How can a limitation become a source of beauty? This question lies at the heart of the presentation that Giovanni Ciafré, Export Sales and Marketing Director at Renner Italia, will deliver in Belgrade on behalf of Renner and Fabbrica, the company’s local distributor, at the 8th International Event, Congress and Exhibition SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE & INTERIOR 2026. The presentation will take place on Saturday, October 10, at the Yugoslav Film Archive, Uzun Mirkova 1, before an audience of architects, designers, and interior design professionals attending the congress. Discover the event.
The title, “Manu et Ingenio – How Italy creates beauty out of nothing,” captures the central theme: the ability to create value through skilled hands and ingenuity. This perspective explores the roots of Made in Italy, showing how limited resources can inspire research, creativity, and the transformation of materials.
Ciafré will take the audience through seven centuries of Italian history. The merchant Francesco Datini will provide a starting point for discussing trust and the relationship between ethics and economics. Renaissance patronage will illustrate how wealth becomes a shared artistic heritage. The centuries-long construction of Milan Cathedral will embody the perseverance of generations of master craftspeople who worked on a project destined to outlive them.
The journey will also explore everyday life: ribollita, the traditional dish that transforms stale bread and vegetables into a nourishing meal, and the love of work celebrated by Primo Levi. In the institution that preserves Serbia’s cinematic heritage, Cinema Paradiso will provide the closing image: fragments saved and pieced together to become a legacy of beauty.
The presentation’s purpose is to share with the design community a culture of making rooted in confronting challenges, making the most of available resources, and bringing beauty and goodness together. Sustainability will emerge through practical acts of reuse and care, respect for materials, and the value of work.
Renner Italia puts this vision into practice every day through its research into coatings: protecting surfaces, enhancing their character, and bringing designers’ ideas to life. The dialogue between aesthetics and ethics will also connect with Aesthetics Design Talks, Renner’s project dedicated to the culture of color and finishes. Explore Aesthetics.
Alongside Fabbrica, Renner’s local partner in Belgrade for more than twenty years, Ciafré will deliver a message connecting Italian tradition with the challenges of contemporary architecture: importing materials, exporting beauty.
