From 2 to 5 October 2025, Martano, in the heart of Grecìa Salentina, will host a new edition of Agorà Design, the biennial festival that brings together architecture, design, creativity and business. For four days, the city will become an open-air laboratory, welcoming professionals, students, journalists, companies, schools and families in a series of meetings, exhibitions, workshops and activities designed to stimulate reflection and experimentation. The exhibition will revolve around the theme “Il Progetto Necessario” (The Necessary Project), which this year invites us to question the meaning of necessity as a driver of innovation and the search for solutions capable of responding to concrete needs and, at the same time, anticipating the challenges of the future.
Promoted and supported by main sponsor Sprech and organised by Radio Salentina, the festival aims to be a space for connection and cross-pollination between different visions, generations and languages, giving rise to a dialogue between creativity and the world of production. Agorà Design 2025 also includes an international competition with over one hundred finalist projects in the Living and Garden sections, developing with each edition a process that focuses on the encounter between skills and opportunities, generating value through ideas, prototypes and solutions capable of dialoguing with the market and society.
‘Agorà Design,’ emphasises Lucia Rescio, General Manager of Sprech, “is much more than an event dedicated to design and architecture: it is an opportunity for lively and participatory discussion, where people, institutions and territories come together to grow together. Our goal is to offer a rich, accessible and stimulating cultural experience, where people can learn, talk, experiment and even have fun. Agorà is a setting for reflecting on the role of design in contemporary society and feeling part of a creative community in motion‘.
Guests at the 2025 edition include prominent names such as Giulio Iacchetti, Arturo Vittori, Mauro Bubbico, Luca Molinari, Giovanna Castiglioni, Stefano Cipolla, Tommaso Bovo, Alessio Battistella, Luca Bonifacio, Raul Pantaleo, Antonio Capestro, as well as figures linked to the Amdl Circle studio founded by Michele De Lucchi. Alongside them, journalists, critics, urban planners and university professors will contribute to making the programme a mosaic of experiences and points of view.
The festival is not exclusively aimed at professionals, which is why workshops for children and young people, activities for schools, conferences open to the public and informal meetings with the protagonists will make the event a shared and accessible experience, capable of bringing different audiences closer to the culture of design. The aim is to promote design that is not merely an aesthetic exercise, but a tool for improving quality of life, combining simplicity, functionality, durability and sustainability.
Since 2017, Sprech has included Agorà Design among its corporate social responsibility projects, transforming the festival into a nationally and internationally recognised event. Past editions have seen the participation of prominent figures such as Stefano Boeri, Riccardo Falcinelli, Benedetta Tagliabue, Peter Pichler and many other leading figures from the architectural and creative scene. The new edition follows in this vein, reinforcing the idea of Agorà as a community that grows together, a place where design meets people and the local area becomes an inspiration to look ahead.
Ph. Antonio Leo and 40Mirrors
