Also this year, Italian Design Day, the annual thematic review launched in 2017 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in collaboration and with the support of the Ministry of Culture, took place to celebrate the quality of Italian design and the Made in Italy system.
The event, held on July 8 in an exclusively virtual format, was attended by the Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, Manlio Di Stefano, and the Undersecretary for Culture, Lucia Borgonzoni. Other speakers included the Director General for the Promotion of the Country System, Ambassador Lorenzo Angeloni, the President of FederlegnoArredo, Claudio Feltrin, the President of ADI, Luciano Galimberti, and the President of Triennale Milano and curator of the “Supersalone 2021,“ architect Stefano Boeri.
The Italian Design Day includes a rich schedule of events for the promotion of design and the internationalization of a strategic industrial sector for Italian exports. This year 66 Italian design professionals will be present, in person or in web meetings, according to the health regulations of each country, in one hundred cities around the world, in Italian embassies, consulates, and Italian Cultural Institutes where they will be spokespeople for Italian design and creativity in the world.

New challenges for a sustainable restart

The theme of the Italian Design Day 2021 is “Project and matter: new challenges for the sustainable restart of Made in Italy“, a theme strongly linked to the proactive capacity of Italian design and the enlarged Made in Italy system to outline new scenarios for the relaunch of our country under the banner of innovation and sustainability.
For the Farnesina, said Lorenzo Angeloni, “Design is a national heritage, a symbol on global markets for the support of internationalization processes of the Italian production fabric for the recognition of Made in Italy“. Manlio Di Stefano and Lucia Borgonzoni emphasized the collaboration of the two ministries in the promotion of Made in Italy in order to give it back the international scope it deserves. The President of Federlegno, Claudio Feltrin, illustrated the commitment on the part of companies to launch new promotional initiatives around the Salone. “Design and sustainability are perfectly matched in FederlegnoArredo's program.“  Connecting from the ADI Design Museum, Luciano Galimberti observed how the “pandemic of the last year makes this edition symbolic of the desire for a restart, but at the same time exemplary with respect to new awareness: challenges on territories all to be explored, which will concern the globalization of ideas and interests, but also tools to orient ourselves in those territories. The theme of this edition“, he concluded, “wants to be a tool for orientation towards the sustainability of our daily work“.
This year's Italian Design Day was also an opportunity to anticipate and promote “Supersalone 2021“, the special event of the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan.