🔹 Giulio Cappellini e il Futuro del Design | Lezione di Design 2025 🚀🎨

Thank you so much. It's a great pleasure to receive these things while you are still alive. I discovered that this is the first honorary card given to a designer in this series. I believe culture is Italy's strength. In culture there is history, tradition, heritage, manufacturing, and that makes Made in Italy triumph worldwide. But culture must be the foundation, because not everything made in Italy is beautiful—there are extraordinary things but also copies and bad things. Culture is essential. We need people like you who defend this. As Achille Castiglioni said, designers must create useful and beautiful objects, but above all make people dream and smile. You can only do that if you work with your head but especially with your heart. Thank you again for this honorary membership. We must defend our culture and Italianness, because that is what the world envies us.

Yes, when I started working I was studying architecture at the Politecnico di Milano. During my studies I was very lucky to work for a year in Gio Ponti's studio. Everyone knows Gio Ponti was one of Italy's greatest artists and architects. I often say one year with Gio Ponti was worth more than five years of university. I thought I would become an architect, but at that time Cappellini was a very small family company with 12-13 employees. I started working to earn some money, and one evening I told my father I wanted to take the company forward. He said, 'OK, take your responsibilities and go ahead.' At that time, Italian design was already famous. On one side were young designers like Ponti, Castiglioni, Aulenti, Sottsass, etc., and on the other side were young entrepreneurs like Busnelli, Cassina, Kartell who saw design as a new form of business. This small group created a worldwide phenomenon. I thought, 'I can't think creativity exists only in Italy. I'm interested in what happens in countries less contaminated by design culture.' So I started traveling in Europe, North America, Asia. I had the great opportunity to meet either great personalities or completely unknown young talents who started working with me. Today all these people—from Marc Newson to Tom Dixon, from Jasper Morrison to Piero Lissoni—are international design stars. I always say in my next life I'll be an agent for designers. So this journey began, this passion to innovate, to compare Italian quality with multiculturalism. I don't like monocultural companies. As Mies van der Rohe said, it's beautiful to use all products and materials, natural and artificial. So I started working with these people, leaving them great freedom and creativity. This is how the story grew. There has been a continuous work on products; many ideas became products, others remained experiments. As art director, I have to control the thread connecting these different approaches.

Yes, at the beginning there were great difficulties. I received phone calls from colleagues saying, 'Are you crazy calling foreign designers? Do you want to kill Italian design?' I said, 'No, I want to defend the quality of Italian manufacturing.' The dream of any young foreign designer is to collaborate with an Italian company. So we defend our manufacturing culture. If a designer was born in Sydney or Milan, who cares? What matters is that they are good. Today 70-80% of projects in Italian design catalogs are by foreign designers. I like to introduce, push, and make these designers grow. I would then introduce them to other companies because together we can promote them more. I think this choral work of promotion was done without a precise plan, made with choices from the heart and gut. Today companies are run by managers who know nothing about design, but we must continue to defend this quality, an Italian quality. We must defend the quality of both industry and craftsmanship. Italian artisans make extraordinary prototypes; without them Italian design would not exist. Design creates bestsellers, good design creates longsellers. I believe in longsellers. We must stop thinking only Italians exist as colonizers; the world is growing. At a certain point in the 90s there was a change. The adjective 'industrial' was lost from industrial design. Alberto Rosselli said industrial design is making products of good aesthetic quality, functional, and at a cost accessible to most. That was the stimulus until design moved toward an elitist niche. You said Cappellini is popular with young people but many can't afford it. It's a problem of production scale. But great strides have been made—the equation high design equals high price no longer holds. You can find a nice chair for €500 or €3000 in our catalog. Italian design companies are small. Aggregations like Cappellini with Frau, Cassina create critical masses to face the global market. Today we export to 68 countries. You need strength and critical mass to promote products in these markets. IKEA 20 years ago was different; today they have a creative vein. I think it's consumer freedom to mix a Cappellini table with IKEA chairs. We are living a great change. The real trend today is freedom—the freedom to mix products from different designers, companies, eras, and places. We served as pathfinders. Memphis was not a strong commercial phenomenon, but culturally it revolutionized good Milanese design. If there had been no Memphis, we wouldn't have colorful furniture or textured surfaces. So these opening phenomena change languages and expressive modes.

On the IKEA phenomenon that arrived in Italy in 1989: at the beginning it 'massacred' the catalogs of Italian design companies with shameless copies. But IKEA brought a model that Italian distribution hadn't grasped—offering a complete vision of home furnishing, not just single products. However, there are still some showrooms and shops that can create environments. I believe in multi-brand shops. Mono-brands can be reference points but are not the solution. Today presentation is not enough; you also need content. In my opinion the fundamental element is to remain faithful to your own DNA. IKEA five years ago had a precise physiognomy; today's IKEA trying to emulate Italian styles and raising prices may not be the right path. We must work on communication, remove the fear of design. In Northern Europe they use a design stool for sitting, not just for showing. The Milan Design Weeks have done a lot. I had the fortune to make the most beautiful Cappellini exhibition. We presented pieces by Shiro Kuramata. In August we drew the setup on the beach. The location was the Museo di Milano, a heavy historical place. We came up with a setup made of smoke with a laser. On the inauguration day, neighbors saw smoke and called the fire department. They saw me pregnant and said, 'There's a pregnant woman, take her away!' But it was us making the smoke. We had a lot of fun. That was the moment of international breakthrough. The next day television crews from all over the world came to film. I never met Kuramata personally, but I did an interview through a translator. He sent me a drawing and said it was the most beautiful interview. It's the modesty of great personalities. Now I don't want this to become a nostalgic flashback. I want to go back a moment. Cappellini was this workshop of ideas, a vehicle of cultural promotion. The Kuramata exhibition was a big question mark—would it work? Today unthinkable for any company.

