What to Know About Cersaie 2026 in Bologna

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Cersaie returns to Bologna September 21st through 25th with hundreds of tile and bathroom brands, a packed architecture program, and plenty of reasons to add a few days in Italy to your fall calendar.

Tile alone might not be a reason to book your next flight to Italy (like we’ve ever actually needed a practical reason to hop on a plane to Venice or Bologna!). But Cersaie makes a solid case for including it in your itinerary. Last year, the fair filled 155,000 square meters with 627 exhibitors. That total included 343 ceramic tile companies and 98 bathroom furnishing brands. Close to 95,000 people came, and roughly 45,000 traveled from outside Italy. International attendees represented 158 countries.

The 2026 edition runs September 21st through 25th at the Bologna Exhibition Centre, and the first release of the exhibitor catalogue is already online! Yes, there will be an enormous amount of tile, but you’ll also find large-format porcelain slabs, mosaics, flooring, wallcoverings, bathroom furniture, sinks, faucets, showers, saunas, countertops, installation systems, and architectural finishes. And if your brain needs a break from comparing grout lines and porcelain veining, the architecture and design program gives you plenty else to do.

If you regularly specify hard surfaces or bathroom products in commercial or residential design projects, this show is worth the detour, especially if you want to hear from industry influencers like Alejandro Aravena, Annabelle Selldorf, Hannes Peer, Elisa Ossino, and others. But don’t jet off to Italy without taking a closer look. Read more about the event below.

More Than 600 Exhibitors Came Last Year, So Make a List

There are nine halls devoted to ceramic floor and wall tile alone, which gives you some idea of what you’re dealing with here. The 2026 catalogue already includes Atlas Plan in Hall 30 with its large-format ceramic slabs and countertops, Artesi in Hall 21 with bathroom furniture, showers, tubs, faucets, saunas, mirrors, and sinks, plus Portuguese manufacturer Revigrés and Spanish brand Argenta Cerámica in Hall 36. You can filter companies by product category, country, or hall before you go.

This is where we’d be a little ruthless about what we actually needed to see. If you’re sourcing slabs for a kitchen, tile for several bathrooms, and maybe one really special mosaic for a bar or powder room, start there. Save the companies that fit those projects and then see how much time is left for everything else. There will almost certainly be some gorgeous booth you hadn’t planned to visit that derails the schedule anyway, but frankly, that’s half the fun of going to these shows.

Consider Staying Late on Wednesday for the Awards Ceremonies

If you’re planning on staying at the fair late one night, Wednesday is probably the one to pick. The 12th ADI Cersaie Design Awards and seventh ADI Exhibit Design Award begin at 4:30 p.m. at The Square. The Tile Competition follows at 5:30 p.m., and ARCHIPARTY starts at 6:30 p.m.

Ceramics of Italy also has sustainability programming at 12:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and there are other press events and education sessions scattered across the week. We certainly wouldn’t try to collect an attendance badge for every one of them. A few talks, the awards if they interest you, and enough unscheduled time to actually walk the fair sounds much more enjoyable to me, but it’s up to you.

Alejandro Aravena and Annabelle Selldorf Both Speak Thursday

Cersaie’s Building, Dwelling, Thinking program has hosted 11 Pritzker Prize winners over the years. Renzo Piano, Norman Foster, Kazuyo Sejima, Toyo Ito, Shigeru Ban (who we’ve written about before at DesignDash), and Riken Yamamoto are all on that list. This year, Alejandro Aravena gives the keynote lecture on Thursday, September 24th at 10:30 a.m. at the Europauditorium. Aravena won the Pritzker Prize in 2016 and now chairs the prize jury.

Annabelle Selldorf speaks later that same day at 2 p.m. at The Square. We’d probably block off Thursday before scheduling too many manufacturer appointments. Aravena in the morning and Selldorf after lunch sounds like a pretty good way to break up a day of tile, tile, and considerably more tile.

