year.

Over the past eight years, Lake Como Design Festival has developed a very distinctive identity, far removed from the model of large-scale design fairs. What would you like visitors to recognise as its defining quality?
Lake Como Design Festival is a cultural event that invites visitors to explore a theme through a programme spread across different locations, built each year around a specific area of reflection. Rather than presenting a simple sequence of exhibitions and installations, the festival creates an experience in which design enters into dialogue with historical heritage, the landscape and the identity of the places that host it. This approach is precisely what makes the festival distinctive. It offers a different pace from that of major design fairs, leaving more room for observation, exchange and discovery. Lake Como, with its extraordinary landscape and cultural heritage, becomes an integral part of the narrative, creating the conditions for a slower, more immersive and thoughtful experience. We would like visitors to see the festival not simply as an opportunity to discover contemporary design, but as a space where design itself becomes a way of understanding the territory and its material culture.