The Designer
Abdalla
Attia
Born between Cairo and Milan.
Designing objects that do not choose
between the two.
Biography
A designer who works at the boundary between cultures — using object-making as a way of thinking through identity.
Abdalla Attia graduated in Product Design from NABA Milano. His practice is rooted in the intersection of Islamic visual culture and contemporary sculptural form — treating calligraphy, geometry and material not as decorative references, but as structural languages.
He works across furniture, collectible objects and spatial installations. Each piece begins as a cultural question and ends as a physical answer — unrepeatable by design.
In 2024, his thesis project Minarest was exhibited at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) in Saudi Arabia. In 2026, he presents Wady at Milano Design Week — a sculptural chair where Arabic script becomes surface, form and meaning simultaneously.
Milan, 2026
Education
NABA Milano
Product Design
Exhibition — 2024
Ithra Saudi Arabia
Tanween — Minarest
Exhibition — 2026
Milano Design Week
Fuorisalone — Wady
Practice
02
Objects are not made.
They are negotiated.
The dual Egyptian-Italian identity is not a theme imposed on the work — it is the condition from which the work emerges. Every object is a negotiation between two visual memories, two material traditions, two ways of understanding form.
Islamic calligraphy and geometry are not applied to the surface of objects. They generate it. The script becomes structure. The pattern becomes the form. Meaning and material are the same thing.
Each piece is made by hand from start to finish. No two are identical — not by limitation, but by intent. The unrepeatable gesture is part of the object's value and its honesty.
Commission