Italian Visionaries: Mario Cucinella and Maria Porro at the forefront of Global Design

The Italian Cultural Institute London presents an exclusive event during the London Design Festival 2024 (September 14-22).

Two leading figures, luminaries in contemporary design and architecture will be on stage: Mario Cucinella, the acclaimed architect appointed to design the Italian Pavilion for Expo 2025 Osaka, and Maria Porro, President of the Salone del Mobile.Milano, a global icon of Italian design worldwide.

Led by writer and curator Priya Khanchandani, the evening will dive into the latest international design trends, exploring the challenges and opportunities shaping the industry’s future. Attendees will gain insight into two remarkable success stories— Mario Cucinella Architects and Porro Spa—highlighting their innovative approaches and worldwide impact. Discussions will also touch on two major upcoming events: Expo 2025 Osaka and the Salone del Mobile Milano, underlining their roles in driving the future of design with a focus on sustainability and human-centered approaches.

The evening will commence with opening remarks from Ambassador Mario Vattani, Italy’s Commissioner General at Expo 2025, who will offer valuable insight from his diplomatic and cultural perspective.

Join us. This inspiring evening promises to be a must-attend for design professionals and enthusiasts.

Maria Porro, born in Como in 1983, has been President of Assarredo since being unanimously elected in September 2020, and is the first woman to take on this role. She is Director of Marketing and Communication at Porro S.p.A., an old-established Italian design brand, set up by her great-grandfather Giulio in 1925. She joined the company permanently in 2014, with responsibility for bolstering the company’s international trade network and strengthening its communication strategies, before taking on her current role, with sustainable development very much to the forefront. She graduated cum laude in Set Design from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, and worked in theatre, art and large events as a designer, coordinator and curator. Starting from July 2021 she has become President of Salone del Mobile.Milano.

Mario Cucinella was born in Palermo in 1960 and graduated in Architecture at the University of Genoa in 1986. In 1992, in Paris, he founded MCA – Mario Cucinella Architects, an architecture and design firm that now has offices in Bologna and Milan, and of which he is also Design Director. In 2015, he founded SOS – School of Sustainability, a school for young professionals and recent graduates that focuses on the application of sustainable architecture and design to give future decision-makers the tools necessary to tackle the environmental issues that are emerging globally with an open-minded, holistic, research-driven and human-centered approach. In 2023, he was appointed to design the Italian Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka.

Priya Khanchandani is a writer and curator educated at the Royal College of Art and at Cambridge University. Until recently the Head of Curatorial at the Design Museum in London, her curatorial projects include the celebrated exhibition The Offbeat Sari with an associated book published with Thames and Hudson. She also curated Design Museum exhibitions Bethany Williams: Alternative Systems, Yinka Ilori: Parables for Happiness and the blockbuster Amy: Beyond the Stage. Her biennial projects centre around interrogating narratives of identity and belonging through re-examining the existing canon of design, such as co-curating Pattern as Politics with Sam Jacob at Lisbon Architecture Triennial, and curating State of Indigo, the India Pavilion at London Design Biennial. Previously the first female Editor in Chief of celebrated architecture magazine Icon, Khanchandani was nominated for Fiona Macpherson New Editor of the Year, and as a respected critic and commentator, she has published widely on design in numerous books and in publications such as The Financial Times, the Guardian, Wallpaper* and Frieze. As a broadcaster, she appeared as Guest Judge of the India episode of the BBC flagship programme Sewing Bee and previously on BBC Newsnight, BBC Woman’s Hour and Front Row. She also lectures internationally and is a trustee of The Hepworth Wakefield.

Photo credit:

(c) Guido Stazzoni

(c) Suzanne Zhang

(c) Julius Hirtzberger