A lecture within the Critical Histories of Furniture Design course (Politecnico di Milano × WRTH)

What if furniture could speak—and challenge the way we live?
As part of the Critical Histories of Furniture Design course, one of the core modules within the Politecnico di Milano × وِرث | wrth (Riyadh) Master in Heritage-based Furniture Design Program, students and WRTH colleagues joined a special session exploring Radical Design and why it still matters today.
We were delighted to welcome two Italian speakers invited by Prof. Beatrice Bianco: Franco Audrito, founder of Studio65 s.r.l and Maria Cristina Didero, international design curator.

Through personal stories and iconic projects, they reflected on how furniture can become a messenger, carrying social, political, and cultural narratives far beyond pure function.
From expressive forms to unexpected materials, the lecture reframed Radical Design not as a chapter of the past, but as an ongoing critical attitude, one that uses irony, storytelling, and collective practice to question how we live, behave, and assign value to objects.

·      Design as storytelling — objects are never neutral
·      Material innovation as language — new materials open new meanings
·      Irony with seriousness — playfulness as a form of critique
·      Craft and collaboration — design as a shared, collective process
Thanks again to Franco, Maria Cristina, and Prof. Beatrice for an inspiring and thought-provoking contribution to the course. And thanks to وِرث | wrth for the technical support, and to Sana Alabdulwahed for documenting the session through photography.