“The Taste of Italian Design” Debuts in Washington, D.C.

November 4, 2025  by Karen Parrish in Business Strategy, Designer Weekly, Industry   

The display of the greatest masters’ original works will show the evolution of Italian kitchenware design as 30 items explore the bond between Made in Italy design and food culture through an historical journey unfolding from the 1930s to the present, featuring some of the most representative designers, brands and objects of Italian design in the kitchen.

“Through this exhibition” says Elettra La Duca, director of the Italian Cultural Institute of Washington, “we celebrate two fields of the cultural heritage that make Italy renowned abroad, and in the United States in particular. The gastronomic variety typical of our country is matched by design kitchenware that is innovative and functional and yet surprising for its peculiarity and elegance.”

On display, iconic pieces that shaped the history of food preparation and presentation and are still indissolubly tied to the collective rituals related to the kitchen table. In addition, many of the items exhibited marked a technological and social evolution. The exposition sheds light on innovative solutions and, above all, on design as representative of an era, of changing habits, values and meanings.

Within such evolution, in the 1990s, Italian design revisited small appliances as espresso machines, toasters, and blenders. From small accessories designed for the mise en place to professional kitchen tools, each exhibit reveals the craftsmanship and the sense of form so typical of Italian design – a design that combines functionality, aesthetic, technological innovation, and beauty.

From the iconic lemon squeezer Juicy Salif by Philippe Starck created for Alessi in 1990, to the bold Forma cheese grater by Zaha Hadid for Alessi in 2021; from Gae Aulenti’s Toast for Trabo in 1997, to Matarél by Matteo Ragni, the rolling pin in transparent borosilicate glass in 2017, and Gio Ponti’s Conca cutlery-set produced by Sambonet for the first time in 1955.

“The processes related to preparing, serving and storing food – curator Elisabetta Pisu explains – have always been central in Italian culture since the days of Ancient Rome, as well as the research aimed at the perfect combination of functionality and style. In this way, artisans– more recently –, designers and architects created revolutionary, refined, and technological objects that became true icons renowned all over the world and now part of the history of Italian design.”

Curator Elisabetta Pisu is a design curator with a training in Sociology and Cultural Management. She has specialized in contemporary design, with a special focus on the production process, social significance and evolution of new expressive languages.

Objects, environments and architectures are her main interests, as she investigates the changing role of design in contemporary society. In 2016 she founded EP studio to work on the conception, curatorship and organization of international design exhibitions – especially focused on Made in Italy.

She has collaborated with renowned institutions and has curated exhibitions for prestigious design museums such as: the Italian Cultural Institute in Copenhagen (Copenhagen, Denmark), the Italian Cultural Institute in Abu Dhabi (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates), Craft + Design Centre in Canberra (Australia), Design Museum Gent (Belgium), Cube Design Museum (Netherlands), Design Museum Holon (Israel), Museum of Craft and Design (San Francisco, USA), MODA Museum of Design Atlanta (Atlanta, USA), L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art (Israel), COD – Center for Openness and Dialogue (Albania).

The exhibition was run from Nov 18 – Dec 4 at the Italian Embassy in Washington, DC.