MILAN, Italy—Philip Morris International (PMI) partnered with Italian designer Stefano Seletti to reinvent the traditional Italian piazza with modern installations for the Milan Design Week to pique the curiosity and build the interests of consumers on smoke-free products.

PMI's IQOS Curious X presents the Sensorium Piazza in collaboration with Italian designer Stefano Seletti during its opening day in Milan, Italy on April 7, 2025. (Raymund Antonio/MANILA BULLETIN)

Select members of the Philippine media, including the Manila Bulletin, were able to visit the exhibit called “Curious X: Sensorium Piazza” during its opening day on Monday, April 7, at the Opificio 31 inside Tortona Rocks.
 

Stefano Volpetti, PMI’s President of Smoke-Free Products and Chief Consumer Officer, explained the link between IQOS and Italian designer and artist about challenging the prevailing status quo in the cigarette and design industries.
 

“The truth is IQOS has completely challenged the change of status quo of our industry and our capital so this notion of changing status quo powered by curiosity is what reunites us,” he said.
 

In a statement, PMI said the collaboration with iconic design brand SELETTI supports the company’s mission “to make cigarettes obsolete” and “to celebrate its ever-growing community of more than 32 million users worldwide.”
 

“This bold reimagination of the traditional Italian Piazza is a multisensory space where people will meet, converse and connect. The installation bridges the physical and digital worlds, creating an unexpected dimension where art and technology intertwine to create meaningful and extraordinary interactions,” it read.
 

Reinvented piazza
 

In Seletti’s reimagined piazza, real-life interactions captured by digital technology flash on the makeshift Italian columns that adorn the exhibit. A “digital pool,” quite reminiscent of the Trevi Fountain in Rome sits in the middle of the Italian columns, which switch to various colors and design elements—fiery gold, pedestrian colors, and red bricks, among others.

 Seletti's design of an Italian piazza for PMI's IQOS event in Milan 

For the designer, in particular, he noted the “very nice approach” about his collaboration with IQOS, as well as featuring the interaction between the people and the installation.
 

“This is an installation with the possibility of interaction between people and installation. You have seen inside, you have a machine that you can take a picture and then your picture will be composed, projected in the main area,” Seletti, the creative director and chief executive officer of design house SELETTI, explained.
 

The media was treated to a spectacular display of having their faces flashed on the installations after their images were captured by cameras at the exhibit.
 

But Seletti was also quick to squash the notion that his design was more of a homage to the past because of his use of Roman statues than a testament to where PMI is going.
 

“The design is not from the past. So, it’s a mixture between the past and the modern, the past and the future. And then, we add some graphical element which we are working on. Some pattern that we are launching during this week. So, we are working with different concept. We are trying to do something new,” he said in an interview.
 

The project, which started three years ago, was born from the collaboration and partnership between PMI and Seletti, who said he is proud of the work he has done and especially thankful to IQOS for giving him the “possibility to redesign what I really strongly believe.”
 

High curiosity
 

In urging visitors to experience the multi-sensory approach into the exhibit, Seletti said they must aim “to keep and to preserve a very high curiosity regarding the design, regarding the future, regarding IQOS, regarding Seletti.”

Italian designer and artist Stefano Seletti speaks during the "IQOS Curious X" press conference and panel discussion on April 7, 2025. (Photo courtesy of PMI)

He described his work as “an invitation to become, to keep curious.”
 

For Volpetti, PMI and Seletti share the same curiosity and vision for doing something unique.
 

“Imagine an Italian piazza is a physical space. Yes, you put in technology, art, and design to reinvent the experience and create a multi-sensorial experience in a way that nobody has ever done before,” he said.
 

“This notion of curiosity, the challenge is the status quo and does something that nobody has done before is the essence of IQOS and therefore the partnership with Seletti became very natural,” he added.
 

Collaboration
 

Tommaso di Giovanni, PMI’s Vice President for Communications and Engagement, said that because there is “a lot of misinformation” about smoke-free products, PMI needed to ramp up its communication efforts by using scientific and art-based approaches when talking to government and media.
 

“Like the one we have with Seletti as well. They help us reaching that part of the smoking population that’s perhaps not making their choices only on rational knowledge but more on emotions,” he explained.
 

“And that reference to creativity, that reference to curiosity may actually reach these people better than others. And I think we have really this in common between the two brands,” he added.
 

Giovanni also emphasized the importance of “curiosity” as the driver of innovation in PMI’s collaboration with Seletti.
 

“Without curiosity, no one would actually look for better alternatives and this is where I think it lies, the heart of our collaboration. We, through curiosity, through innovation, are changing the way people consume nicotine to improve public health,” he said.
 

New concept
 

Seletti admitted that there are difficulties in coming up with the unconventional design of the installation “because we take some inspirations from the past.”

This bold reimagination of the traditional Italian piazza is a multi-sensory space where people will meet, converse, and connect, says PMI. 

“Building, for example, the bricks but also the black and white antique building or the bricks are designed with a new concept,” he shared.
 

Giovanni, for his part, described Seletti’s work as unprecedented because “it steps out of the box and makes it happen.”
 

“And by doing that, it plays at a different level of sensorial experience, emotional experience, convincing people actually to change. That’s what I think that is what we have in common,” he added.
 

While Giovanni could not give details, the official revealed there might be other collaborations “around the world and with local artists, who, like Seletti, like to push the boundaries of curiosity, creativity, and innovation, turning something of common use into something much better.”