Award Ceremony and Final Exhibition of Hold the Place
16th International Design Contest Trieste Contemporanea
The Trieste Contemporanea Committee is delighted to announce that the Award Ceremony of the 16th International Design Contest Trieste Contemporanea – HOLD THE PLACE will be held at Studio Tommaseo in Trieste (Via del Monte 2/1) on Friday 4 September 2026 at 6.00 pm.
The ceremony will be followed by the opening of the competition’s final exhibition, curated by its international jury, featuring the works of the finalists and winning projects. The exhibition will be open to the public until 25 September 2026. The exhibition catalogue will be published online.
Participants in HOLD THE PLACE were invited to conceive an object capable of interpreting the preservation and activation of memory. To “hold the place” means not simply to preserve it, but to keep it alive and present through experience, use and human connection.
For this edition, international designers were invited to engage with two themes rooted in Friuli Venezia Giulia: a GENERAL THEME focused on the region and its territory, and a special theme centred on Venzone, marking fifty years since the 1976 earthquake.
The VENZONE Special Theme invited designers to explore, through design, the concepts of resilience, community and reconstruction, proposing objects that could prompt reflection on the relationship between memory and the future.
The awards for the 2026 edition were decided by the Trieste Contemporanea international jury and recognise the finest proposals submitted in response to the two themes of the 16th edition.
Debora Nania (Italy) wins the BEBA AWARD (€1,000), offered by the Franco Jesurun Fondation ETS, with the project Recompose, awarded to the youngest selected participant. The project is a desktop organiser whose various elements are reassembled and held together by a central connecting element. This gesture symbolically evokes the destruction and reconstruction of Venzone following the 1976 earthquake.
The team of Luca Montanaro and Martina Mariani (Italy) receives the VENZONE SPECIAL AWARD (€2,000), awarded to the project Lis sisilis nus bandonin, which most effectively interpreted the 2026 special theme, dedicated to the fiftieth anniversary of the Friuli earthquake. The project is a modular brick system designed for the construction of nests for swallows.
Finally, the GILLO DORFLES AWARD (€4,000) for the best project in the competition, goes to Linda Baissero (Croatia) for Pedociar. The form of the object derives from the morphology of a mussel shell, while its function reinterprets the gesture of using the shell as a small spoon to collect and savour food. The young designer named her project Pedociar, a name combining the local words pedoci (mussels) and cuciar (spoon).
Among the selected projects, the jury also awarded two honourable mentions: to Francesco Buchetti (Italy) for Gioza, and to Marta Zagórska (Poland) for Hold the Place.
Are 18 finalist projects presented in the exhibition and published in the competition’s online catalogue. In addition to the projects already mentioned, these include: Otto – Edoardo Amoroso (Italy); Vaso Zeno – Patrizia Bertolini (Italy); D’uomo – Nicola D’Apollo (Italy); Riflesso 59 – Patrizio Della Rovere (Italy); Audace – Marco Fiorentino (Italy); Il conio della memoria – Marco Ferdinando Galdi (Italy); Calendario 0605 – Giulia Grimaz (Italy); Plinth – David Ligeti (Hungary); Barcolana – Alessandro Marchi (Italy); Benandante – Angelo Monti (Italy); Craçule – Marco Ortis (Italy); Volo – Renato Righi (Italy); Wooden Mechanical Puzzles – Làszlò Tompa (Hungary).
The competition’s international jury was composed of: Giuliana Carbi Jesurun (Trieste Contemporanea), Barbara Fabro (Central European Initiative), Nicla Indrigo (ADIfvg – Delegazione Friuli Venezia Giulia dell’Associazione per il Disegno Industriale), Luciano Marson (entrepreneur), Giulio Polita (architect), Paolo Tassinari (graphic designer).
The HOLD THE PLACE competition is held under the patronage of the CEI – Central European Initiative and ADI – Associazione per il Design industriale, with the co-financing of the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The competition is organised in collaboration with the Friuli Venezia Giulia Territorial Delegation of ADI.
go to the 16th International Design Contest Trieste Contemporanea open call and contest rules
go to the catalogue