When I was asked to give a title to the book, I said let's put a question mark. What's Next? What will be the future? The Cappellini method is the method of being curious and following encounters. My life is truly linked to encounters—extraordinary encounters with great personalities or completely unknown people. To always try to capture something from these moments. That is the method. I think there is always something to discover everywhere, from all people. It's important to read the different keys of interpretation of different people. That's why I like to be involved in teaching, at Marangoni Design Campus in Milan. Contact with young people is extraordinary because their interpretation comes from uncontaminated minds. Otherwise we risk following a path thinking we are right. So comparison is a continuous dialogue.

I think in the past people wanted the same home as their friends. Now people want their home to reflect their spirit, personality, and contradictions. When they ask about my home, I say it's a mess like myself. I mix products from today and yesterday, unique pieces from travels. Contamination of cultures is the most beautiful thing. For us an Indian object is ethnic; for an Indian an Italian object is ethnic. It depends on the angle. This concept is not new. The great designers of the 1950s mixed Scandinavian sofas with Moroccan candles and Indian cushions. That means telling one's own story. So contamination, yes.

Yes, absolutely. I think this is very important. For example, at the origin of a project, often a project can last years, not only for technical difficulties but because you are not perfectly convinced. With designers like Morrison we have been working on new projects for 3-4 years. The most difficult projects are ultimately the ones with the greatest success. Different things are happening in the world. And the product...

A purely industrial product can be made anywhere. But I think the Italian product always has this concept, perhaps with an industrial base, but from the point of view of creativity and education of execution, there is that final touch, the important human touch. I have to say that the world is moving forward on this. It's not true that in China there are only copycats. I was recently in Shanghai for a presentation and visited a tile showroom. There were eight Chinese companies and one Italian. Three or four Chinese were of medium-low level, but another four had excellent quality and also creativity in terms of color palette, formats, etc. So we must be very attentive to this. If an Italian company wants to be contemporary, it must work on innovation. Today, innovation doesn't just mean working on forms, because the most beautiful forms were probably already done in the 60s and 70s. Today we can work on new materials, new textiles, new production systems. We don't need to dwell on being green, where giant steps have been made in recent years. Until recently, recycled material was expensive and unattractive, but now there are very beautiful recycled materials. So we still have many elements to insert into the project, and it's our duty as designers and producers. Now, what is happening today? Large groups and funds have entered the design sector, just as they did in fashion and other fields. This has completely changed the scenario because managers and finance have entered with a completely different approach.

But fundamentally, I think we cannot think we are eternal. If we truly love our brand and our work, we must think about the future. I have children who do other things, so at a certain point I said to myself: I have to look to the future. It's not easy. When you wake up in the morning you decide to make it white, and in the evening to make it black. Joining a large group, I must say that we can make a difference. On one hand, there are large financial groups that tend to look at short-term results. We were listed on the stock exchange, and it was perhaps the most stressful period of my life, victims of quarterly reports, having to explain certain things to people who the day before had evaluated a cheese company and the next day would evaluate a salami company. So it was really difficult. Or, as in our case with a large industrial group, there is a well-defined growth project. Initially, when we joined this American group, there was great fear that production sites would be moved, but instead the Italian production sites were strengthened. Then there are growth and logistics issues. Today, Cappellini produces in Brianza for the European market, in the Middle East and Far East, and in North America for the American market, so we don't have the problem of Mr. Trump's tariffs. But beyond that, the great problem of Italian companies is size. Today, when you need to promote yourself in the world and work on communication, having synergy in financial, commercial, and research aspects is absolutely fundamental. The key thing is that each company must maintain its own DNA. We must not make a supermarket of design. The role of people is fundamental. It would be too easy to build companies on precise paradigms studied at Bocconi. I think the sensitivity and strength of great entrepreneurs is precisely to make the right choices for their company and leave their mark. Unfortunately, in Italy we have also seen cases where after the founder dies, people don't care. That means you don't love your company enough. The important thing is to defend your identity and your DNA. As long as I have breath to speak, I will defend this. And if necessary, I will continue to slam doors. In fact, today you mentioned the idea of some manager in the group to present Cappellini pieces in a way that is exactly the opposite, putting the icons in a museum. Knowing you and your character, I said, 'He can't tell a chair from a goat.' That was my response. What are we here for, to waste time? And you mentioned Bocconi, with all due respect to that great university, but we all clash in companies with young graduates who have great competence in economics and finance but have no idea what Italian design was and is. So there is a lack of culture, not only specific to design but also in more general terms. But I don't want to blame anyone. I say we must share, share, share, and above all make choices based on the good of the company. We work for the good of the company, not for what we take home. If you work for a design company, your home can be late Baroque, that's fine. The problem is sharing. I find that young people today are extraordinarily good, very aware, and in some cases more down-to-earth than in the past. But today we must be aware, because as you said, the market has changed greatly. We are living in a moment of strong tension. If you look outside, you say, 'What are we doing in design compared to the great world problems?' Design problems may seem trivial, but with our small work we can try to improve certain situations. We can follow the epochal changes in the design world. For example, in residential, there is a new domestic nomadism. Rooms no longer have precise roles. The kitchen used to be for cooking, now you cook, work on your computer, have an aperitif, invite friends. The bathroom was a service room, now it's the home spa even if it's 2x2 meters. Think about how the office world has changed, with fluidity and flexibility, and how the hospitality world has changed. These are extraordinary phenomena. When they say everything has been done in design, absolutely not, there is still so much to do. The important thing is that I am not tied to the schemes of the 80s and 90s, we would be stupid. As you said, our history must be a stimulus for the future, not a reason to wallow in nostalgia. The important thing is constructive and intelligent confrontation, sharing ideas. Today, all companies, big or small, cannot afford mistakes. In the past, you could make a product and if it sold, fine; if not, peace. Now, at the origin of the project, you decide whether to make an industrial product, a mix of craft and industry, a highly artisanal product, a product with a certain print run, or a limited edition. This is a different way of thinking and designing, more aware, but it's part of the evolution of times.

