Italian design will be the protagonist on the international stage at the Osaka World Expo 2025 where the official ceremony for the Compasso d'Oro International Award, promoted by ADI - Association for Industrial Design - in collaboration with the Commissariat General for Italy at Expo 2025 Osaka, will be held on September 5.

The event, hosted in the Auditorium of the Italian Pavilion, designed by Mario Cucinella Architects, will feature opening institutional speeches by Mario Vattani, Commissioner General for Italy at Expo 2025 Osaka, Dimitri S. Kerkentzes, Secretary General of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), and Luciano Galimberti, President of ADI.

The Compasso d'Oro International Award 2025 has received the patronage of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the governing body of Universal Expositions, and has the media partnership of Dezeen, a global reference platform in the fields of design and architecture.

The most innovative solutions in contemporary design

The ceremony will then see the official awards ceremony with the presentation of 20 Compasso d'Oro Awards and 35 Honorable Mentions to winners selected by an international jury of industry experts. The awards will be given to those design projects that best interpret the theme of the Osaka Expo 2025, “Designing Future Society for Our Lives,” declined along three lines: Saving Lives, Empowering Lives, Connecting Lives.

The 20 winning projects will then be showcased on display inside the Italian Pavilion in two dedicated exhibition capsules, which can be visited until the World Expo closes.

Visitors to Expo 2025 will thus have the opportunity to discover the most innovative solutions in contemporary design.

Italian design between innovation and sports performance

The Italian Pavilion hosts until Sept. 3, two capsule exhibitions curated by ADI Design Museum, which seek to focus attention on the role of Italian design between innovation and sports performance culture: “The Italian Design: Innovation” and “The Italian Design: Sport”.

The first presents the history of Italian design between continuity and transformation, putting historical and contemporary works in dialogue, from Gio Ponti's Blu Ponti majolica to Davide Groppi's Anima lamp to EssilorLuxottica's Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses.

The second capsule exhibition explores the relationship between design and athletic gesture in the run-up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympics, with a selection that includes 10 projects including, the FISI EA7 race suit, the Sofia Goggia helmet, the iconic Moon Boot and Piero Lissoni's Silver Surfer sled.

These two exhibitions anticipate the spirit of the exhibition that will follow the Compasso d'Oro ceremony, tracing a coherent narrative of design as a tool for reading, interpreting and improving reality.

Compasso d’Oro International Award 2025

The Compasso d'Oro International Award is the international version of the most authoritative recognition of Made in Italy design, established in 1954 from an idea of Gio Ponti. In more than 70 years of history, it has given rise to a collection of about 2,500 pieces, recognized by the Ministry of Culture as a “property of exceptional artistic and historical interest.”

The winning projects at this edition of the Compasso d'Oro International Award, will rightfully become part of the collection, kept and exhibited at the ADI Design Museum in Milan.

This coming December 9, at the very headquarters of the ADI Design Museum in Milan, the award ceremony will be re-enacted and the exhibition dedicated to the winning projects, which can be visited until January 6, 2026, will be inaugurated. It will be an opportunity to present also to the Italian public the protagonists of this edition of the award, representatives of the best international design.