Wednesday has a different architecture conversation at 10:30 a.m. Marianthi Tatari of UNStudio joins Nicola Leonardi, Filippo Manuzzi, Raul Forsoni, Daniele Rangone, and Carla Pepe for a discussion on infrastructure, urban planning, and public space. Friday closes the series with designer Francesco Faccin and architectural historian and critic Fulvio Irace.

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Hannes Peer, Elisa Ossino, and Elena Salmistraro Are on the Press Café Schedule

The Press Cafés is made up of smaller conversations hosted with architecture and design publications, and the 2026 topics jump between materials, bathrooms, hospitality, wellness, boating, residential interiors, and public spaces. Elle Decor Italia hosts Hannes Peer at noon on Monday for Beyond the Surface: The Poetics of Matter. Later that afternoon, IoArch has Perfect Toilets: 100 Projects for 100 Cities at 3 p.m. I’m sorry, but there’s no way we’re researching a five-day tile and bathroom show and not at least considering a talk called Perfect Toilets.

Tuesday brings Elisa Ossino to the AD Café at 3 p.m. Wednesday has Elena Salmistraro with DDN, a noon conversation about creating a home spa, and a later discussion with André Straja about relaxation spaces. Thursday is focuses primarily on hospitality, with separate sessions on ceramic surfaces in B&Bs, hotel design, sustainability, and immersive wellbeing.

We wouldn’t try to attend all of these. Pick the people or topics you’re genuinely curious about and go back to the halls in between. If you’re currently working on a hotel, spa, yacht, or large residential bathroom, though, there are some very specific conversations you should consider during this year’s Press Cafés.

Tiling Town Will Be Very Technical But Designers Will Love That!

Cersaie and Assoposa also organize Tiling Town, where everything is pretty technical. The 2026 program includes courses on XXL slabs, mosaics, three-dimensional applications, and the EN 11493 installation standard. There will also be demonstrations of exoskeletons developed to reduce physical strain for tile installers, which is definitely not something we expected to find when we started researching this article.

Nearby, the Cersaie World Tiling Lab takes up more than 200 square meters. Four teams of young tile installers from Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, and Brazil will construct four ceramic environments during the five days of the fair.

Even if you have absolutely no desire to install a tile yourself, consider stopping by. We spend so much time choosing a tile based on the sample, scale, grout color, edge, finish, or pattern that it would be interesting to watch a complicated installation. XXL porcelain is a perfect example. It’s gorgeous when installed, but we don’t always consider the complexity of the actual installation process as designers. A bit of awe for other industry professionals can’t hurt!

Download the Cersaie App Before You Go

Cersaie has its own app, where you can search exhibitors by product sector, alphabetical order, and hall. You can save favorite exhibitors and check information on conferences, exhibitions, and events in the same place.

Having gone to High Point so many times and used their MyMarket app to organize our schedules, we can tell you first hand that a functional app really does make the experience more seamless, and thereby more enjoyable. Download this one before the trip and start saving booths before your plane touches down in Bologna. Nobody wants to spend the first morning of a design fair standing in a hallway and scrolling through hundreds of company names while everyone else is already inside.

A Few Logistics Before You Book the Flight

Cersaie is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday. Admission is free, but visitors need to register before going to the exhibition center. Registration isn’t available on site, so do this one before you leave home.

The Bologna Exhibition Centre is at Viale della Fiera 20, and there are several entrances around the complex. Cersaie also has hotel and transportation information for visitors on its website. If product sourcing is a major reason for the trip, we’d plan on at least two full days at the fair. Three would give you a little more room for the architecture program without turning every afternoon into a sprint between halls.

And please don’t fly all the way to Bologna only to see the inside of a convention center! Build in some time for the city, eat extremely well, and maybe tack on another Italian stop if your schedule permits. Cersaie gives you a perfectly respectable professional reason to go to Italy in September. Whatever you decide to do with the rest of the trip is between you and your airline miles.

Written by the DesignDash Editorial Team
Our contributors include experienced designers, firm owners, design writers, and other industry professionals. If you’re interested in submitting your work or collaborating, please reach out to our Editor-in-Chief at editor@designdash.com.