No, designers or entrepreneurs? Both? Well, certainly at the level of design, the role of the designer has changed enormously compared to the past. In the past, the designer made a project, then someone in the company developed it, someone else took care of promotion, someone else sales. Today, the designer works in a team, both within his studio and with the company. He follows the project from the first idea to commercialization, like the birth of a child. So once again, the theme of sharing the project is fundamental. All great international designers work this way. They don't work abstractly anymore. From Stark to Morrison, passing through GCH and others, they all work very consciously. As for entrepreneurship, once again, there are those who deeply believe that we must sell culture first, and then the product follows, and those who say 'I make culture, I make the product that sells, and then I make culture.' Those should be put against the wall. That said, in Italy we have a new generation of entrepreneurs. We must not forget that being the children of the great entrepreneurs of the past is not easy. We mentioned names like Giulio Castelli, Aurelio Zanotta, Gandini, Cesare Cassina. Being the children of these figures is very difficult. But there are interesting new generations. I don't want to name names. Abroad, there is my friend Rolf Felbaum of Vitra. But often I find more rigid situations in historical brands, while there are small new realities that work with great quality and care. In the end, returning to the theme of bestsellers and long sellers, companies with a solid base resist. We should ask ourselves why in the catalog of a company, the product from the 50s, 60s, 70s sells, but not the product from 2000. That's the real question. Also, making a product better than what was done 20 years ago is not always easy. In fact, for certain thoughts, I believe that rather than making a product that lacks innovative force compared to the past, it's better to think about products from the past that could not be industrially executed at that time and remake them. With Cappellini, I am presenting in April pieces designed by Joe Colombo, from the wonderful exhibition of the 70s in Germany, which gave an image of the future that could not be produced industrially then. Now yes.

Yes, if you have quality, sooner or later someone will give you space. Do few things but do them well. First of all, it's important to know the history of design. This is fundamental, because knowing the history of design can be an inspiration for making products. It's not that we arrive in 2025 and invent everything from scratch. Archetypes can be inspiration for future projects. If we look at very young people today, they are very attached to the vintage market. In the last four years, the vintage market has increased by 78%. Young people with limited budgets buy essential furniture from big retailers, then want one or two iconic pieces, like a Moroso or Le Corbusier. So beautiful products endure over time. What I say to young people is that it's fundamental to follow projects from origin to end, and above all, to get their hands dirty. It's no coincidence that this April I will introduce two new young designers, one Italian and one Finnish, who are craftsmen. They make things in the workshop, they have learned to get their hands dirty because on a render everything looks beautiful, but then you see the chair and think about the stitching, what happens when the fabric pulls. So the concept of getting your hands dirty is important. On the other hand, maturing in design takes time. The greats of today, like Jasper Morrison, 35 years ago had to decide whether to have lunch or dinner because he couldn't afford both. Marcel Wanders, Mark Newson used the same outfit all year. When I brought Mark Newson from Australia to Europe, I paid his rent in a studio in Paris for a year and a half. Today Mark Newson is who we know. He wanted to be an artist, but today he designs for Apple. So there are evolutions. If you move consistently and defend your ideas intelligently, sooner or later someone will notice.

I can't say. But there are two that I present officially, unofficially others. I have to say that today the radius of action has widened a lot. For example, I am working on projects with two young Indians, also in the Far East, there are interesting people in Korea, and in Eastern Europe we are developing a project with a very talented young man. They have a great tradition in manufacturing metal and glass, which in the past for political reasons could not export. So you can find thoroughbreds all over the world, and also in Italy.