Valeria Molinari (Italy) is an architect and artist whose work explores the intersection of art, design, and play. Since 2021, she has developed “Backgammon Beauty,” a project that reimagines the traditional backgammon board as wearable art. By deconstructing the game’s elements, she has created the world’s first backgammon jewelry collection, transforming playing pieces, triangles, and dice into rings, earrings, brooches, and cufflinks. Each piece is uniquely handcrafted using resin, copper, solid wood, pigments, and Murano glass.
Molinari earned her degree from the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio in 2020, where she studied under Pritzker Prize laureates Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara. Since 2022, she has been an author at Dilmos Gallery and has exhibited at Milan and Venice Design Week. In 2024, her project received funding through the European Union’s Next Generation EU initiative.
